a Russian folk tune). In , Guido Agosti, a us, one rainy May morning, she received Stravinsky’s rare birds student of Busoni’s, followed the example of us in her work studio, in the Bastille district of Interview with Lydia Jardon the Three Movements from Petrushka, proposing Paris. We found her again just as we had left her by Nicolas Southon a transcription of three pieces from The Fire- during a previous meeting, following one of her bird (‘Danse infernale, Berceuse et Finale’) for recitals: exuding music with her whole being, solo piano. As recently as , the composer’s amboyant and straightforward, drawing from Igor Stravinsky’s music for solo piano is as appear on the orchestral score: Passionato, Con son, Soulima Stravinsky, also wrote a virtuosic her art a force and an enthusiasm that seem to limited as it is heterogeneous: two sonatas includ- tenerezza, Timidamente, Lamentoso, etc., which piano triptych borrowing from the ballet’s score make everything possible, but as haunted by ing one written in his youth, the Serenade, four relate it more explicitly to the post-Romantic tra- (‘Scherzo, Berceuse et Danse Infernale’). Lydia doubt as an artist can be. Barely did Pelléas, her Études, a few marginal pieces such as the Rag- dition and, more speci cally, to post-Romantic Jardon drew on this for ‘her’ Firebird, even though music-loving cat – and, like us, admirer of the time and Tango, and, of course, the Three move- piano-playing. it is based rst of all on the reduction written ashes of the great Igor – come to disturb the ments from Petrushka. is fearsome score, drawn Moreover, the other incarnations of The by Stravinsky in (let us point out that this conversation... from the ballet of , invites us to also take into Firebird clearly show that every large-scale work version of The Firebird for piano had only been account piano versions of Stravinsky’s orchestral can exist beyond its sole original version – like recorded once prior to the release of the present You have often surprised your listeners, and works, and perhaps grant them a status that has a plant from which one takes branches to cre- disc). To it Lydia Jardon adds the world premiere this will doubtless again be the case with this disc: generally been refused. So it was the composer ate cuttings. Stravinsky drew three orchestral of another piano version, that of The Song of the two monuments of virtuosity rooted in the Russian who wrote the piano reductions of his ballets suites from it, in , and , each one giv- Nightingale, a symphonic poem that Stravinsky imaginative universe, heirs of Rimsky-Korsakov but, (including Petrushka and The Rite of Spring for ing rise to revisions in the orchestration. In , drew from his opera The Nightingale () in , above all, two transcriptions for piano of orchestral four hands). at of The Firebird, his rst mas- he himself operated in concert the ‘Pleyela’, this for Serge Diaghilev, who used it as ballet music. works by Stravinsky. At the origin of this project was terpiece written for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets pianola or player piano perfected by Pleyel, in a proposition from conductor Jean-Claude Casadesus, russes, was published in , shortly before the several excerpts from the work arranged for the * * * who had invited you to the ‘Lille Piano(s) Festival’ orchestral score. Like many piano reductions, occasion. Shortly thereafter, he transcribed four in June , devoted to the Russian repertoire... its prime objective was utilitarian: to allow the numbers from this Firebird for violin and piano, We have been given the honour of present- Jean-Claude Casadesus had indeed suggest- dancers to work without the orchestra. But, given and, in , even signed his name as composer ing these two works to you. But rather than pro- ed my giving the reduction of The Firebird writ- the interest of its instrumental writing, it goes of the song ‘Summer Moon’, a slow fox-trot with viding an umpteenth set of notes, we preferred ten by Stravinsky in . e idea was excellent: far beyond that sole ambition. Moreover, the lyrics by John Kleener, after the melody of ‘La questioning Lydia Jardon herself, asking her to I found it interesting to take hold of a key reper- reduction contains expressive marks that do not Ronde des princesses’ (which was derived from shed light on her singular project. toire work and try to make it sound di¢ erently, as
