Essentia Polaris - Poème sonore philosophique en cinq tableaux pour piano

Essentia Polaris is a voyage through polarity—a metaphysical navigation echoing the ancient Egyptian Amdouat, the "Book of What Is in the Astral Realm", where the solar barque crosses twelve hours of night. A cosmic voyage, a journey through time, stars, and divine consciousness. The Duat in this sense becomes a stellar realm, a map of the stars, the soul, and the rebirth of divine order.Here, the journey is recast in five tableaux, each a threshold between states: silence and light, form and breath, concealment and revelation. At the helm moves the figure of the leopard—evocative of Seth, god of the northern sky and primal companion of Ra in the underworld. Far from a mere emblem of chaos, Seth becomes the necessary force that guards the liminal path. His spotted skin, once worn by Sem priests in temple rites, reappears as the symbol of a wild intelligence woven into the soul's progression. His role is not opposition, but passage. He is the guide through the unseen. Visually, this leopard motif finds its mirror in the sleeve’s Op Art rhythm—a geometric field of vibration that undulates like sound itself. These forms echo stellar orbits, cosmic waves, the rhythm of the barque as it cuts through silence. The juxtaposition of organic pattern and optical structure suggests not contradiction, but convergence: instinct within form, animal within cosmos, chaos within the sacred order. The album’s final movement, Revelatio Essentiae, is not a resolution, but an emergence. It is the return of the barque into presence—not purified, but transformed. In this last moment, polarity dissolves into clarity. The veil parts. What began in primordial silence now breathes with luminous necessity. Each note, each silence, becomes offering.

Ritual Structure:

1. Tableau I — Initium Silentii - Au Lac des Ibis, Une Plume Encrée
Darkness. Silence. The density of matter. The void of the cosmos. The unseen… A musical work emerges from the mythic depths of Al-Ashmonin — Hermopolis, the sacred center of ancient Egyptian thought. The enigmatic, shadowy waters of its lake become the site of a philosophical meditation on the Ogdoad: the eight primordial forces, paired and coexistent, representing the world before creation. This tableau explores the moment before all things—before light, before sound, before the separation of sky and earth. It is a suspended state, saturated with mystery, embodied in black silt: a fertile, generative matter that holds within it both darkness and the infinite potential of light. The Ibis, sacred symbol of Thoth, stands at the threshold of this pre-cosmic realm. It is the embodiment of poised wisdom, the delicate balance between silence and revelation, night and intelligibility. Diving into the black waters, the Ibis retrieves from the depths not merely knowledge, but a vibration—the first resonance of becoming. With feathers steeped in cosmic ink, the Ibis becomes a translator of the ineffable. It bridges primordial silence and luminous creation, carrying within its flight the encrypted music of the universe. The piano evokes this journey with restrained dissonance, harmonic stillness, and a melodic tension that unfolds like ink diffusing in sacred waters. In Au Lac des Ibis, Une Plume Encrée, silence is not an absence—it is the presence of density, a profound vibration awaiting articulation. This music does not merely describe creation; it partakes in it, reanimating the primordial threshold where all form and meaning begin to stir.
2. Tableau II — Peristylium Aurorae - L’Aube Éclose, Au Lotus de Memphis
At the Lotus of Memphis, we embark on a mystical journey, guided by the sacred light of Nefertum and the eternal echoes of Isis. This composition is a sonic offering that celebrates the divine birth of Nefertum, emerging from the sanctified lotus—a central symbol in the spiritual traditions of Memphis. Drawing from the ancient Egyptian cosmology, this tableau evokes the moment when the first light dawns, blooming like the sacred flower on the waters of Nun. In the Memphite worldview, the lotus is no mere botanical marvel—it is a living axis between the primordial waters and divine illumination. Each sunrise mirrored in its blossoming reflects the promise of rebirth. In the Pyramid Texts, the lotus is named “the nose of Ra,” offering the sun god his first breath at the horizon. It is from this flower that Nefertum, the “Beautiful Atum,” son of Ptah, is born—his head adorned with the sacred bloom, embodying purity, vitality, and perpetual renewal. Through subtle harmonies and radiant melodic textures, the music reimagines the unfurling of the lotus at the threshold of dawn, revealing divine life in its nascent splendor. This work honors not only the birth of light but also the forces that carry it forth. Isis, the divine mother, plays a central role in this tableau. As consort, guide, and guardian, she is linked to the brightest of stars—Sirius—whose heliacal rising signaled the new year and the annual flooding of the Nile. Her symbol, the Tiet, or “Sacred Knot,” embodies the regenerative force of life, death, and the afterlife. It is a key to cycles of rebirth, a mystical emblem of protection and transformation. On deep winter nights, as Orion strides across the southern sky, Sirius rises at his left hand, just above the horizon. Alongside Betelgeuse and Procyon, they form the Winter Triangle—a celestial herald of Nefertum’s sacred birth at dawn, when the lotus opens its petals to the divine light. This music celebrates that very instant. The light of Sirius, the presence of Isis, and the emerging form of Nefertum converge in sound. L’Aube Éclose, Au Lotus de Memphis is not only a reflection of ancient myth but an invitation to awaken—to witness the birth of beauty, of spirit, of light renewed.
3. Tableau III — Sala Columnarum Occulta - L’Enfant Caché et la Fleur des Marais Sacrés
In the silent marshes, where dark waters whisper to the roots of the world, a small boat drifts gently. Among the papyrus stems, hidden from all eyes, the divine child lies in slumber. He is Horus—fragile, sheltered, and swaying with the rhythm of the current. Under the protective gaze of Buto, goddess of the Delta, the marsh becomes a sanctuary. Here, each papyrus blossom opens in reverence, safeguarding the mystery of divine renewal. In this nocturnal realm, water and darkness cradle life still unborn. Above, the avian world alone breaks the silence: the brushing of wings upon the water, the distant calls of herons and sacred ibises—a celestial lullaby murmuring through the reeds. The breath of the wind weaves between stems, an echo of the sun’s first promise. Yet beyond, in the celestial mirror of the night, another bark advances—Râ’s solar boat, cutting through the abyss. Like the hidden child, the sun is vulnerable as it journeys through primordial chaos, enfolded by shadow, yet guided by the will to rise. Two journeys, one secret and one cosmic, unfold in parallel. Horus grows unseen in the protective folds of the marsh. Râ, radiant yet frail, is reborn each dawn from darkness. Between them flows the sacred river of becoming. In the embrace of water and sky, of seed and star, the cycle is renewed—revealing a deeper truth: that life is protected even in darkness, and that from hidden places bloom the flowers of eternity.
4. Tableau IV — Sanctum Velatum - Dua
At the heart of the temple, behind the last veil, lies the space of sacred paradox—the silent dwelling of Kekou (Kek), primordial deity of darkness and bearer of light. He is the guardian of the unmanifest, Lord of Dualities, who exists before the first dawn, before time, before form. This composition is an ode—a Dua—to Kekou: not a god of opposition, but of union. He is both the veil of night and the breath of morning, the obscurity that conceives light, the stillness that gives birth to sound. In his realm, twilight and dawn merge into a mystical dialogue beyond contradiction. Through deep sonic textures and immersive harmonic fields, Sherif Dahroug evokes the presence of this ancient force—the one who weaves clarity from the heart of primordial shadow. Here, the music does not describe a battle between darkness and light but celebrates their sacred entanglement. Dua, in ancient Egyptian, is a chant of veneration—a spiritual offering. In Latin, it echoes duality. The title itself becomes a bridge between worlds, languages, and states of being. Le Sanctuaire Voilé invites the listener into a ritual space where nothing is seen, but all is known; where the first sunrise is not yet visible, yet already felt. It is a sonic meditation on thresholds—the moment where the unformed becomes form, where darkness is no longer absence, but potential. Through this work, the veil lifts not to reveal, but to deepen. It is here, in this sacred chamber, that the listener confronts the invisible forces that shape creation and the eternal balance that allows the cosmos to emerge.
5. Tableau V — Revelatio Essentiae - Routy
At the sacred moment of balance—when light does not overpower shadow, nor does darkness consume the glow—the universe unveils a secret gateway between worlds. It is the threshold of cosmic equilibrium, the breath that realigns the rhythm of time. In this eternal passage, where every departure holds the seed of return and every beginning shines with unfading light, music pulses like a whispered story—between dream and wakefulness, between absence and reunion. Routy, Sherif Dahroug’s most recent creation—produced by the French music house Lyre de Mercure—is a hymn to Shu and Tefnut: the first breath of existence, luminous echoes of Atum cast into the abyss of Nun, the boundless sea of silence where the border between the unknown and the possible dissolves. Lost in the deep, time held its breath. The cosmos, aching in their absence, awaited their return. And Atum’s searching eye—burning with longing and sovereign will—pierced the void, calling them back. When Shu and Tefnut re-emerged into the embrace of creation, the universe quivered with the first laughter of joy. Life flowed onto the parched earth like a lotus blooming upon the chest of eternity—an undying promise made manifest. In the Temple of Esna, where echoes of that first breath still stir the air, Shu rises as a breeze on the horizon; Tefnut flows as the tear of eternity. Between them, music breathes—a sacred harmony, the rhythm of creation reborn in each transformation. Routy is where melody entwines with the breath of origin, and music becomes the wellspring of life before every becoming.