The organ pieces on this disc, with the varied allusions they contain, could suggest that they intend to isolate specific moments and circumscribe them to strict time boundaries. Rather, this diversity places them in an undefined space. It would be wrong to regard them as individualities: they are simply pieces of a frailly floating mosaic. I am reminded of René Char's beautiful poem «Les apparitions dédaignées» («Disdained Apparitions»): “Les civilisations sont des graisses. L'Histoire échoue, ...” (“Civilizations are ballasts. History shipwrecks, ...”) Somewhere beyond all sediments a different, more abstract dimension must exist, where history can be more freely faced: a passage towards metaphysics of time. I began writing the Toccata pour la chapelle d'un Transatlantique in Annaba (Bône) in a café near the ancient cathedral (and its beautiful 1872 Merklin organ). Meanwhile, the Merklin of Saint-Louis-des-Français in Rome allows us to continue the journey in a marble and gold scenery overshadowed by the three great Caravaggios. Daniel Matrone