I had done in with Debussy’s La Mer [...her to give it up when, after two months, the score Finalizing the text took me quite a bit of transformations? Are you therefore proposing a cat Pelléas raised an ear...]. Like everyone, I knew was still resisting me; I didn’t hear any ‘line’ stand time. I advanced very slowly, sometimes bar by new one? The Firebird without having studied the score. out. But I persevered, and it ended up becoming bar, in unravelling this polyphony that is so dense, My score is indeed the one realized by Despite The Rite of Spring or The Rake’s Progress, clear. It seemed indispensable to me that some- distributing to one hand or the other all the notes Stravinsky in , but I have sometimes rewrit- which I adore, I must say that Stravinsky had thing remain of this colossal amount of work, of the orchestral parts indicated on the third and ten or completed certain passages of it, based on never been one of my favourite composers, but hence this recording project. I would have liked to fourth staves so as to bring out a sound hierar- the orchestral score. Moreover, in fact, I incorpo- I have special a£ nities with post-Romantic Rus- go into the studio following the concert in Lille, chy. A few months before the recording, I even rated into this reduction very long passages from sian music, which corresponds well to my tem- but that wasn’t possible. And, in the nal analysis, redistributed the notes between the two hands that of Stravinsky’s son, Soulima, who transcribed perament. After having recorded Rachmaninov’s so much the better! For I took the time to work in certain very complex passages. Breaking in three pieces of The Firebird in . us, in the two Sonatas and the Third Concerto, Scriabin’s on it some more and I believe that a fair amount the interpretation in concert is the best way to ‘Infernal dance’, I essentially play his version, complete Études and three Sonatas by Miasko- became clear. During this second period of work, become aware of the discomforts that remain in more luxuriant and interesting to my mind than vsky, I was looking for a repertoire to explore. I gave the score some fteen times on stage. Eve- the playing. e slightest thing that gets stuck in Igor’s. Guido Agosti had also transcribed three For a while, I thought of tackling the complete ry performance brought its consequences in my your body imposes modifying your approach, I’m pieces from The Firebird, but his work inspired Sonatas of Miaskovsky, a fascinating body... but playing. With hindsight, I realise that the rst convinced... Once, I did not completely manage me less and I renounced using it. so sombre! Scriabin and Miaskovsky did not help concert was only a matter of polishing. at was to launch a crescendo so I inverted the text of the me live when I was working on them; I needed viable, I hope, but there still remained much to two hands, which enabled me to play much more So you took the risk of reworking the transcrip- sunny, regenerative music. Stravinsky’s Firebird be done. is Firebird, that I ended up calling powerfully. Even though that requires decon- tion with only five months to put the score together... is an extraordinary example of that. Oiseau de fou * with a bit of self-mockery, was a ditioning a re ex, a process that is always risky. It was risky, but that’s the way I function: work in progress until I went into the studio in It is this quest that is interesting. You have to in permanent challenge. Without being conscious In what way did you prepare this concert of March . achieve a serene virtuosity rather than an ultra- of it, I must certainly be seeking my limits. One June , and why did you choose to follow it up demonstrative one, which presupposes an inner of my teachers gave me a curious lesson one day: with a disc two years later? Technically, how did you approach this score, letting-go. en, only the musical intention, the ‘You commit yourself ©; that’s pointless! ere I had only ve months to learn The Fire- which is so profuse that it is often written on three or sound magic, can rise... and perhaps grace! are sometimes concerts for which it su£ ces to bird, including the adaptation of the score (for I even four staves? commit yourself only ©.’ Frankly, I’ve never chose straightaway to merge two existing tran- You said that you had ‘merged’ the two exist- understood what he meant... ere are no ‘small’ scriptions of the work). is initial work was fear- * Translator’s note: or ‘Mad Bird’ as opposed to ing transcriptions of The Firebird. Was it a way concerts, no halfway investments. I had little time fully di£ cult. I even thought I was going to have the original Oiseau de feu. of situating yourself in the histoire of the work’s to put together The Firebird, yes, but from the
