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20 REMINISCENCES,
AWORLD IN ITSELF
And how did you choose those ‘madeleines’?
C.T.:
I set out to enjoymyself! The pieces by Fauré are absolute gems that I’ve played
for years and that I dreamt of recording. As for ‘The Swan’, its very fame put me off
playing it for a long time, and then . . . the day Julien and I gave it in concert for the
first time, we were overwhelmed by its splendour. So it was only natural that it
should find its place in our ‘Reminiscences’, like the ‘Serenade’ from the Suite op.16
with its timeless, rather ‘medieval’-sounding harmonies.
But I mustn’t forget Duparc’s
L’Invitation au voyage
, a masterpiece that we
immediately thought of, like the Franck Sonata, right at the outset of our project.
Of course, the words are absent when you play this song on the cello, but it’s so
powerfully impregnated by Baudelaire’s poetry that themusic tells a story over and
above the words.
J.L.:
Each of these pieces is a world in itself. You’ve got to take care over that, to
ensure you create an atmosphere from the very first note; it’s something both
players have to do together, and we spent a lot of time on these ‘little’ pieces. But
you also have to avoid trying to make them say more than they actually contain.