Entr’acte

The text and video excerpt below document the book by Philippe Langlois, Les cloches d’Atlantis, musique électroacoustique et cinéma archéologie et histoire d’un art sonore, éditions mf, Paris, first quarter 2012.

Evoking Erik Satie’s work on the score of Entr’acte (1924), René Clair’s film that slips in between the two acts of Francis Picabia’s ballet Relâche, Roberto Calabretto declares that the technique of collage “rises to its maximum power”. Indeed, Erik Satie builds his score from numerous looped musical fragments, such as the opening of the film on two chords of Frédéric Chopin’s famous Funeral March, transcribed for a joyful brass band.