The title of the
strange attractors alludes to this new universe of mathematics, the chaotic world where we group fractals, the study of turbulences, population evolutions, etc ...
Some of these phenomena have evocative names, which seduced - as late as always - the media: Cantor dust, Koch flake, butterfly effect ...
The poetic force of these new mathematical objects comes from the fact that by very complex but hidden operations, one can produce forms that are generally simple, but rich and striking for the imagination.
However, here I have not employed any mathematical process in the true sense. It is only a poetic analogy. Like strange attractors, kinds of virtual pendulums that oscillate oddly around several points of balance, the melodic contours of the cello describe spirals that always seem to return to one or more points, but which in fact follow paths always different, warped, diverted.
It is sometimes thought that one of these equilibrium points is reached; but the equilibrium is unstable, and projects the music into a new cycle of oscillations.
Tristan Murail