A Lecture given on Saturday 23 October 1999, at the Carréd'Art in Nimes.
©Michel Proulx, 1999.
(return to the Scott Rosspage)
Scott Ross in False Perspective.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good evening;
Here we are assembled in the occasion of this XIXth Automnemusical for the commemoration of a disapearance which we are not afew to believe was premature, as well as a tremendous loss for theharpsichord. It seems therefore useful to me to think about the meanswhich allowed Scott Ross to reach the level which was his, and ofwhich the records can give but a pale idea, and this on the conditionthat the recordings be good, which is far from being always the case,as we could recently see when CBC published the Well TemperedKeyboard they had recorded years beforem.
I met and got acquainted to Scott Ross in Quebec City, where I wasa harpsichord maker, from 1974, when I met him, to 1981 when I leftfor Italy. This afforded me a privileged situation to write hisbiography, when I drafted my Master's degree's report in history, atMontpellier's Université Paul Valéry in 1994.
Which is the reason why I suggested the theme for this lecture toMr Levy, when he gently asked me for the material for thiscommemoration. I have entitled it «Scott Ross in FalsePerspective» for two reasons. First of all because thetrompe-l'oeil (deceive-the-eye), or false perspective rankedamong the dearest contrivances of Baroque painting, which delightedScott, as we shall see. And also because his art was an art ofparadox, one which I shan't hesitate to deem«trompe-l'oreille» (deceive-the-ear).
By investigating one after another the harpsichord's organology,the musician's personal cursus, the historical situation of thismusic and a few more details, I shall attempt to brush a syntheticpicture, as precise as may be done, of the elements which allowed himto reach his level of excellence, in the hope that the exposition ofthese elements might some day be of use to other musicians.
Finally, an Italian friend once told me «Come seicattedratico!», which might sound prestigious but merely means"How stuffy you can be"!». So, taking it as a sort of warning,implicit in such a remark, I shall try not to be too boring.
Let's start with the examination of the instrument, and I hopethat those who already know will forgive me for inflicting them thischore for the Nth time..
One of the basic aspects of the harpsichoed -- and of the organ,as well -- compared to the piano, is that it is not possible tomodulate the intensity of sound, which is called dynamic expression.A pianist is entirely responsible for the sound of his instrument,and you'll justly hear talking of the "sound" of this or thatpianist. When you depress, indeed, a piano key lever, you send movinga set of racks and balance rails which props up a weight, which isthe hammer. It follows that the volume and the quality of the soundare according to the force in the touch, which have an effect uponthe acceleration (g for the physicistsÉ) of the hammer which willstrike the string.
Such is not the case with a harpsichord or an organ, where we'retreating with a triggering. Do you remember those ancient lightswitches? You could feel the resistance of the spring when you pushedits lever. Under your effort, the spring yields and the lever goes toits other position. This is a blunt binary situation, in which youget either naught, or light.
The same is true for the organ and the harpsichord? You press alever, this drives -- in an organ -- a set of transmission leverswhich in turn exert a traction upon a valve : this detaches itselfafter some resistance due to the pressure which kept it pressed andthen the air engulfs itself in the opening before it breaks upon thebevel of a flute or a reed, and this is what is called the "attack".
With the harpsichord, things are a bit simpler : the lever drivesa jack in which a plectrum is set which shall stop itlself againstthe string: this opposes a resistance, until it yields to thepressure of the plectrum, by moving laterally, which is the pluck.
In all these cases, one gets a binary situation, "no-yes", withoutthe possibility of intermediate effects, because the sound is preset.
The result is necessarily that the music shall always ring on thesame level, unless one modifies the registration. It is thereforequite easy to fall into monotony and what is called jokingly the"sewing-machine effectÓ..
Let's keep these elements in mind, they shall serve as a usefulbasis, and let's see Scott's personal cursus.
Scott Ross was born in 1951 in Pittsburgh, Pa, the Americancapital of coal and steel.
His father was a journalist and published, according to what wastold to me, a periodical in which he treated the social problems of acity where, should I specify, public lighting was often still on ateleven a.m., on the days of heavy pollution.
His mother is reported to have been prodigiously intellignet; shewas a painter and an advertizing woman. She knew french and wasfascinated with the advertizings of Jean Mineur (which can still beseen in the movie theaters).
At two he is diagnosticated for a heavy scoliosis.
As he is only five, his father dies.
Year after year, he has to wear an orthopaedical corset which isto allow him to grow straight. He shall however keep as after effectsof his disease a rather small size, compared to that of his brotherJames, whom I could meet, and who, yet very much look alike to Scott,is bigger than I am (5'11") That also was the cause of the excessivecurve of his spine, and that rather jerky gait of his which hesometimes liked to exaggerate on stage.
At the same age, he starts piano and soon also the organ. He wasindeed a fan of the organ, and always suffered from the lack ofrecognition of his capacities as an organist.
As he's but 14, hgis mother decides to go live in France. Chancehas it that, as soon as they arrived, they were introduced to PierreCochereau, whom Scott admired, and for whom he always stood, evenwhen Cochereau was attacked by the Avant-Garde for which he didn'tcause any unanimity, to say the least.
Cochereau then suggests to Scott that he registers by theConservatoire of Nice whose director he was. As he had to choose asecond instrument, seeing a poster for the class of harpsichord, hedecides to register there.
His mother had first suggested that he could do somethingdifferent, and as he explained on the CBC, the harpsichord was forhim a ÒunicornÓ : you hear it, you hear say of it, but you never seeit. Then to be able to play of it! And then, as he said, one isalways welcome in a class of harpsichord : they have so few people!
The teacher of harpsichord was Madame HuguetteGrémy-Chauliac, who was herself a pupil of AntoineGeoffroy-Dechaume. I'd like here to slip a note, because often thejournalists wanted him to be the heir of Wanda Landowska, which healways refuted vigorously. Moreover, in the «Leçonparticulière à la Villa Médicis», one mayhear him say that Wanda Landowska never knew what a harpsichord was.Now, through Grémy-Chauliac and Geoffroy-Dechaume, he ratherwas the heir of another mythical character of ancient music, that isArnold Dolmetsch. When the latter worked at Gaveau, the French pianomaker, at a time when all the piano makers wanted to add aharpsichord in their catalogue, Dolmetsch had a painter friend whoseson played music. This was Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume who took therehis first lessons in the interpretation of ancient music. Later, hewent on in his research, when he realized that Dolmetsch hadn't gonefar enough. In 1964, Geoffroy-Dechaume published a little book whichcontained the essence of his discoveries : "Les «Secrets»de la Musique Ancienne", which I saw for the first time the nextyear, at my music teacher's. But for the latter -- and for manyothers, I'm afraid -- it was a mere curiosity, and there was noquestion of applying these things to music playing. Moreover, for myteacher, music started with Bach, and I'd so much understand thislitterally that I was absolutely flabbergasted the day I discoveredsome of the treasures of music which came before Bach and which I hadhitherto ignored.
