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53
MICHEL BOUVARD & FRANÇOIS ESPINASSE
It was Michel Chapuis, at the Semur-en-Auxois Academy in July 1977, who advised
me to go and work with André Isoir. So, that same summer, I decided to head
for Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges where the master was giving a recital. It was
breathtaking! His transcription of Bach’s Concerto for four harpsichords and,
especially, the highly personal way he had of simply “playing the organ” made an
instant fan out of me – he was like some goldsmith-magician of the organ, mixing
dynamism and expression, extreme refinement and musical intelligence in the
perfect proportions.
That same year, the organ class at the Orsay Conservatoirewas full of very different
personalities: Pierre Jacquet, Christophe Simon, Jean-Michel Verneiges, François
Clément, Makiko Hayashima, Henri Chesnais, Marie-Laure Cazaux . . . Marie-Laure
delighted us with her warmToulouse accent and lust for life. She lived right next to
the music school, in a flat that was so small that, in order to dry her laundry, she
had to set up clotheslines… in the organ room! André would burst out laughing
every time he came in for class.