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II- NICE .

This is how Scott, his mother and brother unboarded the train in Nice to see what could be done for Scott's registration in the Conservatoire. Scott was there greeted by Béatrice Clérici, one of the pupils of the Conservatoire, sent because she knew two words of english, and that was the beginning of a friendship that, despite the ups and downs, lasted until the end. He thus registers in the Conservatory of Music in the organ classes of René Saorgin, and then, having seen a poster advertizing the classes of harpsichord, he enquires about the possibilities to attend it; and as he says himself in a CBC interview, «one is always well received in a class of harpsichord. They have so few people!» [1] .

That choice coincided with his tastes for XVIII° century music, for sure, but one might also think, after Scott himself, that it was just as well a sally of his mother -- suggesting that he did something more exotic than the piano -- than the fact that for him, a harpsichord « was a unicorn» [2], -- that is something which you hear, of which you hear say, but which you never see-- that had some influence on his choice, among the whole of the elements which may have concurred into making him what he later became. One ought to remember the boy's age, at the time, that is barely thirteen; and also take into account the anecdote, told by Scott himself, about the usual gig of the brackets plucked into a piano's hammers, which so many have committed as well.

Huguette Grémy-Chauliac.

Huguette Grémy-Chauliac, titular of the class of harpsichord in the Nice Conservatoire, was a pupil of Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume, author in 1964 of a little erudite book entitled "Les «secrets»de la Musique Ancienne" [3] which listed a maximum of the musicological knowledge of then about the performance of music preceding the French Revolution. Although imperfect in many respects, ( Scott said that he had «made the mistake of starting with a preconceived idea » [4] ), that book became a milestone on the road to ancient music. Huguette Grémy-Chauliac had refiltered that material in order to have an expressive playing. One had to be a musicologist: there were still people who held that unequal notes [5] didn't exist.

Béatrice Clérici who studied with Scott in the Conservatory, says that she was an «excellent pedagogue, meticulous, fine, affectionate, caring for her clothing and appearance». She adds that, at the time, she had assumed for Scott the part of a mother [6] . Scott himself easily declared that he owed her his ease because she had had him «acquire her technique in such a rational manner» [7] . Kenneth Gilbert also reports having heard him say that he owed her everything [8] .

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What's more, the Conservatory harpsichord, époque oblige, was a William de Blaise [10], of these instruments Philippe Beaussant says that they «were obese for naught. Their little clear and thin sound ( represented) a degenerate image of the XVIII° century, (...) through what it had borrowed from the XIX°. A 1900 sound.» [11] Mrs. Clérici adds that the sound of that instrument had made her flee the harpsichord class [12] . The keyboard of those instruments, just as mentions Beaussant [13] , owed all to the piano technique and was subsequently heavy and tough. The revolution in harpsichord making had not yet reached there. We shall see in the next chapter what shall become of it.

The organ.

But the organ remained his first love. He therefore registers in René Saorgin's class, who already had a profound interest in ancient music and it's performance on the organ. About Saorgin, Béatrice Clérici describes him as enigmatic, ill at ease, passionate for the organ, not really a good teacher, but nevertheless meticulous and serious in his musical interpretations. But isn't it better to have a good pupil with a bad teacher than the opposite ?

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As for the atmosphere in the Nice Conservatory, it was joyous,unbridled and bucolic, for the garden was a former mansion's park,lying fallow. Scott shared one after another the flats of hiscolleagues of the conservatory, worked ten hours a day, swam in thesea as often as he could, had himself locked in the Conservatoirewith a friend to play the Art of the Fugue all night until thejanitor chased them away early in the morning [15] . All those whocame to know him at the time tell how much he worked, and utmost,that he already declared to whoever listened to him that he would bethe greatest harpsichordist in the world [16]! One can hardly imaginewhat could be his teenager's life in such a context of poverty and familial isolation.

Still today, those who knew him wonder how he managed to make a living; himself recorded these years as terribly difficult.

Nice would always remain dear to him, and even when he had left for the Conservatoire in Paris, he'd go back as often as he could, regularly doing the return trip. By the end, he'd ask Béatrice to look for an appartment that they could share, but when she'd have found it, it'd be time no longer, Scott being about to die. [17] .

In 1969, Mrs. Christine Roustan, looking for someone to give music lessons to her children Marie-Laure and Guilhem, went to the Conservatoire and asked for a pupil. She was introduced to Odile Aurengo, a friend of Scott, with whom she spoke of the harpsichord that her mother had just acquired. She was therefore invited to the pupilsÕ concert for the end of the year at the Conservatoire, to listen to the harpsichordist friend of Odile. She was amazed [1] by his playing technique and she immediately invited him to spend a week-end at her mother's, at the château of Assas, at a short distance from Montpellier. It must have been Easter or the summer of 1969 [2] .