However, for those who were genuinely interested in ancient music,the teachings and interpretations of Geoffroy-Dechaume had a definiteinfluence to which no one of those who today practice ancient musiccan escape.
Thus, Madame Grémy-Chauliac was one of his pupils, andScott would willingly say and repeat that he owed her everything.This assertion has aroused the curiosity of those who had theopportunity of listening and compare both, and could see no commonpoint between their respective styles. The reason is that this debtwas technical and not esthetical. She was the one who transmitted himthe technique, the position of the hands, of the fingers, the maximaleconomy of movements, the striking of the ornaments, the unequalnotes and so on. Particularly, it is necessary to specify the controlby the fingers alone of the true duration of the sounds in order toarticulate them musically. These articulations, mini-silences betweenthe sounds, make for the pronounciation of the musical language --take the ewample of the flute! -- by giving to the harpsichord'sdampers just as the valves of the organ, the possibility ofinstantaneously stopping at will the sounds. If the notes were (orare) played all equally in duration, the style becomes mechanical,without any expressive possibility. By keeping the comparison withthe flute, where the strokes of the tongue do all the job, on theharpsichord and the organ, this «stroke of the tongue» isobtained, according to this technique, with the lifting of the fingertowards the palm of the hand, instead of lifting it upwards.
Scott declared he had worked more that anything imaginable, for apupil of the Conservatoire, anbd this assertion was confirmed by allthose who knew him in Nice, and who all underlined both his rage ofliving, a rage of living which may be easily explained by what Iexposed of his childhood, and his relentlessness to study andpractice.
Concurently to the excellence of the teaching which he had thebenefit of. Scott enormously studied by himself. There were at thetime very hot discussions about the interpretation of ancient musicand the polemic was very enflamed, and therefore, although he didtrust what his teachers taught him, Scott said that he had a naturalcuriosity which led him to want to check everything that could befound in the treatises of the baroque era, the forewords of the musicpieces, etc., considering there are people who told straight out theopposite. He didn't understand. He therefore checked himself, andthus could discover that his teachers were perfectly right, and that,for the others, the matter was only to refuse any change whatsoever.Besides anchoring well into his convictions, this personal study gavehim the opportunity to acquire a sturdy musicological culture withwhich he could, in 1978, obtain quite effortlessly and with thejury's unanimity, the equivalence for a Ph.D. in musicology, atQuebec City's Laval University.
Among all those treatises, allow me to read very simply thecontents table of Geoffroy-Dechaume's book, of which the subtitle is«Recherches sur l'interprétation, XVI°, XVII°,et XVIII° s.».(Research about the interpretation, 16th,17th and 18th centuries)
The first part deals with rhythm :
Writing in equal notes : articulation and silences
Exceptions
Writing in unequal notes; a) the long one on the tempo, b) the shortone on the tempo
particular Conventions
French Notation
Ballet Musique
The second part deals with the gracenotes
a) Cases where the gracenote substitutes itself to the attack onthe true note
b) Cases where it follows the attack on the true note
c) Cases where it precedes the attack on the true note.
A third part deals with tempi, their calculation and theirindications,
And the fourth gives examples of ancient masters.
There one finds quotes from a treaty by Georg Muffat, a German whohad been one of Lully's musicians, in which he insisted on theÒimportance of using with good judgment of the nice manners andproper gracenotes which make the harmony brilliant as so manyprecious stones.
Knowing Scott's passion for mineralogy, to the point of having forsome time thought of applying for the charge of the mineralogycollection of Laval University, and knowing that he collectedminerals and precious stones as soon as he could afford them, andalso knowing certain anecdote that I shall now relate, I find thisindication quite precious indeed.
This anecdote is that one day, Diana Petech, an Italian pupil,noticed a huge ring at his finger, set with a big stone, and she said"But don't you take it off to play? &emdash; My rings? But Iput them to play!»
Muffat then adds, about the gracenotes, that from them Òdepends apeculiar sweetness, vigour and beautyÓ after which he tells about thecurrent mistakes, which are the omission, the improperty, the excessand the unskillfulness, adding, "for which one ought to be soassiduous to the making of these precious ornaments of the musick (É)
Please do forgive me, for there are some, I'm sure, who mightbelieve such details to be quite byzantine. And yet, I do believethem to be essential in order to portray Scott correctly, for aswell, taken separately, in an intellectual fashion, they might seemarid and boring, as well the matter lies in those sorts of detailswhich, once integrated, may contribute to the efficiency of an art.But I must go on and displace myself a bit in order to set another ofthe important elements of this portrait.
It is then that Scott made his first attempt to the Grand Prix deBruges, in 1968. After which he left nice for the Conservatoire inParis, where he much more initiated himself to harpsichord makingthatn to harpsichord playing. He is indeed reported to have beenquite more often in the restoration workshop of the InstrumentsMuseum than in the Conservatoire itself. But another encounter shallbe deciding. In Nice, one of his friends, Odile Aurengo, gives musiclessons to two children. One day, their mother tells her that her ownmother , Simone Demangel, has just bought an ancient harpsichord, andOdile invites her to the End of the Year Concert where one of herfriends was to play the harpsichord. This lady, Christine Roustan, isflabbergasted (underlined by herself) as she hears him andinvites him on the spot to come at her mother's home, thechâteau d'Assas.
This is where stands the missing link. For everything that hasbeen said in precedence on the principles of the execution of ancientmusic, he had learned them on "modern" instruments, which, as I letyou understand it, had been designed by piano makers, for people thatdid not want to be disturbed in their habits. Now these instrumentswhich have almost disappeared today, often surprise those who hearthem by the feeble sound so contrasting with the sturdiness of theirconstruction, not to mention the heaviness of their actions. Theybelieved they would modernize the harpsichord, by making it benefitfrom the technical ÒprogressÓ made on the piano.
To put it short, Scott found there, in the château d'Assas,a set of conditions that we might term ideal. First of all, thisharpsichord is the perfect educating harpsichord. Compared to"modern" instruments, its action is as if inexistent, so light it is.Even compared to a new instrument copied from the antique, itslightness is striking. This probably was as surprise to him, but howformative! For it is but on this type of instrument that all thosetheoretical data could attain their true worth. What's more, the warmand vibrant sound were by themselves a condemnation without appeal ofthose famous "modern" instruments (modern becoming an ever moreironical term to describe those!).
