
Composer Prize 2025
Bastien David
Essay
The “Little Prince” of a Planet Teeming with Insects
On the Music of Bastien David
by Pierre Gervasoni
The music of Bastien David is quickly recognisable, regardless of the instruments involved and, above all, irrespective of the time in which it was created. Composer Bruno Mantovani, who became acquainted with David while serving as director of the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP), asserts that “even at 20, Bastien had his own identity.” To try and define it, we first have to look at the original specimen of a musical species destined to flourish, and then delve into an already extensive catalogue to find our own way as analysts into a synthesis that is both concentrated and diffuse, in keeping with the nature of this music, which is as consistent in its principles as it is volatile in its contours.
Fingerprints: Digital and Genetic
In 2022, Bastien David remarked on France Musique that he had found his identity with his “first composed piece,” Pièce pour piano et 60 doigts (“Piece for Piano and 60 Fingers”), or, more precisely, “30 fingers on the keyboard and 30 fingers in the soundboard.” This division of tasks (between three pianists and three percussionists) is based on a concept – duality – present at every level of the score. From the raw material (the piano is historically a string instrument as much as a percussion instrument) to its treatment (by turns determined and elusive) and even its inclusion in an aesthetic field (closer to the abolition of the boundary between pitches and concrete sounds envisaged, for example, by Clara Iannotta, than to the pure and simple ‘bruitism’ represented by John Cage or Helmut Lachenmann). Extremely varied (like the types of mallets used) and sometimes unprecedented (a curtain made of long metal spikes), the actions implemented (called ‘modes of play’ in the jargon of contemporary music) can also relate to two quite distinct, if not opposing, forms of contact: the blow (striking the wood or strings) and the caress (brushing, rubbing, titillating, exciting any part of a sound body).
The result is music that evolves in two dimensions. One, hammered out to a fairly simple rhythm, moving forward like a sacred dance. The other, suggested by the resonance of muffled sounds or the scattering of high notes. A temporal axis that intermittently follows a melodic line and a surrounding space that resembles a nebula of unheard-of timbres. These are the fingerprints and DNA of Bastien David’s music: relentless and elusive. As for the form of this emblematic piece, it seems to respond, in the end, to the desire to push all the data to the maximum. The register (increasingly ample layers), the flow (intensifying strokes), the character (raw, even savage sounds take over from ‘civilised’ ostinato motifs) and the density (the cloud becomes atomic). In its final phase, the unfolding of this collective assault on the piano gives the impression of no longer being under the control of the person who ordered it, whether composer, shaman or shockwave generator. At the concert, no one can see how the performers proceed, bent over the instrument as if it were a body to be manipulated, the anatomy of which they conceal. Officiants of a secret rite, surgeons or physiotherapists on duty? The mystery remains unsolved, not least due to the title, which this time offers no hint of the composer’s intentions.
A Portrait: Head-On and in Profile
Every score by Bastien David bears the plastic and ethereal hallmark first established in 2014 with Pièce pour piano et 60 doigts. The dialectic between a motoric axis at the centre and an imaginative restlessness at the periphery is also evident in Six chansons laissées sans voix (2020). On one side, there is the minimalist, repetitive gesture of a bow on wooden blades; on the other, the infinite resonance of piano strings struck by a large mallet. Or the rhythmic rubbing of a damp sponge on a balloon, juxtaposed with the deliberate tension of a fishing line vibrating against a harp string. Methodical and instinctive elements alternate, always centred on a “true” melody and governed by a compelling overarching structure. Viewed head-on, Bastien David is a composer who “holds” his music. Yet his sounds—reminiscent of the toy-like instruments of Mauro Lanza (e.g., the howling box in Barocco)—suggest a childlike playfulness. Are these wailing, moaning, and roaring animalistic sounds the work of a grown child?
Like his works, the portrait of the creator himself must be both dual and ambiguous. This duality is evident whether in the electroacoustic realm (the looping highs and plunging lows of Flytox) or the purely instrumental domain (L’Ombre d’un Doute, a concerto for two cellos, an extension of the solo piece Riff for prepared cello). Even in the details of a score (Vendre le ciel aux ténèbres), where a violinist whistles a pitch slightly different from the one played on their instrument, Bastien David’s preference for duality is unmistakable. From Becs et ongles (for solo violin) to Urban Song (for large ensemble), the sounds always reflect a form of discord. If they were living beings, one might imagine them jostling with elbows to make themselves heard. Indeed, Bastien David has described his scores as “social environments where sounds coexist, dialogue, repeat, love, fight, and attract one another.” More broadly, these works are designed to coexist and interact from a distance, as seen with Riff (2017) and L’Ombre d’un Doute (2022). It was therefore only natural to consider a larger cycle, which the composer has already begun to develop.
“Draw Me an M…”
With his fascination for the living world, Bastien David has let his music emerge and evolve from a personal Big Bang. As a child, he explored the world of sound playfully—a quality preserved through his training at the conservatoire. Designing his planet with clusters of clouds (Nuées d’Encre, for large ensemble) or smoke (Toccata di Fumo, for four accordions) was eventually not enough to share his imagination. Like the Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, he longed for someone to “draw him a dream box”—a metallophone. After ten years of research, it finally materialised: a circular instrument with 216 blades, microtonally tuned in twelfths. He made it the focal point of Chlorophyll Synthesis (2023), the second part (after Urban Song) of an as-yet-unnamed cycle. The metallophone now takes pride of place, particularly with Les Insèctes, the group of six percussionists who orbit this futuristic, 15-metre ring. Previously, the accordion had held a similar role (featured in nearly a dozen works), likely due to its distinctive ability to sustain tones without static rigidity. The metallophone, however, symbolises David’s vision of sound as both a landscape and an element of discovery. Gérard Pesson, his composition teacher at the CNSMDP, described David’s music as “a kind of sonic land art in which everyone can immerse themselves in their own way.” In our own journey, we have attempted to trace two opposing forces—the axis of analytical inquiry and the nebula of sensory perception—hoping to reveal the “model of a coherent world” that Bastien David believes is the objective of each of his compositions.