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You have already recorded all the Mozart trios with the Beaux Arts Trio.
What is your relationship to him?
A critic in Montreal once asked me: ‘What would the Beaux Arts Trio be without
Mozart?’ I replied, in some perplexity: ‘And what would
you
be without Mozart?’
Then I thought more seriously about his question, and this is what I said to him:
‘Thanks to Mozart, we can dance.Without him, we would have to walk.’ I was very
proud of my answer; indeed, I surprised myself! What we can say is that Mozart
attains in his music the quintessence of the emotions and of perfection, and
approaches the absolute. Yet, in his lifetime, his public didn’t followhimall theway.
At the end of his life, he organised a concert in Vienna. He wanted to perform his
last piano concertos. The tickets didn’t sell, and he was obliged to add a clarinettist
friend of his to the programme to fill the hall –which it did. This will be a subject for
eternal shame. He died very soon afterwards and was buried in a communal grave.
In the course of my life as a musician, I have never lost my love for Beethoven,
Schubert, Brahms, Ravel, Fauré and Debussy (I won First Prize at the San Francisco
Debussy Competition). These composers have accompanied me throughout my
existence. But of them all, it is Mozart who has always played the leading role.
18 MOZART