beginning, I tried to establish the ideal score, and the work just as monumental and, at the same them again in concert. is disc is not an arti - What was his contribution as artistic director modifying certain details or by crossing the exist- time, delicate. In the ‘Mechanical Nightingale’, cial studio product: it remains a ‘concert version’, for the recording? Did he hound you into a corner? ing versions. for example, there is this perpetual tremolo that, enhanced, of course, by the potential improve- He sometimes led me into rapidity, also like a drone, is added to the garlands in the right ment of recording. encouraging me to preserve the rhythmic rigour To this Firebird you add, in world premiere, hand and the chords in the left. Diabolical!... It typical of Stravinsky. In The Firebird, uctuations the transcription of The Song of the Nightingale. would literally take a third hand! However I even- Precisely, how did this studio work go? are possible and even necessary. But in The Song How did you happen to choose this work, which is just tually found solutions. is Song of the Nightingale It was an ordeal, I won’t hide it. Sessions of the Nightingale, my playing had to have some- as glittering but less well known? is shorter than The Firebird, but I spent just as of eight hours a day for four days. Believe me, in thing ‘motorist’ about it (in ‘Feast at the palace I looked for a long time for a work to sup- much time on it. that music... I was more exhausted than I ever of the Emperor of China’, for example). In the plement The Firebird; otherwise, the disc would had been during a recording, even that of the ‘Chinese March’, Jean-Marc asked me not to let have been a bit short. I ran through Stravinsky’s There is an astonishing disc for piano, of an Miaskovsky Sonatas. Intellectually, physically, the rhythmic rigour su¢ er in any case from the works for piano – rather limited for that matter orchestral work by Stravinsky: that of The Rite of scores like that... it’s a huge amount to bear. With large shifts on the keyboard... Yeah! (Laughter) –, but I have to confess that this did not exactly Spring, recorded by Fazil Say, using the re-recording Jean-Marc Laisné, the Ar Ré-Sé recording engi- Except that I reached a limit in this writing that ll me with enthusiasm... Stravinsky always com- technique. That allows for extending up to five super- neer and artistic director, my work again became is sometimes anti-pianistic (Stravinsky himself posed at the piano, but in the nal analysis, did imposed layers of recording... something else. He himself had already recorded spoke about ‘anatomical absurdities’ in regards to he really like the instrument? Fairly quickly, I at disc is fantastic, it’s true. I thought of The Firebird several times in its orchestral version, his keyboard writing...) It was no longer bearable thought it would be interesting to propose a world it because, in the ‘Magic carillon’ in The Firebird so he had perfect knowledge of the score, which at that speed. At the last moment, I had to delete premiere, with another transcription, rather than and in the ‘Chinese March’ in The Song of the was both initiatory and perturbing for me. I’m the third stave of the ‘Chinese March’ in favour congest the discography with yet another version Nightingale, it is physically impossible to play the not malleable but I have absolute con dence in of the élan I was talking about. of the Three Movements from Petrushka. The Song whole written piano text. For those two pieces Jean-Marc. I’ve seen musicians with ‘®®¯’ egos of the Nightingale imposed itself on me. I liked in particular, I envisaged using re-recording, but become delicate little things in his hands, when On what piano did you record? the idea of coupling two works rooted in Russian the initial project was a concert: on stage, the he put them face to themselves, showing them the I was served by an in-cre-di-ble instrument: folklore, two ballet scores becoming pianistic. So, two hands have to su£ ce alone! After thinking radical evolution in their playing after his advice, the famous Shigeru Kawai. ere was the extraor- for awhile, I stopped working on The Firebird to about it, I preferred that my Firebird and Song of thanks to takes from the same recording session. dinary quality of this piano, but also the presence put together this Song of the Nightingale. I thought the Nightingale be concert objects to the very end, For Jean-Marc, and I am in total agreement, of a master tuner, no less exceptional, Stéphane it would be less hard. After all, it concerned a even once they had been captured in the studio the important thing is the élan, the poetry, the Boussuge, whom the maker was kind enough to complement... But the problem was the same, ‘cage’. All the more so in that I fully intend to play immensity of the phrase in its purity and intensity. put at my disposal.