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Simone Demangel.

It is here necessary to open a parenthesis, albeit concise, for there might be written a whole book on this very subject.

Christine Roustan's mother, Simone Demangel, was a full part character in the Montpellier landscape, if not France. Daughter of the Académicien Louis Gillet, she married between the wars Robert Demangel who from l933 till 1948 was director of the Ecole d'Athènes (France's school of archeology in Athens).

During the Occupation, Robert Demangel took his family to Montpellier where he taught -- he was by the way the originator of the Plaster Casts Museum of Paul Valery University. When the German invaded the southern "Free" Zone, their house was commandeered by the German General Staff. An acquaintance of Robert Demangel had then accomodated them in the chateau d'Assas, a magnificent XVIII° century Montpellier «folie», which Simone bought back when the War had ended, in 1948, after she had been among the great characters of the southern Resistance. She'd say that, at that time, she had "ridden bicycles like you never will!", pedaling untiringly on her bike all night in order to bring fake documents to the underground forces, going at times through the clutches of the Gestapo with an olympian composure.

At first she'll reside there only during the summer, and then, starting with the '80ies, all year long.

The château's harpsichord.

One day in the seventies, she was asked to keep for some days an antique harpsichord after a concert given by Christiane Jaccotet, a Swiss harpsichordist, in Saint-Mathieu de Tréviers, some 15 miles north of Montpellier. (In order to buy it, ) She told me how she had to run in order to borrow the necessary amount (...) by the Banque Hypothécaire Européenne, and how all this had finally allowed her to keep the harpsichord, after all those adventures.

This is the instrument on which Scott recorded a good part of his discography. (...)

(...)

It was also used for the first French recording (Harmonia Mundi) of ancient music (if no account is made for Paul Brunold's wax cylinder recorded in 1913), with Lionel Rogg in the collection Prestige du Clavecin [6].

Scott, thus finds there his first contact with the antique harpsichord, for it must be recalled that, at the time in France, one found in the conservatories only instruments of «modern» make, with a heavy touch and a sour sound. Now this harpsichord, without being perfect, was for him the first instrument to have qualities capable of becoming choice criteria for him.

But it nonetheless required upkeep, for it is all the same an very old instrument, which constantly needed regulating, tuning, voicing, replacing the broken strings, etc.; it had no other prestige than being ancient, which helped keep young Scott from falling into the trap of the love of antiques [7], of ancient stuff for its own ancient sake, while allowing him to earn his spurs on an instrument of ancient make : the perfect educating harpsichord.

For this reason he never was part fo the inconditional fans of the restored ancient instrument, which would rather exasperate him, as soon as there was the slightest mechanical malfunction due to age, and this is well for that reason that he'd carry his Willard Martin everywhere [8], every time he had a concert to give, so much he feared the eventuality of a mediocre instrument he might have had to play on.

Furthermore, there was in that château a very particular atmosphere made of conviviality, of informality, which made something purely affective out of it, just like any other house where one feels at home: it is never perfect, but creates synpathy. And one might say that there was in it all the antidote to what one could name the «wig-bearing» respect, because in there, one lived a life which was everything but stiff. After that, Scott never got caught by the lure of the antique. These details are important, I feel, for those who'd like to understand how Scott could play the harpsichord in such a lively manner.

One day, a lady of protestant origins, Arlette Heudron, organist in Saint-Pierre-de-Chaillot, and who was part of an academy of ancient music in Saint-Dié in the Vosges, came from Paris, on a motorcycle, to give an organ concert in Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, upon the invitation of Monique Bernat and Henri Prunières.

She was looking for some place where she could organize another academy of ancient music in Southern France. Therefore, Monique Bernat, along with Simone Demangel offered to help her. Simone offered to hold the academy in the château d'Assas, and Scott gave substance to the project with master's classes of harpsichord. He was later replaced by Willem Jansen, professor at the Conservatoire de Toulouse. The first of these academies took place in 1974, and Arlette died towards 1978. These academies went on some time after her death, until the beginning of the'80ies, before they were taken to the presbytery of Saint-Jean de Cuculles, before they ended.

These academies were, themselves, a mighty starting point for Scott who was to give there his first teachings and make a lot of useful contacts.

Scott always returned, year after year, to the château where he had his room in the south-west tower, before he rented in 1983 the little house of the Montée du Château street where he was to finish his days.

(biography, part 1)