London, 2025

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In his new musical adventure, French composer Mathieu Karsenti returns with a solo project, Mirages, composed for three violins. Inspired by the concept of mirages, optical illusions and visual deceptions, Karsenti proposes a musical painting completely open to interpretation by the listener. It features Helena Maria Falk on the violin, and is once again a wonderful blend of artistry and creativity, and a clear testament of the unique musical voice that the composer has developed over the years. 

 

Karsenti’s work is always closely connected to the sense of sight. Whether through his film scores, his work as a painter and graphic artist, or this time through the concept of optical illusions and visual deceptions. Described and intended, as many of his works, as a musical painting, through Mirages Karsenti develops on his concepts of suggestive music — directly influenced by the music of Debussy and Ravel — and allows this time again the listener to interpret the music freely. “Mirages”, the central piece of the project, is a fantastic example of inventive composing and arranging. By scoring the piece for three violins, Karsenti is able to create a complete tapestry of sound, covering high, mid and low ranges of the instrument, and through inventive counterpoint creating a singular voice from the trio. The French composer also insisted on the purity of the instrument with little additional production elements, and the direction of interpreting the piece like a baroque piece — with little to no vibrato. Violin has always been featured in Karsenti’s music, and in the past he has worked with talented violinists such as  Violeta Vicci or Jordan Ann Martone. This time, it is through chance that Karsenti met Helena Maria Falk, who plays a very special 300 years-old violin and has inspired the French composer to create music not for one, but for three violins. As the composer is keen to evolve outside of the computer world, his focus for Mirages has been on the live setting. In contrast though, the two additional variations are a way for him to connect this current work with his Strings Reworks, and create two alternative versions of the title piece “Mirages”.

 

Karsenti, has now relocated to France, after a few years living on the Western coast of the United States, in Los Angeles — the paradise of filmmaking and soundtrack composers. In his own words, the composer felt a sense of illusion or disillusion there, and as he stared at the Hollywood sign, he would think that "when you think you know the piece, it takes you by surprise, like a mirage." There are three elements of influences recurrent in Karsenti’s music: Baroque, Impressionism and Minimalism. And once again with Mirages, they all seem to blend in an enchanting way. The composer’s music is always about suggestion and impressions, and it is only natural that eventually he would look at the concept of musical mirages. The listener is, as it is often the case with Karsenti, free to interpret the work at his own will.