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MICHEL BOUVARD & FRANÇOIS ESPINASSE
Since my teenage years, André Isoir’s recordings have remained deeply engraved
in my memory. The
Livre d’Or de l’Orgue français
vinyl records (I still have them),
which I collected one by one with my pocket money, together with his first
recordings of Bach’s complete organ works, were quite a revelation. Everything –
his choice of instruments, his creativity, his freedom of style and interpretation,
his way of structuring the discourse – made me a lifelong fan.
I first met himwhen I was about fifteen or sixteen, in the small church of Cordes-
sur-Ciel, a pretty medieval village in the south-west of France where I was
attending a contemporary piano training course. It was the day after he had
given a recital. I was working on Arnold Schoenberg’s op.11 when I saw André
coming in, carrying his luggage and half a baguette. He had a few hours to kill
before taking his train back home. What a surprise and honour it was to see him
walking towards me! And the subject of conversation was not the organ but
Boulez, Dutilleux, Ligeti, Messiaen and Xenakis, all the composers who were
beginning to fascinate me back then. I told him about my wish to study with him
someday − at the time, I was undergoing rigorous training with another teacher
and mentor, Xavier Darasse, at the Toulouse Conservatoire.