“Or moi, bateau perdu sous les cheveux des anses,
Jeté par l’ouragan dans l’éther sans oiseau,
Moi dont les Monitors et les voiliers des Hanses
N’auraient pas repêché la carcasse ivre d’eau”
The Quintet
Le Bateau Ivre combines the brightness of the flute and the harp with the warmth of the string trio. This combination of tones allows this unique ensemble to develop a vast array of colours and atmospheres.
The story begins in 2015, when the paths of 5 young musicians meet in Strasbourg, an Island at the heart of Europe. They first get together around a piece that will become the core of their ensemble: the Quintette of Jean Cras.
Their interpretation of this piece is awarded the First Prize of Honour at the Leopold Bellan International Competition in Paris in 2016.
The quintet gains further international recognition with two third prizes at the Osaka IMC competition (Japan) in 2017 and at the Lucca Virtuoso Bel canto competition (Italy) in 2018. Le Bateau Ivre is then unanimously accepted into the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in the class of Michel Moraguès.
Its musicians also receive the advice and support of Luc-Marie Aguera and Fabrice Pierre. In 2019, Le Bateau Ivre enters the ECMA program for European chamber ensembles.
The quintet released its first CD Marionnettes in October 2022 on the label Initiale with the support of the Meyer Foundation.
Why this name ?
The name of our quintet was taken from the famous poem written by a young Arthur Rimbaud in 1871. His powerful work, deeply linked with his shooting star fate, changed the world of French poetry forever.
A few decades later, as usual in the history of the arts, Claude Debussy defined a new aesthetic for french chamber music with his 1915 Trio for flute, viola and harp.
The musicians who premiered this masterpiece then created a new formation combinig the flute and the harp with a string trio. The Quintette Instrumental de Paris, which was to take the name of its renowned harpist Pierre Jamet, was the ambassador of french music around the world for almost forty years, commissioning and recording numerous new pieces.
Our original pieces are anchoed in an Impressionist aesthetic through their exoticism and dreamy - almost vision-like - qualities they share with Rimbaud’s poem.
