How did you come to music? I came to it rather late: before the age of fifteen, music without words attached left me completely cold – I couldn’t understand how anyone could be interested in it. Then I played the trumpet in the wind band of my home town of Saint-Dizier, which at least gave me the opportunity to learn the treble clef . . . Later my father, who conducted the church choir, was lent a small harmonium by the parish priest to help him in rehearsals. It was on that instrument that I learnt the bass clef, entirely by myself, and it all started from there. No piano? No, just that little harmonium, at least to start with. So I never had any theory lessons, and that did me no harm at all. It’s true that I played the piano fairly seriously later on, but it was never really my instrument. On the organ, the four-octave range doesn’t encourage one to work on the hand-shifts that are the basis of piano technique. The two techniques, though very different, complement each other very well. But you can play the organ perfectly well without ever having a go at the piano. 25 ANDRÉ ISOIR
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