And the ambience of the château was also exceedinglypropitious to a psychological "conditionning". A period setting, andpeople that lived there, not as in a museum, but rather as in a largemanor, normally and even in a fashion rather less stiff than that ofmost homes, with its comedies and tragedies.
The harpsichord was genuinely antique. Anyway, it was restoredonly after Scott's death, and this means that it was in no wayperfect, when he played on it, and he constantly had to upkeep it,change the quills, or a string, or retune it. In a word , in no wayperfect, and he had to give it a lot of care to make it safelyplayable, and one might think that this is how Scott was made immuneto the love of antiques. One can hear him mumbling against theinstrument provided for the recording of «Une Leçonparticulière» ("those old bits and sticks sound well butthat's allÉ"). Just like the ambience of the château, fun as itmight have been, wasn't perfect either, and this may have contributedto shed aside any fantasies of a Golden Age. He never was a laudatortempori acti.
According to that data, among others, I therefore believe that forhim the harpsichord was never anything else than a tool.
To conclude, I'll mention once more that he was the first to winthe Grand Prix de Bruges (he was rather astounded, by the way, tohave received no invitation after that, no a single concert,nothing), and thereafter, he remained some time in Antwerpen withKenneth Gilbert, and then, with the help of Gilbert, he went toQuebec City, at the Ecole de Musique of Laval University.
I don't know if this period of teaching also had an influence onhis playing. I would (but this opinion commits but myself) be rathertempted to think that he had already formed his playing system,although this situation --which afforded him a minimum of materialcomfort which he never had had before --, possibly lifted the lastobstacles to his blossoming as a concertist.
It is thus during his ten years as a teacher in Quebec City thathe obtained a Ph.D. equivalence in 1978. This allowed him to be paidfull time (instead of 3/4 of time).
In 1983, he left Laval University (this departure becamedefinitive in 1986) and he began his career as a concertist. He thenregistered most of the records which you know, from Couperin toScarlatti along with Frescobaldi. He then died in Assas in June 1989.
Now that we have overseen his course, let us see the matter.
If I daresay, this is a rather immaterial matter! We tend, forBaroque Music just as with all the musics that belong to "GreatCulture", to forget that this music once was live, and served byhuman beings, in flesh and blood, and all that this implies, good orevil. And yet, there was a time when this music was that of thetimes.
I know of people who will move towards culture but filled withsacred terror, and often this sacred terror paralyses them. There areeven those which it maddens. Take for example this anecdote aboutPaul Tortellier, throwin himself on both knees yelling "Pardon Bach!Pardon!" after he played a false note!
Scott would rather say, "You can't play music if you're toopreoccupied with false notes".
Now we can start to grasp his thought process more closely. "Mymusic is not ancient, if I'm playing it". (Une Leçonparticulière).
And I believe that we have here an important element of his ease.We have seen that, technically, the Conservatoire had been for himthe occasion of gathering all the necessary knowledge. But there isas well a psychological ease. I mentioned the sacred terror in whichwade some, facing Music, or Culture, generally speaking.
Scott, for one, got to that music with the confidence of whompossesses the technical capacity, and besides, makes no distinctionbetween great and small music.
On the other hand, he also said that "At the harpsichord, falsenotes are more obvious than elsewhere. Therefore I try to make as fewas possible"..
And here is a typical example of his paradoxical attitudes. Here Iinsist with repeating that para-doxa is what goes againstpreconceived ideas. The contradiction is but apparent, andcontributes to the coherence of his thought process. Let me explainmyself. To put it shortly, the contradiction could be thus exposed,"Playing false notes is not important/It is important not to playfalse notes".
But in the first of both phrases, the aim is to discreetly killthe "sacred terror", which could easily transform the music into amagical-religious ceremony which the slightest mistake couldinvalidate. The resulting stress is a hindrance to music. I havesometimes witnessed with some a striking incapacity to play aclassical piece without goofing in the middle, whereas the same playwithout fault if it is jazz or pop music. It is the sacred terrorwhich intimidates them. The other genres do not generate this terrorand thus can they play without fear. This is also, in part, theideology which spoils the Conservatoires, because it contributes tomaking a job out of music, a job reserved for those who have adiploma, and nothing playful, fun. Now music will be music only ifone has fun. This is the reason for Scott saying that you can't makemusic if you're too preoccupied with false notes, taken as so manysacrileges. On the other hand, it is true that on the harpsichord,the slightest false note whill be heard and much more than on thepiano and much less easily hidden. As a consequence, it is no longera matter of sacred terror, but of the simple and elementary respectfor the audience, which is in no way the same thing. This respect ofthe audience means that one shall parctice sufficiently in order notto make mistakees. One is therefore less stressed in such case.
Privately, he could play surprising things. Like some of ScottJoplin's ragtimes (he might sometimes play one as a second encore, athis concerts) or Wagner's Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, whichinspired him a piece for the harpsichord contest of the City ofParis, a prélude non-mesuré which was recorded byHermel Bruneau, a Quebec City harpsichordist.
(Listening)
Not to mention the jokes which he could afford himself, likeplaying with his back turned on the instrument, or transposeeverything with the left hand, on a piano low a half tone, and tunedon only half of the keyboard. Actually, he loathed discussing musicoutside of his professional life, and if he did so, it could only beaccording to his good dispositions.
For we ought to notice this other paradox with him, that is hisextremet humility. I know that some who have actually met him willprobably jump, who certainly know what high opinion of himself hehad. But you shall easily admit that he had some reasons for holdingsuch an opinion, even though this could go as far a bragging, likedefying Leonhardt in a public contest (by bragging, however, I do notmean that he could not have won). But he always insisted with hispupils as well as in all the interviews that the respect of theaudience was of the utmost importance.
First of all, according to him, the performer ought NOT expresshim/herself. He or she ought to leave the composer express himself.Scott felt some primeval need for intellectual honesty towards thosauthors of the past. According to him the audience was what counted,and he wanted this contact to be as direct as possible. I shall comeback later upon this aspect. In a few words, he rather more hadrespect for the audience by giving them music, than he had respectfor music.
To get back to his studies as a self-learner, I ought to add thatthey soon got quite further than mere musicology. The proximity ofGenoa and Italy allowed him a very daily access to Baroque Art,abundantly represented both in painting and in architecture, in thatwhole region. His natural curiosity also brought him to studySanskrit, and it is thus that we were some friends one night to whomhe very competently exposed the secrets of Sanskrit conjugation,after a good meal to which he had invited us.
