LDV74

24 PROKOFIEV_VISIONS FUGITIVES And, in the Piano Sonata no.6 in A major op.82, percussiveness does indeed play a central role. There is an element of inherent violence in the gesture of striking the keyboard. There is, from the outset, an affect whose nature one would be tempted to decipher; to which one would gladly ascribe intentions. It would be only a short step for us to embrace the anger that the most vehement notes seem to convey. Yet all this is but a question of imaginary. ‘With time and experience, the performer is attracted by a slightly leaner reading of the score, an interpretation that moves away from narrative to a straightforward reading of the text.’ Can the work be totally rid of the projections of its interpreter’s imagination and empathy? Guy Sacre mentions an anecdote that Florian Noack found particularly striking: in Caravaggio’s David and Goliath , Goliath’s severed head is probably a self- portrait of the artist, while the bare-chested, beardless youngman holding it in his hand could well be one of his assistants. This is a narrative element that fertilises the imagination of those who view the painting. They see only this alternative reality and its possible ramifications. They no longer see the Old Testament, the Book of Samuel, or even the Philistines; they see only the homoerotic charge that contravenes all the professional conventions which bind a craftsman to his young assistant. So it is with music: to imprint something of human life on its cold notes is already to corrupt its meaning.