There is a deep bond between Janáček and me. I started playing his works more than a decade ago, before I left France, and I like to think my passion for his music somehow played a role in the decision of studying and living in the Czech Republic. Anyway, I’ll record this year the first series of On an overgrown path alongside In the mists. Why only the first series? Janáček began to write the second series of On an overgrown path in 1911, but instead of finishing this second cycle of memories from the past, he decided to express his current mental state. He thus completed In the mists in 1912, before he finished the second series of his miniatures for piano (not published during his lifetime). It was important for me to respect the chronological order, making In the mists a sort of conclusion to the first series. This is my way to underline how On an overgrown path and In the mists are intimately related.

On an overgrown path is the piano cycle starting a short period (1900-1912) in which Janáček wrote nearly all his piano works. The genesis of this work is quite complicated, and it took more than 10 years to Janáček to take it from its first note to its final shape. A little before 1900, Janáček received a letter from Josef Vavrá, asking him to contribute to the soon-to-be-published collection of harmonium pieces Slavic Melodies. It was not a coincidence at all if he asked Janáček: the Moravian composer was already using folk melodies as material for his works (cf. Moravian Folk Songs). We do not know how Janáček responded to this letter but Josef Vavrá, 3 years later (October 22th, 1900) wrote in a postcard sent to Janáček “I shall be glad to have your moods!”. The “moods” was a reference to the future On an overgrown path. At this time, the cycle had only six pieces : Our evenings, A blown-away leaf, The Frýdek Madonna, Good night, The barn owl has flown away! and a Piu mosso published after Janáček’s death. More important, the cycle was written for harmonium and not piano.

In 1908, Janáček expanded his cycle to nine pieces, for piano, discarding the Piu Mosso and adding 4 new pieces: Come with us!, Words fail!, In tears and a piece later deleted. Soon he added the 2 last pieces : They chattered like swallows and Unutterable anguish. The cycle was completed before summer 1908 [Remember this year, you'll see we'll speak about 1908 again]. After endless discussions with publishers, the cycle got finally published in 1911 as we now know it.

It took around 13 years to complete the first cycle of On an overgrown path with a lot of twists and turns, that’s what I call a difficult birth! Like the CD I’ll record, which could be an other explanation of why I wanted to record this particular work. But I already talked a lot about that, didn’t I? In my next post we’ll explore deeper the music itself and talk, among other things about its programmatic background. Stay tuned!

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Atonal: having no established key (Collins). Atonality is a state in which all the rules and tonal functions are suspended. No more tonic, dominant, disappearance of consonance-dissonance axis, etc, in fact it represents the simple end of the laws on which has been based all Western music since the Baroque period (even middle ages, since modal system is not atonal). In an atonal system, the twelve tones of the chromatic scale are considered as equal, and the dissonance is not an episodic thing anymore.

It is difficult to date precisely the emergence of atonality because the atonal system did not appear suddenly but is a result of a slow evolution of the tonal system. We could see its roots in the Wagnerian chromaticism and since the mid-nineteenth century, and atonality gradually invaded the harmonic and contrapuntal writing. One of the most striking examples of the late nineteenth century is perhaps the prescient Bagatelle without tonality of Franz Liszt, composed in 1885.

But soon a character quickly became a key figure in the atonal world: Arnold Schoenberg. Upon his sextet Transfigured Night written in 1899, his path was defined. But we have to wait until 1908 and his second quartet to speak of conscious and systematic atonality which culminates in 1912 with Pierrot Lunaire. As for Schoenberg, the abolition of rules, the total freedom of the latter work has raised the question of the coherence of this new atonal world. He quickly felt the need to organize this chaotic world with new rules. The dodecaphonic system was born.

If Arnold Schoenberg and the Viennese School characterize the early atonal music, they are not the only ones to seriously blow the tonal system. Indeed, the French Impressionists were already deviating from this system and other composers have used atonal elements in their writing: for example Arthur Honneger, Bela Bartok or Stravinsky who, even after refusing almost all his life this system, introduced serialism into his works after Schoenberg’s death.

I would like to recall a word of Pierre Boulez, which is a good definition of this period: “The atonality is essentially a transitional period, being strong enough to break the tonal universe, not being coherent enough to generate a non-tonal one.” (« L’atonalité est essentiellement une période de transition, étant assez forte pour briser l’univers tonal, n’étant pas assez cohérente pour engendrer un système non tonal. »). In the next post, we will focus on the construction of a coherence in the atonal universe through dodecaphonism.

