The work was commissioned by Patrick Szersnovicz for the 1984 La Rochelle Festival and first performed by the Groupe Vocal de France, directed by Michel Tranchant on 30 June 1984. It was recorded for the first time in 1992 by the Chorus of Radio-France under the direction of Tranchant (CD Thésis/MFA THC 82054). It is dedicated to Christine Levaillant, as a love song (we still live together - but don't draw any hasty conclusions on the power of music)

In this work there is a search for secular polyphony, which once again balances the horizontal and the vertical, between counterpoint and harmony, massive lyricism and the pure line. For that I wrote a poem in four languages (French, German, English and Italian), each one, in its way, guiding the curve, phrasing and colour. Here, the music arises from the word and its own articulation. The harmony uses very rich chords, generally built on the systematic use of partial natural harmonics, which give a strange, attractive colour. The form is based on very detailed counterpoint, sometimes using three quartets, sometimes six voices against six, sometimes the twelve as soloists. What I gained while writing Les Pierres Noires still accompanies me, and traces of it can certainly be found in my opera, O.P.A Mia, and, more recently, in Le Tombeau de Gesualdo. That goes to show how fond I am of this work - "She sings in my dreams"!