LDV82

CÉDRIC PESCIA,PHILIPPE CASSARD, pianos 23 What is the main reason the work is so difficult? Philippe Cassard: The difficulty is already purely technical: to manage to play without wrong notes over a very long period of time! Everything is hard in this score. The finale is a real assault course, absolutely exhausting, without a moment’s respite, and even theAdagio requires optimal concentration andmutual listening. But over and above the element of instrumental realisation, a big part of the work you have to do consists in balancing the two pianos while avoiding overpowering volume, and making use of the space to create the illusion of depth and stereophony, as with the orchestra. You have to find colours, pedallings, sonorities and tonal blends that make this score sound its best. Cédric Pescia: On an individual level, this piece is absolutely fearsome, both the virtuosity of the fast passages (with all those octaves, thirds, leaps and repeated notes) and the lyricism of the slower passages: it’s a challenge to make the long phrases of the Adagio molto e cantabile sing; this third movement possesses such purity that you must forget about making an effect and ‘content yourself’ with lettingthemusicspeakforitself.PhilippeandInoticedthatthereareremarkablyfew dynamic marks in the score; that’s certainly not an encouragement to performers to add dynamics of their own, but rather, an incentive to think essentially of the principal line, not to get lost in the details.