I also notice that Sanskrit is a dead language, of which the studyis quite useful to linguists who try to find the evolution ofIndo-European languages, of which ours are part. Now, linguistics isalso the study of languages in a quite broader fashion, and I feel itnecessary to point to the instruction lines in computers, which arethemselves a language. Nowonder, then, that Scott should have beenimmediately interested in micro-computers.
But music is in this respect also a language, even though thisexpression may have had in the past some excesses, like "UniversalLanguage" etc. , which have a meaning only if one remembers that anylanguage implies an apprenticeship.
In short, a phrase begins, goes on, ends before it articulatesitself to other phrases, and this from one word to another. But it ismore than a mere lineup of words.
In his "Invisible Cities", the Italian writer Italo Calvinodescribes a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan.
Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.
&emdash;But which is the stone that supports the bridge? &emdash;asks Kublai Khan.
&emdash;The bridge is not supported by this or that stone &emdash;answers Marco &emdash; but by the line of the arch which theyform.
Kublai Khan keeps silent, thinking. Then he adds :
&emdash;Why are you telling me of the stones? I only care about thearch.
Polo answers :
&emdash; Without the stones, there's no arch.
That's roughly Scott's course. In all cases he was totally a manof his time. He never showed the slightest tendency to cling tothings of the past, like for instance having wanted to live in the17th century or the like.
I'll come back on it, but let's talk about the music which heplayed and for which you know him.
We have been accustomed by cinema to imagine the 17th and 18thcenturies under the aspect of refinement, good manners, tactfullnessand sweeps of the leg.
It's not that they didn't exist, but it all tends to lead us toforget what was the intrinsic harshness of daily life in those times,including the ruling class, the only one which regularly practicedthose things, and actually had access to that music.
If those people could spend fortunes in silks, brocades, and lace,I'm afraid that it was in the same turn of mind which leads youngghetto people of our times to invest everything iin their looks, thatis showing off. And that anyone of the three musketeers was merely ahot blooded thug, ready to draw the knife at any provocation ( oranything that might be interpreted as such). With the difference thatthe knife was three feet long!
I do believe that this refinement and those good manners, musicincluded, were very simply the counterweight to the brutality oftheir lives, and this is what we tend to forget too easily. Listenersof that music were the kind to hurry, men and women, to hunt onhorseback, to spend important sums of energy for the leasttransportation (just think what represented in those days a trip of amere 30 miles!). The sanitary and hygienic conditions of the timewould be horrendous to our eyes, and it is necessary to remember thatyou risked death every day. Also think of Cellini and to theaccusations of murder for which he was jailed. Think É here is anexample É captain Hume was a soldier who fought in the ThirtyYears War in Europe, who composed exquisite gamba viol music, andsays in the foreword of his «Musicall Humours» that musicis the only effeminate part in him. Think of those warriors who livein the neighborhood of death more often than once and who can juststart to cry as they listen to some sweet love song: these are stillamong us, nowadays, but they are no longer part of our milieu!
Do not be led to believe that the musicians, those who composedthis music did much escapet to this portrait. Of course, they seldomwent to war, but this doesn't mean that their life was easier.
This shall you understand how important it is to clear this musicof a management much too "petit-bourgeois", in the tearoom style,with the scones and cakes on a napkin upon your clasped knees, andthe cup of tea with saucer held in hand with a stiff little finger.In his book "Vous avez dit baroque?" Philippe Beaussant alludes tothese early 20th century paintings in the "troubadour" style whichcan be seen in many a theater hall, a pompous art, without vigour. Ifyou compare this painting with that of the 17th or 18th centuries,you easily understand the difference.
Something else: the Baroque follows the Humanistic period. Born asa reaction to the extreme complexity of the intellectual tendenciesof the Middle Age -- a complexity which sort of turned upon itself,it must be said -- Humanism had thought it could perfectly organizethe world. Just think of Thomas More and of his Utopia, atotalitarian delirium which announced some others.
Then, naturally, Humanism fails precisely on its programme, andBaroque, in the purest tradition of the oscillation between reasonand feeling, takes its place. But it takes a slightly peculiartangent, which is that of accepting to assume the chaos and draworder out of it, and admit that order should live side by side withchaos. That is, to try to give a just representation of life.
Frank Hubbard, one of those who recreated harpsichord making ascopy of the antique, in his basic book "Three Centuries ofHarpsichord Making", wrote this passsage which I always foundstriking. Here it is in-extenso.
"An art will gain in force and intensity only if its substancesubmits to its means, if nature is ordered. It is in geometrical formthat a sinuous and ungraspable musical line expresses itself wheninterpreted on the harpsichord, and this is what gives theirparticular tension to keyboard works of the baroque period. More thanany other, the baroque style stems from the opposition betweensubstance and the means of expression. The fluid lines of naturalshapes are sculpted into the rigid stones of its architecture, theexuberance of the movements is released in living manner from thestatic support of its paintings, and listening to its music, we feelthe constant tension which exerts itself between the implicit nuancesof its musical line and the neat but rigid exposition which is givento it. If you begin to express all the implications, you immediatelydeprive this music from its character".
In «Une leçon particulière», one may hearScott say, as an echo of this passage from Hubbard :
"Baroque is characterized by open forms. I understood so manythings with painting and sculpture. This is the only contact that wemay have with the composers. We cannot listen to what they played theway they played, but we may at least see and look to the same thingsthey did".
"As we shall never know, we may only guess, suppose. the only wayto do this is an analytical approach of music itself" .
I shall add two details, which are dance and rhetoric. Dance isalways very present for the public of music at this period. Thinkthat Louis XIV danced himself in the ballets for his court, a greatnumber of ballets were written for him, and although there wereprofessional dancers, all those who wanted to please the king had todance. And if you say dance, you say rhythm and beat.
On the other hand, as remarks Philippe Beaussant, rhetoric takes ahuge place in this civilisation. Even though this word has, for us, arather pejorative savour, it was not so for them. And the art ofexpressing oneself correctly is part of the art of communication.This is the reason why that music clinged so closely to the art ofdeclamation, and that Lully went to listen to the Champmeslé,Racine's favourite actress, in order to know how to put the accentsof his music (a quite normal thing, since he was an Italian, and hetherefore looked for the bes examples). Now, a appropriate rhythm ofthe diction shall always remain a good means of being heard withoutboring one's audience (I'm not yet sure if I can apply what I prone,but that's another talk altogether!)
I spoke of tension, or rather, I quoted Hubbard who spoke oftension. In consequence, I'd like to remind you that in this tension,so present in Racine, for instance, take place the violence ofpassions, of feelings and the restraint in their expression, arestraint which can be found in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, especiallyin Dido's death song; but it is not necessary to cite them all, bymaking recourse to your memory, you'll find many others.