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The famous Sonata I.X.1905 (of which remains only two movements), the two series of On an Overgrown Path, In the Mists and a sole piece entitled Memory represent the totality of what Janáček wrote for piano. It isn’t much you might say? Yes, but dense! I have learned during my studies in Prague how much this music was stylisticly difficult and stamped with the composer’s Moravian roots.

V mlhách (In the Mists), which I am going to play this Tuesday, January 27th is my favorite cycle by Janáček. I love to play this music, in which I always find something new. Four movements full of the composer’s characteristic strength: a pleasure to the fingers and to the ears!

Let’s listen now to the first movement of In the Mists.

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In order to celebrate his birthday, I offer you the fifth movement of Tout un monde lointain, his cello concerto with Maestro Rostropovich, which has become a classic of the XXth century. This concerto is amazing and makes me very jealous of cellists. I would dream of a concerto for piano…

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You have certainly understood, I am a fan of Manoury… and I’m very delighted to share with you my passion!

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Mozart has left us 20 sonatas for piano, of which the most famous are certainly, the A Major Kv 331 and its “Turkish march”, as well as the one said to be “easy”, in C Major Kv 545. Easy? Not really… Mozart’s work is for me one of most difficult, requiring an absolutely perfect and natural playing, as well as an extraordinary subtility. For a pianist, playing Mozart means to bare his own soul.

This sonata Kv 330 is the tenth of the composer and has notably been immortalized by a certain Vladimir Horowitz. Fascinating, this sonata has turned me on since I was a kid, I used to listen to Horowitz with my tape player I carried everywhere in the house. Next tuesday, my biggest wish would be to be up to this piece, and once again reveal to the public the Master’s genius.

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Lachenmann often talked about his compositions as musique concrète instrumentale. Continuously inventing playing techniques, he creates a totally new sound world, but also, in his pieces, puts performers to a severe test.

His works are regularly performed in all the big contemporary music festivals: Holland Festival, Ars Musica Brussels, Festival d’Automne (Paris), Steiericher Herbst (Graz), Huddersfield, Tage für Neue Musik (Stuttgart), Tage für Neue Kammermusik (Witten), Musik der Zeit (Cologne), Chicago, Zurich, Ultima (Oslo), Viitasaari, Sarrebruck, Reggio Emilia…

Listen to Wiegenmusic by Helmut Lachenmann.

Once again, happy birthday Mister Lachenmann!

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At this time, John Cage was an extremely controversial character in the music world and taught experimental composition in New-York. In this musical piece dating from 1959, Cage uses 34 different instruments, all in relation with water (for example: the bathtub, a toy fish, a pressure-cooker…). The score shows a plan explaining the placement of instruments with a timeline of three pages including descriptions and a pictographic notation indicating the occurrence of events.

Two things to note: contrary to the original version, Cage smacks and tosses radios instead of simply turning them on and off. Also note the ambiguity of the behavior towards Cage: at the same time, the regular game show is cancelled to let him play the whole piece, but is treated as a kind of weird.

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It wouldn’t be true to say that I don’t play Bach. I play Bach, but never in front of an audience: it’s a composer who belongs to my own private world. He has been following me since the beginning, and I only play it now for fun, trying to push my thought a little further. But for the moment, I just don’t feel ready to perform it.

Bach’s Music passed through ages and is still young and fresh. Forgotten for a while and rediscovered by Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, it has always been played since then. Among my favorites interpreters, I should quote Gould, but also Edwin Fischer and Wanda Landowska. Hard to stand apart from such musicians, they already said a lot about this music.

Bach needs time and devotion, but the reward is tremendous.

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I prefer it to the B minor one. More concise, more tense, the sonata opus 35 is a work I perform with great pleasure: I always find something new in it. Each time, I feel like rediscovering it, seeing it from another point of view. Even the slow movement, the famous funeral march, which everyone knows, I love playing it, I like to play with it, because it is particularly suited to this music.

It’s one of my favorite work. I think it also likes me: this sonata never played me tricks.

What about you? How this Chopin’s opus 35 talks to you? Does it give you this impression of permanent novelty?

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