18 / 52
18 RAVEL / DUTILLEUX / DEBUSSY
How did you first encounter these works?
We ‘grew up’ with the Ravel Quartet; it was on our music stands right from the
day we started working together. It made us realise just how malleable a quartet
is – a veritable instrument with sixteen strings, whose sound can be moulded ad
infinitum – and it contributed a lot to the task of building up a shared sonority.
Ravel’s Quartet very clearly belongs to the aesthetic of the French school of
the early twentieth century; when we tackled it we had the impression that
we were carrying on a tradition passed on to us during our studies at the Lyon
Conservatoire.Moreover, theway it uses pentatonicmodes and playing techniques
that sometimes recall the timbres of traditional Asian instruments had a special
resonance in our group, with its varied geographical origins.
This work constitutes a formof challenge, because it requires the four personalities
to interact, merging at certain moments while expressing themselves more
individually at others. Although we’ve played the score very frequently in concert,
the experience of recording it in a sense helped us to rediscover it, by refreshing our
relationship with music that offers great freedom to its interpreters. We have tried
to take full advantage of that freedom, while constantly emphasising the overall
line.