Let's now talk about the finished produce. I shall distribute itin two great shares: Scott's scenic performances, and his teaching.
As for his scenic performance, there are many elements to takeinto account. For the musical elements, properly, I'll be content tocondense: perfect mastership of the instrumental technique, acquiredat a very young age, maximal oeconomy of physical means, deepknowledge of music, very analytical at the moment of acquisition, butvery intuitive and synthetic at the rendering.
To this grafted itself a very significative visual performance.First of all, the looks. He used to act in a way that could have beencategorized as very anti-conformist. No tailcoat nor any dressclothing. He acted in a way to create the conditions of anidentification with the people in the audience. (I do not intend thatthis process was necessarily calculated and conscious, but it is thusthat I analyze it). I have mentioned his absolute and preferentialrespect for his audience. I do believe that anything susceptible toban any sort of alienation was put to work. Thus could he arrive injeans, with a checked woodcutter's shirt and a woollen bonnet. Somepeople in some circles could interpret this as a lack of respect, butnot the audience which Scott tried to capture to his instrument.
At a time when the tailcoat was the latest fashion for maleelegance, one could wear one for a concert. But nowadays, that onewears a t-shirt even for a party, a tailcoat is a disguise. I thuscreates a distance.
Nothing in his manners or his attitude ought to create thatdistance. His technical perfection itself acted paradoxically to thisvery result, that could be observed in many other circumstances :technical maestria always gives to the unwarned spectator animpression that it is so easy.
Finally, he almost always played by rote. Here again, the mere notputting a score between himself and the spectator also suppressed thedistance. Of course, there are people who love not to understand, andin such a case, it is obvious that the score, standing betweenthemselves and the musician, is a plus. But, for the vulgumpecus, immediately, those who can't read music feel excluded andcannot get near the music in the same manner than they would with popmusic.
Now, anyone in the show business knows that the feedback effectwhen you have the support of the audience is a non negligible plusfor the excellence of the performance. Let me be clear. I'm notinferring that his excellence was entirely dependent of his contactwith the audience. But I do believe that this contact greatlybettered the quality of his performance, in the direction of agreater expressive warmth.
He had this taste for minimalism, not necessarily very conscious,but very structuring. Like, "the less I move my hand, the less I'mstressed, the less I'm stressed, the less I move, and the more I letthe music pass through".
All this to make clear the magnetism which was his, and whichprobably counted a lot in his popularity.
As for his teaching, it is interesting, for it opens to us,through the testimonies of his pupils, a new field of investigationon the vision of himself upon his art.
Let's state firs that one of the readings, almost compulsory, thathe gave his pupils, was that of the "Paradoxe sur le Comédien"by Denis Diderot. Reading this book, one finds quite a good number ofthose preoccupations which were his, on various grounds. First ofall, because Diderot talks about the performer. It must be said thathe treats the matter in a register that deeply shocks, nowadays (andsome clues in the book itself make us suspect that it shocked in itstimes as well). It indeed seems to take directly the opposite courseof what is generally said nowadays. See for yourselves :
On page 39 of the pocket edition, one finds : "I demand fromhim (the performer) much judgment. I need in this man a cold andquiet spectator; I consequently demand from him penetration and nosensibility, the art of imitating everything".
"If the comedian were sensible, in good faith would he be able toplay twice the same part, with the same warmth and the same success?"
Then he speaks of the unequality of the actors who play "withtheir soul".
P. 43 : "Sensibility is not really the quality of a greatgenius" .
P. 45 : "All of his talent consists not in feeling, as yousuppose, but to render so scrupulously the external signs of feelingthat you are fooled..
P. 46 : «The actor is tired, and you're sad. The reasonis that he 's broken his back without feeling anything, and you havefelt without breaking your back. If it were otherwise, the comedian'scondition would be the most unhappy of all".
Everyone, nowadays, will agree into saying that, in order to be agood actor, you have to put yourself into the skin of the characterand to live it intensely. Actually, Diderot says all the opposite andI believe that this is what Scott. But not by mere provocation. Tothe contrary, I think that this would perfectly correspond to hisvision of things. Philippe Beaussant says, (in page 20 of «Vousavez dit baroque?» that the pulse, the run-up, the movement ofthis music, are set by some sort of dramatic instinct.
The solution of the enigma actually resides in the 'moment' ofsensibility. When he says that "the only solution to get there is ananalytical approach to music itself", it is obvious that thisapproach cannot be that of the concert, but that of the approachproperly said. That is that you choose a piece, you study it, youwork on it, you break it down, and it's only at the moment thatyou're sure to have understood it correctly that you can start toreconstitute it synthetically. A return to the good old principles ofclassical rhetoric : thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
We have quite a few clues to check what Scott thought. In aninterview with one of his former pupils, this pupil reported a seriesof courses she had had with him on the study of FrançoisCouperin's "la Favorite", which is the chaconne from the third orderin C minor. They had studied it three weeks in a row, and he askedher every time to replay it : "I'd like to hear la Favorite", andthey delved each time further into the detail and the conception ofeach section. On the third week, he had told her, "Good! Play itnow". She had played it a first time, and he had told her, "Nowyou're going to forget everything we've been talking about those lastweeks. You'll play it again, because I can non longer hear anythingbut details!" When Scott realized that it sounded like a sum ofdetails, a red light flashed, "Alert!".
Besides, this is a reflection that often appears with those whoknew Scott, this idea of a synthesis, that is to say that there aretoo many people for whom the harpsichord is a bunch of details whichnever get synthetized.
Just the same, in order to play Frescobaldi, for whom he had agreat affection. For him, Frescobaldi was right into the tradition ofimprovized music, but he held it that the more a music ought to soundas an improvization, and the more the performance ought to bestructured. A good improviser shall have working tracks, he'll have aplan in mind, which ought to be discovered. Scott's message was thus,"You're not the one who's improvising, it's Frescobaldi who wrote thepiece; and if you want it to sound like an improvisation, you have toclaculate almost in micro-millimetres, in milliseconds, in irrationalfractions if need be, but the more you'll want it to sound free, themore you'll have to calculate how you'll manage to make it soundfree".
Now, when Diderot speaks of sensibility, he's talking about theromantic sensibility which takes pretext of the music to excuseitself from doing whatever it wants, and no matter if what it wantsis LisztÉ Diderot wants you to sick to the text, to the author'sintention, not superimpose yourself to it. This is the reason whyScott could be so snappy towards the pupils who"let their sensibilityexpress itself".
