Dear Edna,
I also returned from the Folles Journées de Nantes as a listener and music lover. I have got a friend of mine who lives in Nantes and it is always a great pleasure for me both to visit him and to be immersed in the particular atmosphere of this festival. And since my friend is not really familiar with classical music I am always very happy to make him discover what is so important in my life. Last year the topic was Schubert and this year it was Bach. I am very lucky because I think they are my two favourite composers (even if it is always difficult to choose among all the composers we like). My pleasure would have been even greater if I had been able to go to one of your concerts there. Unfortunately, while I was in Nantes, all your concerts were fully booked.
Last July in Colmar (I live in Strasbourg) I could not go either to the concert you gave with Ophélie Gaillard but in the evening, as I was walking near Saint Matthieu church before Grigory Sokolov's concert, I crossed you and I crossed you later at the entr'acte but, of course, I did not dare to disturb you. Fortunately the year before still in Colmar (July 2007), I could attend your concert (Bach's Chaconne transcriptions by Busoni and Lutz, Intermezzo from Vienna Carnaval and Symphonic studies by Schumann and as encores a piece by Scriabine because you told us you had listened to Sokolov play Scriabine in concert the day before).It was a wonderful moment My vocabulary (maybe particularly in English!) is too poor to express how I enjoyed your concert. It sounded as though a thoughtful, analytic interpretation (where all seemed to be weighed, analysed, worked on) was everything but a “cold blooded” interpretation and could be a synomym for warmth, spontaneity, generosity, enthusiasm, narrative skills, huge variety of nuances and moods. After the concert, I dared to disturb you this time to have the Chaconne CD I like so much autographed.
Let’s come back to the topic of Bach and the pedal. As an amateur pianist, I find it very interesting to know your point of view. I agree entirely with what you said. Although using an adequate fingering sometimes may make it possible to respect the polyphonic writing and not to use the pedal, why not use the pedal when it serves music, expression, singing voices? All is a question of proportions as you said...and intuition maybe. Anyway, I think it’s a pity not to use the pedal just to get closer to the harpsichord sound or just because of the idea we may have of a “genuine”, “authentic” interpretation corresponding with the aesthetics of the first half of the 18th century! For me, Bach means intelligence, curiosity, open-mindedness. For example should transcriptions by Busoni be rejected because they are not “genuine” “authentic”? When I listen to you play Bach’s Chaconne transcription by Busoni, I think that you are far from being unfaithful to Bach and you make me like Bach’s music even more.
That makes me think about your post about xylophones playing the Italian Concerto. Bach’s music is so rich and beautiful that we can be surprised and enjoy it when it is played by instruments we would never have thought of. As I was walking along the hall of the Cité des Congrès in Nantes, I stopped to listen to Dmitri Makhtin (violin) and Henri Demarquette (cello) play a variation (the seventh, I think) from the Goldberg Variations. That made me think that polyphony is a beautiful metaphor of life. We all have our own life and the interaction with others gives to our life all its value and all its beauty.
As a conclusion, I would like to react to your post about Simone Weil. She will be celebrated this year because she would have been 100 and I wish to pay homage to her.
If “to philosophize is to think one’s life and to live one’s thought” ( “philosopher, c’est penser sa vie et vivre sa pensée”-André Comte-Sponville), Simone Weil is the example of the philosopher I admire. As a student, she was admitted to the most prestigious and selective graduate school in the French education system, Ecole Normale Supérieure (a lot of famous French writers, philosophers and scientists graduated from Ecole Normale Supérieure). She taught and then she was admirable through her life and her social and political committment that was pure, disinterested and demanding. She became a worker because, from inside, she wanted to live, know, write about and improve the living conditions of the working class. She fought with the Republicans during the Civil War in Spain in 1936 and at the end of her too short life she took part in the Resistance in Britain.
Her philosophy is about ethics and aesthetics but also mysticism, faith, grace inspired by Christianism. Even if I am not a “practicing Christian”(maybe a bad translation from a bad French expression!), I am still sensitive to these notions certainly because the Christian education I received and the Christian ethics rubbed off on me and had a greater influence on who I am than I can imagine.
I like very much Simone Weil’s quotation you mentionned. And since you wrote in your post about Simone Weil that religion and faith preoccupied you because of your work on Bach whose composition is based on Christian faith, I would like to mention an other quotation by Simone Weil :
"Quand on écoute du Bach ou une mélodie grégorienne, toutes les facultés de l’âme se taisent et se tendent pour appréhender cette chose parfaitement belle, chacune à sa façon. L’intelligence entre autres ; elle n’y trouve rien à affirmer et à nier, mais elle s’en nourrit.
La foi ne doit-elle pas être une adhésion de cette espèce ?
On dégrade les mystères de la foi en en faisant un objet d’affirmation ou de négation, alors qu’ils doivent être un objet de contemplation."
Translation into English….that will be , I hope, as faithful as possible!
“When one listens to Bach or a Gregorian melody, all the soul faculties become silent and tense in order to seize this perfectly beautiful thing, each does it their own way. Intelligence among these soul faculties ; intelligence finds nothing in it to affirm or deny but intelligence is fed with it.
Mustn’t faith be an adherence of this kind?
One downgrades the mysteries of faith by making them an object of affirmation or denial, whereas they must be an object of contemplation."
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