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NICOLAS DAUTRICOURT
Do you enjoy exploring rarely performed repertory?
Yes, but it’s not a sufficient criterion in itself, because in the end I think posterity
has done its job pretty well. Let’s say that there do still exist treasures that are, if
not buried, at least underestimated, and that I endeavour to play them as often as
possible. I’m thinking, for example, of the late works of Gabriel Fauré, which I place
above all else, or, in a very different style, some pieces by Josef Suk that I discovered
recently – and there are plenty of others. Let’s not forget that the great Ysaÿe went
so far as to threaten certain promoters that he would cancel the concert if they
didn’t agree to put a work by Chausson on the programme! I haven’t reached that
point, but I do have a certain distaste for excessively conventional programmes,
and I don’t like offering audiences onlymusic they knowalready. For me, in the end,
a concert programme can’t be rich and exciting if it doesn’t include one or more
works of our time, fromamasterpiece of the contemporary repertory to the simple
discovery of recent compositions.