P. 68 "The sensible man obeys to the impulses of nature andrenders precisely only the cry of his heart; at the moment when hetempers or forces this cry, it is no longer him, it's an actor who'splaying.
See the paradox : you'll only be accused of acting in a playif you'rre doing badly at it; if you're perfect, you'll fool theaudience and they'll forget you're acting.
You have to be perfectly in control of the situation, and haveperfectly calculated each string of each moment and of the emotionassociated to it, but you can't, and Diderot explains it perfectly,you can't re-live it every evening, because you'd be killed by theemotional charge that this represents. Or you'll be bad three timesout of four. The performer thus has to have decoded perfectly all themoods of the character, but having made some sort of adata-processing catalogue, perfectly mastered and very rationally, sothat he may fetch in the memory the elements of the composed attitudewhich this emotion would arouse.
It was the same with Scott : for instance, in a Toccata byFrescobaldi, he had a way of explaining how there had t o be a threestages progression, but a perfectly harmonious and mathematicalprogression, and he had it that the more mathematical it was and themore natural and elegant had the be the result. He'd establish curvesof tempo, not curves made approximately according to the emotion ofthe moment, but curves truly calculated in order to avoid an abruptstage because of a clumsy fingering. Nothing was left to chance andnever did he say, "This strain is free, let yourself go".
This pupil, now producer for the French speaking CBC said howdifficult this had been for her to accept, at the beginning. Itreally goes against our romantic conceptions.
Actually, I'd say that the error in this conception (within theframe of our subject, of course) is to mistake the result for thestart, for the means. One ought have sensibility, indeed, if you wantto be able to observe and acquire the shape of those emotions whichare of interest to us, but on the stage, it is necessary to pretend,and pretend so well that you get the adhesion of the audience. But toreach that result, you need an enormous quantity of analysis andobservations.
On the other hand, it is fitting to synthetize everything in anefficient manner, and therefore intuitive, if you want an impeccableresult.
Allow me to give you a practical example which might seem slightlyincongruous, but which I believe perfectly pertinent.
A good number of yourselves have a driver's licence. You probablyremember the hardships of your beginnings when you tried to steer avehicle &emdash;
I'm not event talking about the driving itself, pooryou! &emdash; because you generally have to learn separately allthe comands, and it is in no way easy to learn to co-ordinate them.My most strinking remembrance is the difficulty to co-ordinate theclutch and the accelerator. I short, do I say, a supple maneuverwithout hitches. If you mind it well, you have to know a thousandthings. the breadth of the vehicle, its length, and even sometimesits height. You need to have all the commands in hand, sometimes on acar which you're not accustomed to, you have a hard time to pass thegears! In short, think to the number of repeats of the same gesturesyou need in order to be able some day to master those maneuverswithout having to wonder where is this whatsit or thatwhat-do-you-call-it?. Finally, when you finally command all thatdata, you can go on the road, and just think how disturbing can bethe presence of the licence examinator. The sacred terror, once more.If you had not so much feared his judgment, on the day of theexamination, would you have been that bad?
Slight change of register, you see the movies stuntmen? Those havedriving skills which are particularly developed, do you agree? Now,when they have to prepare a stunt, especially if it's a dangerousone, they shall calcultate everything, to the nearest millimetre,repeat, rehearse, do it on foot, in the car, slowly, faster, etc,until they feel ready for the stunt itself.
Why would you want it to be different on a stage, or for aconcert?
Here is why I wanted to talk about Scott from the point of view ofthe false perspective. Because, just like what Diderot explains inhis «Paradoxe sur le Comédien», it is when the artis the fakest that it is the truest. The latin word from which ourword art is taken, was the exact equivalent of the greek wordtechnè, from which we made our word technique.And until the 19th century, there was little distinction betweenboth. It is no chance, there is no art without technique, and anysuccessful technique is an art.
One of the Baroque painting's favourite forms was thetrompe-l'oeil (fool the eye). Scott Ross played his instrument in"trompe-l'oreille" (fool the ear), and this is what wished Couperinin his «Art de toucher le clavessin». I only hope thatothers after him shall be able to revive this art of the"trompe-l'oreille", and this is all the evil that I wish them.
Thanks
__________________________________________________
Excerpt from the interview with CatherinePerrin:
Catherine Perrin : However, he sort of expected a lot to come fromthe student. That is, I think you had to find the way to him. And itstarted to be interesting for him if you could convince him that itwas worth the trouble. And if you had intelligent questions to make,and if you practiced first! What was of no interest to him, but thennone at all!, was to take care of a pupil who had no motivation byhimself. There are teachers for whom this is really a vocation, to bepsychologists as well as pedagogues, to mother them a bit, but then,this was truly the last of his preoccupations! He could sometimes bequite rooten with people, even quite odious, meaning: "it's not myproblem, if pratice bores you!..."..
CP I think that some pieces interested him more than others. Andit showed, it was obvious. You could play him something, you hadstrained yourself for two weeks, and you played: «yeah, yeah,it's all right. Got something else?», because he had no envy totalk about that. And then, once in a while, it would be all thecontrary: you could bring a piece all very innocuous in appearancespend almost all the duration of the lesson over it. And then, reallywe would be methodic, in his way of explaining, in his way ofdemonstrating things, all extremely rational. (...) This is ratherparadoxical because, normally, the teacher ought to be the awakener,he who precisely is to give the student the motivation, thecuriosity, the interest. I, for one, I'd come into the classroom andwondered how long my number would have to last before I could get tocatch his attention. (É) There I asked a question and I'd do onpurpose to ask a slightly provocative question, in order to really,indeed, force him into reacting and get aboard, and there, it did it:he got in little by little and got passionate little by little, likethat. There I received some really genial lessons, which I shallremember all of my life...
CP He was in no way interested by micro-surgery of theharpsichord. What interested him was primarily the musical work, andin that I owe him a lot from having learned with him that we're hereto play works, and not for expressing ourselves through aninstrument. That was clear and neat, his system consisted a lot intosaying... Ah, yes! I remember! I think it was in the second year Iwas his student, I arrived in September, I had prepared the ThirdOrder of Couperin. I played it all, and he'd keep telling me to go onone piece after the other. He said, "Good, very good! Youlistened to my record, this summer ?" And I said no,. It was true, Ihadn't listened to his record. He said, "Is that true!? But it's allright, it's very good, you play a lot like me, and that's the firstthing that I expect from you all". He had been totally clear in thatrespect, and if you challenged him a little on what he said, like"Yes, but I feel it more like this", -- "Ah! Listen, so you do feelit like this", and he'd mock you a lot and add, "you see, I've beenplaying this for some twenty years, and I think that I'm not too badat it, and generally speaking, people like what I do, so, for themoment, try to think it my way, and in fifteen years from now, youshould be able to make your own idea." But he was very snappy andsarcastic form that point of view, he had his own way of letting usunderstand that our interest was imitating him. With a, "good luck,because I have fingers and I know where I'm going. start with that,and after you'll let your personalities express themselves." This ismore or less the message he passed on, and in a rather arrogantmanner. So if you wanted to negociate another approach for a piece,you had to start early.
me: Wasn't it at least a bit possible ?
