Beschrijving

This symphony was composed in 1984 and is dedicated to the great French composer Ida Gotkovsky a good friend of the Lancen family. It was the test piece in the Seccion Primera of the famous Spanish wind band contest Certamen International de Bandes de Música Ciudad de València and was recorded by the Symphonic Band of the Maastricht Conservatory of Music conducted by Sef Pijpers. Serge Lancen himself related the genesis of this symphony as follows:

When I was twelve years old I had started composing a piece which described the cycle of the water. The project was however abandoned and only some themes were left unused. In July 1983, I went by boat to the WASBE conference in Skien, Norway and was seduced by the North Sea. During the travel a musical theme was born and was the trigger for the realisation of my ancient project which I still fancied’. The ‘Symphonie de l’Eau’ is in fact a musical description of the cycle of the water which the composer defines as follows:

‘A slight mist rises and turns into a cloud. Water drops fall on the mountain. A brooklet rises and clears a way throughout the alpine pastures. Soon other small watercourses join the original brook that is now reinforced as to become a real roaring mountain river falling in a lake amidst a quiet and poetic surrounding. The water turns again into a river when leaving the lake and gradually becomes a big stream which majestically flows towards the sea. A slight mist is rising from the huge surface and so the cycle of the water starts all over again.