Inferno / Quarks

Description

'QUARKS' (concerto for cello and orchestra) are the elementary particles of matter, the smallest known to date. They were discovered by the American physicist Murray Gell-Mann. It was the story of their name that inspired me. These amazing particles, the quarks, are enclosed in the nucleus of the atom, inside the protons and neutrons themselves. When they were discovered, it was necessary to find a name for them. Murray Gell-Mann wanted to avoid using ancient Greek at all costs, especially because his predecessors had taken the word atom (atoms meaning unbreakable, uncut) from the Greek. A name made obsolete by subsequent scientific discoveries, first by that of the protons and neutrons that make up the atom considered indivisible, then by his own discovery further dividing matter inside protons and neutrons.

However, the physicist was keen to find a name that would not become meaningless, even if it persisted in the future. To be prepared for any eventuality, he imagined a new name, without any meaning, which was first and foremost a sound. The physicist has the idea of a phoneme, an onomatopoeia that he pronounces: Kwork. What was only a sound for Gell-Mann, remained so for a while, until he discovered this quote from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake: Three quarks for muster mark. The sound became incarnated in a word and the elementary particles had found a way to write their name. (Yann Robin)

Personnel: Orchestre National de Lille, Alexandre Bloch (conductor - track 1), Peter Rundel (conductor - track 2), Éric-Maria Couturier (cell - track 2).