CP It wasn't impossible, but you had to be quite cunning, just asarticulate as he was, and often, you had to take him through hisspirit of contradiction, because he was also a fanatic ofcontradiction.
me: It enables to get the cat out of the bag, and this is alsovery baroque...
CP En tout cas, c'est le plaisir fou de prendre toujours lecontrepied.Alors, si moi, je savais qu'il prenait une allemande de la4° partita à telle vitesse, et que moi j 'avais envie dela jouer plus vite, j'allais lui dire :« Çapeut pas se prendre plus vite, cette allemande-là, hein?»et puis là :«Ben écoute, pourquoi pas ?»Ça le provoquait à prendre la position inverse, et moiça m'amenait finalement là où je voulais. C'estpourquoi je te dis que très souvent j'ai procédécomme ça avec lui, en prétendant le contraire de ce queje voulais. Par toutes sortes de ruses comme ça, on pouvaitl'amener à admettre ou accepter une autre vision des choses,mais il fallait vraiment, ça nous mettait en devoird'être aussi structuré que lui, parce qu'ill'était! (É)
moi Ce qui me frappe dans ses interprétations, c'est leurimpact, leur force de persuasion. Et quand tu écoutes lesautres, même les meilleurs, on a parfois pas l'impression d'unevision globale qu'il s'agit d'une somme de détails...
CP C'est intéressant, parce que ça me rappelle unexemple très précis. Parce que, des fois, quandmême, je pense à des détails : in French music,he was a maniac of gracenotes, especially in those cases where thecomposers left us precise tables of ornaments; he had a whole systemto extrapolate the composers logic from his table of ornaments; andbring a whole hierarchy in the duration, the lenght of the rests ofan appogiatura, some sort of a really total rationalism, and it wasprefectly coherent as a system, and there, he could be a maniac fordetails. I remember having worked on the Premier Ordre, theTroisième Ordre that way with him, and there he could tell me,you have 14 ornaments in one bar, the relative place which eachshould take in that bar. Then, you know, you start going intoprofound detail! Je me rappelle avoir travaillé avec lui commeça, vraiment ce genre de précision maniaque, là,«la Favorite» qui est la chaconne du troisième ordreen do mineur, et trois semaines de suite, et ça c'étaitde grandes leçons, une période où ilétait très en forme : c'est lui qui me redemandait:«je voudrais réentendre la Favorite», et on allaitencore plus loin dans les détails et la conception de chaquesection et tout ça. Et la troisième semaine, il m'avaitdit : «Bon! Joue-la maintenant.» Je l'avais jouéeune première fois, et il m'a dit : «Là, tu vasabsolument tout oublier ce dont on vient de parler pendant deuxsemaines. Tu vas la rejouer, parce que je n'entend plus que desdétails!» Alors, ça revient à ce que tudisais quand t'écoutes xÉ et que tu entends une somme dedétails. Et ça, quand Scott se rendait compte queça sonnait comme une somme de détails, lalumière rouge s'allumait : «Alerte!».
moi Ah oui! Parce (É) qu'il y a trop de gens pour qui le clavecinn'est qu'une somme de détails sans aucune synthèse.
CP Mais il était très fort là-dedans : ilpouvait quand les détails l'intéressaient, il pouvaitles creuser. Mais par exemple chez Bach, il avait tendance àêtre très... bon tu vois, Scarlatti, je l'ai surpris enflagrant délit d'incohérence d'articulation, chez Bachc'était un peu le contraire. Dès qu'on avait une fuguedevant nous, il disait que c'est tel système d'articulation,tel thème et le reste c'est tout pareil. A la limite,ça l'intéressait même plus. Pour lui, Bach, il leconcevait beaucoup par système. Il y avait un systèmed'articulation qui s'appliquait à une pièce, quiservait à énoncer le matériau comme il faut, etaprès ça, il fallait juste l'appliquer. Dans la musiquefrançaise, il était beaucoup plus prêt àaller dans les détails, à répondre à desquestions de détails.
moi A l'époque, j'avais eu l'impression que Scott osait pastraiter Bach comme il traitait les autres compositeurs.
CP Ben, encore une fois, ça vient de l'attitudeextrêmement honnête de l'interprète qui veutd'abord et avant tout jouer une oeuvre et qui veut pas laisser sa"personnalité" s'exprimer ! C'est pour ça qu'ildétestait Glenn Gould, d'ailleurs, à cause de lapersonnalisation à outrance que Glenn Gould applique.Peut-être que chez Bach, ça se manifestait...
moi Mais j'ai l'impression qu'il ne traitait pas Bach selon lamême logique que les autres compositeurs baroques, comme si lepoids de la semi-déification qu'il a subi depuis leXIX°siècle qui est un handicap pour nous tous, l'avaitlui aussi touché.
CP Je pense que l'on est en train de commencer à remettreen question tout ça. Mais même à l'époqueoù Scott enseignait le plus, c'était même pasamorcé. Scott était encore de lagénération qui remettait pas ces choses-là enquestion. Il aimait Bach assez carré et en assez longue ligne.Il l'aimait lisse. Il aimait pas qu'on se pose trop de questions surBach. Il voulait qu'on campe le caractère de chaquepièce, mais pas qu'on se casse la tête trop longtemps.On mettait en place le système, ou on faisait une analyse. Jeme rappelle qu'il nous avait fait analyser le, une fois il aété juge à Bruges, la premièreannée où je travaillais avec lui, il revenait deBruges, la pièce imposée il y avait le préludeet fugue en la bémol du deuxième livre ( no XVII ) . Ilnous avait fait travailler ça à toute la classe. Etquand il m'avait demandé de la monter, je lui avaisdemandé s'il était pas un peu écoeuré del'entendre et il a répliqué qu'il l'avait tellemententendue mal jouée à Bruges qu'il avaitdécidé de se satisfaire et de l'enseigner à sesélèves. (É)
moi Penses-tu qu'on pourrait tirer des principes de samanière de structurer la musique?
