LDV110

22 DEBUSSY ∙ MURAIL | RÉVOLUTIONS To go from the music of Tristan Murail to that of Claude Debussy is, in the end, to create a gigantic bridge towards a history that is familiar to us . . . I would prefer to say that it’s to make a striking rapprochement! To play Feux d’artifice , the last of Debussy’s Préludes , before or after a work by Murail poses no problem of adjustment for the listener. In fact, Cailloux dans l’eau, hommage à Debussy , which I premiered in 2017, is a tribute to Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau (the choice of the preposition of place dans , ‘in’ and not sur , ‘on’, is crucial). As far as Debussy’s Préludes are concerned, the whole Second Book appears just as magnificent as the First, but perhaps even more visionary and revolutionary. So much so that one sometimes wonders whether Brouillards or Feux d’artifice really date from the 1910s! Do you think that the Préludes , which are made up of highly diverse pieces, nevertheless form a complete cycle when you play them in concert? At first sight, no. There’s no very obvious musical link when you perform Les Tierces alternées before Feux d’artifice . And yet . . . In concert, you have to think about the prélude you have just played and the one that comes after it. Debussy assembled them in a certain order. Composers never do anything at random. Is there a ‘higher’ order? The length of the silence, of the breathing-space between one piece and the next is also important.