LDV49.1

Do you think there is a performing tradition that one ought to respect? How can one teach Messiaen to students? How can one transmit a piece of music? That’s the big question . . . My opinion is that from the moment a composer has placed his work in the public domain, he or she has taken a risk – and performers can do what they like with it. I don’t have a very strict doctrine in that respect. I feel like saying: let’s give priority to what’s written down, the score, but with sufficient freedomof spirit. Imitating amodel doesn’t satisfy me. And that’s the case with any music, not just Messiaen. I don’t enjoy ‘purism’ in interpretation when that term is taken in a limiting, reductive and authoritarian sense. And I enjoy it less and less as I get older . . .