condition (record/cover): NM / NM - Gatefold sleeve. Relevé D'Esquisse / Le Cygne / Sinfonietta presents Michel Decoust on Harmonia Mundi, three works traversing his output without pretending to exhaust it. Decoust directed the Itinéraire ensemble, a formation central to the development of spectral music, but his own compositions don't reduce to that school.
The "sketch relief" of the first title suggests an art of the unfinished, of the trace worth as much as the completed work. "Le Cygne" evokes Stéphane Mallarmé once again, that swan imprisoned in ice that obsessed French composers across generations. The Sinfonietta closes with a more traditional gesture, almost demonstrating that Decoust could build when he preferred to suggest. The disc functions as laboratory, dress rehearsals for future theaters.