LDV110

21 FRANÇOIS-FRÉDÉRIC GUY Do you also feel that in this style, which has matured so much, there is a specifically pianistic component that synthesises an extensive catalogue ranging over the most diverse forms and instrumental forces? Tristan Murail answers that question thanks to his training as an ondes martenot player and pianist: he knows how to make the piano sound quite magnificently. His orchestral experience is also reflected in his piano writing, which uses all the registers of the instrument to make it sound like a huge symphony orchestra. I have performed many radical pieces, but spectral music, and Murail’s in particular, presents a language of remarkable intensity and strength. That language isn’t in search of radicality – which cannot be an end in itself – and there can be no question of returning to or taking refuge in a neo-tonalism that has no purpose and that holds no interest at all for me. To look in the rear-view mirror when you are a creator is, for me, a futile gesture. The approach here is similar to the ideals of Beethoven, who thought of music in terms of permanent momentum and a Promethean dimension.