LDV102

25 XAVIER PHILLIPS, CÉDRIC TIBERGHIEN How did you work together on this programme? Cédric Tiberghien : We mostly just played it. It wasn’t like the usual rehearsal process. Of course, there were some tricky passages of counterpoint that needed detailed practice to get them right. But we felt the need to play and play again, in order to sense the musical flow, the right tempo which gradually established itself, and sometimes changed. And how did each of you practise on your own? Xavier Phillips : Most of the time, I take an instinctive approach to music. Mstislav Rostropovich alerted me to the importance of periods and structure. I took an interest in that, but without ever wanting to go into too much detail. And that’s the way I approached Fauré, rather like flying over a landscape, without asking myself any questions about his harmonic oddities, without dissecting his music. Fauré’s music is very sensual, even in its most harmonically complex moments. Rigidity of construction, arithmetic are not for him. Some composers are more inclined that way, and then it’s indispensable to deconstruct and analyse their music in order to understand it. With Fauré, there is nothing to understand. It’s true that, as a cellist, I make the melodic line my priority. Obviously, the issue is more complex for the pianist.