Un Coup De Dés
Ballif Claude , Un Coup De Dés (Saint Michel de Provence: harmonia mundi, 1984).
Claude Ballif
Un Coup De Dés,
Saint Michel de Provence: harmonia mundi, 1984
310 x 310 mm, pp.

I did that in Canada. And the "river", as they say over there, is fantastic. And for a while, the plane couldn't land, it was in Chicoutimi. We stayed there, I think, for half an hour, but for me it was an eternity. And that's when I experienced a bit of the middle of the oceans. And the captain there, he's got his fist up, and in that fist is the dice. And will he dare to throw it or not? And then there's the construction of a kind of great vertebra, which is «un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard» (a throw of the dice will never abolish chance). And then what I really liked was the ending: "Did he hesitate? Did he appear?" And then these little things... And I claim that when you listen to this piece, set in relief and to music, the text of "Coup de dés" is much more legible than when you see the print. So I wanted to give a little of the idea that Mallarmé wanted to have, a score, as he intended it. 

Claude Ballif