21 BEATRICE BERRUT The Firebird, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Danse macabre are all based on poems or scenarios with a detailed narrative. Do these flash through your mind when you perform the pieces? Yes, quite naturally, especially as Dukas, for instance, follows Goethe’s poem literally with superb imagery. And it’s impossible to overlook Fantasia! When I play this music, I see the cartoon projected in front of me, right up to that incredible scene where the broomsticks are multiplied tenfold and become completely uncontrollable. These images inevitably inspire the way I narrate the story. Some of these works, when they transport us into terrifying worlds, demand diabolical virtuosity. What is your attitude to this? Sheer virtuosity has something intoxicating about it, of course, once you’ve overcome the difficulties. I too feel like a master wizard capable of conjuring sparks or ectoplasms out of a skull! But it takes long hours of practice to achieve that sensation.
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