One cannot help remark something very interesting about Dhomont’s recorded oeuvre, and that is that it is full of pieces appearing as parts of other pieces. Novars, the first piece of Les dérives du signe, appears here as the third piece of Cycle du son. The third volet, I should say. Chiaroscuro, the second piece of Les dérives, has also appeared by itself, as Chiaroscuro… ou les jeux de l’ambiguité. And Météores is also the third, and culminating, piece of Chroniques de la lumière.

Prokofiev was known for borrowing from himself, from unsuccessful pieces and from successful pieces alike. Holmboe wrote four sinfonias, then made a new, single piece (Chairos) by simply rearranging all their movements. But only Dhomont, so far as I know, has used entire pieces as “movements” in different cycles. Used them in such a way, no less, as to make musical sense in each arrangement. Novars supplies musical materials for the next three pieces in Les dérives du signe. And it supplies the opening motif for the piece that follows it in Cycle du son as well. And Météores, so much the thematic fulfilment of Miroitements and Artifices in Chroniques de la lumière, makes perfect sense musically in its position between Chiaroscuro and Signe Dionysos of Les dérives du signe.

Dhomont and writers about Dhomont have noted his interest in movement and change, an interest that spans pieces and cycles as well. But I think an even more fundamental idea emerges from these recyclings, and that is correspondence. In these pieces appearing in different contexts, in the samplings that make up the entire fabric of Frankenstein Symphony, in the borrowings from and allusions to Schaeffer and Machaut in Novars, Dhomont finds—or creates—places where any music can find a place with any other music.