How many takes were necessary for recording my collaboration came to an abrupt end... It was Did any orchestral versions serve as a reference believe that if the performer really gets into the these two scores? with him, who worked for Deutsche Grammo- during your work on Stravinsky? score, the playing naturally conveys the narration e two works on this disc are made up of phon for years, directing the recordings of For The Song of the Nightingale, I listened that it encompasses, and that there is no need for several fairly short pieces, which I recorded in Argerich and Richter, that I recorded my rst a great deal to Charles Dutoit’s interpretation overplaying. groups of two or three in a row, with three or three discs. He taught me everything about the with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. In The four takes each time. With that, Jean-Marc then art of the studio and much more: I can say that Firebird, I was fascinated by the recording of the How is the art of the pedal, which you men- did his editing ‘cuisine’. With me, the rst takes my meeting him revolutionized my approach to orchestral suite by Riccardo Chailly, with tion, so important in taking up the challenge of are often the best, and in a certain playing dura- the instrument. Alas, in my Chopin Préludes, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. transcription? tion. I’m profoundly instinctive and inevitably I had to ask him to change half the takes that he No other conductor, it seems to me, produces the e objective, with a transcription, is to not at my best when it comes to breaking down had chosen in the editing... After that, we could mystery as he does. What I admire in his inter- breathe something dreamlike into it, to create a work into piecemeal that will subsequently be no longer work together... pretation is the atmosphere. From the beginning, an atmosphere. You have to be both out of step reassembled. and without falling into the trap of slowness or with the original version (otherwise, what’s the Was your previous work on Debussy’s La Mer, pathos, he creates a tableau of which you imme- point?), but also and above all to go beyond the Did you take part in the editing stage, which of which you recorded the piano transcription, of the diately understand the narrative and supernatural transcribing instrument. It’s a strange paradox... is so essential? same nature as here? Did it help to have gone through character. e problem here was to reproduce the clarity of It’s major, that’s for sure. I occasionally that to tackle The Firebird? the discourse through extravagant pianism. In express wishes in the course of recording, in My work on La Mer helped me consider- In your reading, what place do you give to this my opinion, that happens, in large part, due to particular when I’m certain that a take is the ably, that’s obvious [...her cat Pelléas meows with narrative, or even choreographic, aspect of the two this pedal technique. You have to play on half- or good one. But beyond that, I can no longer contentment...]. The text was less complex; I scores? even quarter-pedalling, on the ‘pedal vibrato’, and listen to myself objectively enough, so I prefer modi ed nothing of the transcription by Lucien I don’t really envisage them from those also sometimes dare very long pedals, i.e., always not to participate in the editing, otherwise it Garban, a friend of Ravel’s. at had allowed angles. For me, these works have become pure, control the handling of the discourse with the would be real torture. It’s indeed for that rea- me to concentrate on the pedal technique. It abstract music. Be that as it may, narration is foot. I also use the harmonic pedal a lot, which is son that you have to be in full agreement with was with La Mer that I became fully aware of sometimes important for the listener, especially never indicated on the score but which turns out your artistic director. I maintain that, with the the importance and resources of the pedals, in if he is not very familiar with classical music. In to be indispensable in an orchestral discourse. same artistic director and the same takes, you particular the art of the ‘pedal vibrato’, which concert, I precede The Firebird with a narrator can produce three very di¢ erent discs by play- changes everything, especially on disc and espe- reading Fokine’s synopsis. e musical intentions You were speaking of a ‘paradox’: everything ing with the editing. With Heinz Wildhagen, cially in a transcription. always gain from being linked to a sense. But I passes, in fact, by the piano technique with an aim
° to suggesting something other than the ‘piano- markings in di¢ erent colours: several layers of instrument’... information that are superimposed on Stravin- at’s it, and I hope nally not to have sky’s text... I think I’m the only one who could made a pure ‘piano’ or ‘pianist’s’ disc. e pit- nd my way in it (furthermore, I’m haunted by fall however would be in wanting to imitate the a fear of page-turners!). To the metaphor of the colours of the orchestra, which is impossible. Firebird – a bit too easy –, I preferred the trac- So it must take inspiration from the orchestra es of the pianistic work. It’s a way of bringing as from an ideal but without striving for any- the listener into my workshop and attesting to thing else. You’ll notice that my reading of The the fact that transcription calls for a veritable Firebird lasts minutes, whereas it is gener- re-appropriation of the score by the performer, ally a bit longer with the orchestra. That’s through the medium that his or her instrument because, as sound material, I have only strings constitutes. To make it become something else. and hammers at my disposal... e sounds can- To preserve its freedom and not transform the not be held as in the orchestra, so an adaptation piano into a cage. of the tempo is indispensable here and there. Becoming pianistic, the work involves di¢ erent Translated by John Tyler Tuttle requirements.
To close, what words about the rather unex- pected cover of this disc? A photo was taken of me in the middle of a performance, with my red curls producing a very ‘Firebird’ impression under the lights! Virtuoses (a ’ lm produced by BCI, directed by Fabienne But I nally chose to place this image on the back of the disc, for I had the idea of putting on the cover my own score of The Firebird, covered with the marks of my work, i.e., ‘tagged’ with