LDV44

16 LISZT // PÄRT Liszt is a rather unusual choice for you. It’s true that I avoided him for a long time. In my mind, he was associated for many years to my studies at the Conservatoire. His output suggested to me something purely pianistic, emphasising dazzling virtuosity, which isn’t at all in line with my melancholic affinities. I evenwent so far as to say in an interview that I would never play Liszt! Yet the composer Pascal Dusapin had told me several times that I was born to perform the music of Liszt. For a concert of Dusapin’s own music, he asked me to play some late Liszt pieces tomirror his.Thiswas very sombre, dense, distilled music, composed at the end of his life. So I made my peace with him, if I may put it like that! Liszt is sometimes played in a very virtuosic, brilliant, swaggering way. It was certainly the highly extravert character of some of his works and the sort of interpretation of them that comes out all guns blazing which kept me away from him for so long. By working in depth on certain pieces, such as Via Crucis for piano and choir, I gained access to themore enigmatic, more introspective, almost minimalist side of Liszt. It was that aspect of him that attracted me..