Lumineux - Nicholas Tzortzis

Written between July and September 2017 for the Ensemble du Bout du Monde, Nicolas Tzortzis’s Lumineux grew out of a moment of profound personal upheaval. While the composer’s official note highlights the influence of Georges Aperghis’s Signaux and the work’s exploration of multiphonics, the deeper story reveals a rawer emotional undercurrent. Composed in the aftermath of a painful breakup, Lumineux transforms private loss into an urgent, almost physical sound-world.

The title itself suggests radiance, but the light here is never uncomplicated. Instead, it fractures and refracts through multiphonics, extended tessituras, and razor-sharp rhythmic interplay. Textures surge forward with relentless intensity, then shatter into sudden silences. The music enacts a cycle of rising tension, escalation, and ultimate rupture — a sonic mirror of grief as it builds beneath the surface until breaking point.

This visceral quality is perhaps what makes the work so compelling. The saxophone quartet becomes both voice and vessel: sighing, screaming, shimmering with unresolved energy. Yet through the pain, Lumineux opens a path toward reflection. By casting intimate suffering into the realm of sound, Tzortzis offers a cathartic transformation. The piece is dedicated to the members of the Ensemble du Bout du Monde, who gave it its first voice in Athens, and to Georges Aperghis, whose inspiration provided a framework within which Tzortzis could channel something intensely personal into something that now resonates universally.

(Programme note by Don-Paul Kahl, based on texts by Nicholas Tzortzis)