Les Silences Des Ascenseurs

Les Silences des Ascenseurs — the silences of lifts — is a two-minute miniature for tuba and tape, written in 2020 for the Japanese tubist Shinya Hashimoto, who performed it in March of that year.

Everybody knows the silence of a lift: the particular, slightly embarrassed quiet of strangers standing very close and looking at the numbers. The tape is made of exactly that — recorded lift interiors, the hum, the cable, the bell, the doors — and the tuba is the body in the corner, breathing. It plays almost no notes. Mostly it plays air, the click of valves, a pedal tone so low it is more pressure than pitch, and, twice, a short, warm, perfectly ordinary phrase, like someone about to start a conversation and deciding against it.

The lift arrives. The doors open. The piece is over.