CP Ça dépend des répertoires. On a vu, pourBach et les français ce qui en est. Pour Frescobaldi,c'était tout-à-fait autre chose. Il avait beaucoupbeaucoup d'affection pour cette musique-là, et là,encore une fois, c'était l'exemple parfait pour lui de quandil faisait référence au paradoxe du comédien deDiderot. Pour lui, Frescobaldi, c'était dans la tradition dela musique improvisée, mais il prétendait que, plus unemusique doit sonner comme une improvisation, plusl'interprétation réelle doit êtrestructurée. (É) Un bon improvisateur va avoir des pistes detravail, va avoir un plan en tête, tout comme Frescobaldi avaitun plan en tête en commençant à écrire unetoccate, mais ce dont je te parle, ça allait infiniment plusloin que ça, c'est à dire que, justement, ce qu'ildisait, ce qu'il livrait comme message c'était : «C'estpas vous qui improvisez, c'est Frescobaldi qui a écrit lapièce; et pour qu'elle sonne comme une improvisation, il fautfaire des calculs presque vraiment en millimètres, enmillisecondes, en fractions irrationnelles s'il le faut, mais plusça doit sonner libre, plus il faut calculer comment on vas'arranger pour que ça sonne libre. Parce que comme onn'improvise pas, et c'est là aussi qu'il avait cetespèce de mépris ou d'ironie pour les gens qui laissentleur sensibilité parler...
moi Je vois pourquoi tu parles du Paradoxe du comédien. Ilfaut qu'il soit parfaitement faux pour avoir l'air vrai.
CP Il faut qu'il soit parfaitement en contrôle de lasituation, et qu'il ait parfaitement calculé chaque ficelle,si tu veux, de chaque moment et de l'émotion qui y estassociée, mais il ne peut pas, et ça Diderot l'expliquetrès bien dans son texte, revivre chaque soir cesémotions-là, parce qu'il serait tué par lacharge que ça représente. Et si il essaie de lesrevivre, il va être mauvais, dit Diderot, trois soirs surquatre et il va être très bon un soir sur quatre, alorsil faut que le bon comédien ait parfaitementdécodé tous les états d'âme du personnage,mais en avoir fait une sorte de catalogue photographique qu'ilmaîtrise parfaitement et de façon rationnelle, et qu'ilappelle comme un ordinateur, on va chercher dans la mémoire untruc, une fenêtre qui s'ouvre, et qu'il appelle en luil'attitude composée que l'émotion susciterait. Et pourScott, c'était la même chose : il employait vraimentcette comparaison avec le Paradoxe du comédien, c'est lui quime l'a fait lire, il disait par exemple dans une toccate deFrescobaldi, je pourrais te montrer une partition annotée parlui, des +, + +; -, - -, tout un code comme ça, une grande,une très belle ouverture d'une toccate de Frescobaldi. Andthere, he had a manner of explaining to me how there was to be athree stages progression, but three stages in very harmoniousprogression, mathematical in that sense; and for him, the moremathematical it was and the more natural and elegant was the resultto come out. It was strange and difficult to accept in the beginning,then finally, never after that did I prepare otherwise Frescobaldi'sToccatas. Thinking about the stages, the relative weight in therhythm, in a tempo. He'd have us realize curves of tempo. He was nomaniacal scribbler who uses three or four different colours ofpencil, at all at all, but I mean, we had to be able to get the idea;then there it became a full contract, precisely he wanted us toimagine curves of tempo, not curves made approximately according tothe moment's emotion, but curves truly calculated and, in order thatthere be no fault in it, in order to avoid that at a given moment,due to a poor fingering, it make a stage which would fall a bitabruptly. Overlaps of two lines which do not look smooth from one tothe other. Then, everything was like that in his approach ofFrescobaldi's music, especially. Nothing was left to chance and neverdid he tell us: «this passage is free, let yourself go»,never! Scott never told anyone:«let yourself go», exceptfor Bach's grand Fugues, very paradoxically, because according tohim, it was that, finally, letting oneself go! Mais là, moi,j'avais un problème différent, parce que çam'était pas naturel de déchiffrer comme ça unefugue à toute vitesse, mais pour lui, Bach, c'étaitvite expédié.
moi C'est pour ça que je m'étais demandé s'ilaimait vraiment Bach...
CP Je pense qu'il l'aimait, mais c'est dans un sens,peut-être une extrême pudeur, réserve, qui faisaitqu'il avait tendance à dire : «faut le jouer comme ilest. Faut le jouer comme il est , l'écouter et le respecter». Quand il joue Bach, il y a des choses sublimes, qui vontrester universelles, parce qu'il joue honnêtement ce qu'il adevant lui, avec intelligence et avec éloquence. Malgrétout. J'ai entendu ses partitas après sa mort, j'aiété impressionnée. C'est sûr qu'on peutparfois avoir des réserves : il y a des coins tournésun peu rond, plein de détails qui auraient pu êtresoulignés, tout ça, mais ça va resteréloquent.
moi C'est vrai que maintenant que tu me dis tout ça, il y aune phrase qu'il m'avait dite une fois et qui s'inscrit beaucoupmieux dans un contexte plus général et il disait :«on peut pas faire de la musique si on se préoccupe tropdes fausses notes».
CP Oui, effectivement, il parlait pas beaucoup des fausses notes,alors que l'école de Bernard Lagacé, c'est uneobsession; quand il est juge de concours, il peut dire : «C'estpas mal, mais vous avez fait 11 fausses notes!» .
Un autre type de pièce où Scott pouvait passer touteune leçon et faire un décodage maximum, c'étaitles préludes non-mesurés. D'Anglebert et LouisCouperin, les deux. Il m'a donné des outils vraiment fabuleuxpour travailler ces pièces-là. He's the one who gave methe taste and the love of these pieces, because he had a way ofgetting to draw working principles that were useful to us afterwards,when we took up other works of the same kind. It was true forFrescobaldi, and for the French. Myself, I owe him all mymethodology, all the way of approaching those works. The frenchcourantes, my god! what did I learn with Scott for the frenchcourantes, it's incredible; the way of decoding the rhythmic, ofdecoding what ought to be thought in three-four time and what oughtto be thought in two-two time and to see, and that, Scott has aunique way of doing it, he had explained it very well to me, to seehow sometimes, for some bars, one ought not make a decision whichwould assimilate one hand to the other. In other words, if there is arather hesitating 6/4 on the right hand, tam,tadampopopom pom, itdoesn't mean, if you have only crotchets or crotchets and semibreveson the left hand, one ought automatically decide that the left handwill also be in 6/4, because, sometimes, if you look well at the waythese crotchets or semibreves are, particularly on the left hand,linked together by the composer, you can realize that you could alsothink in in three-four time, this very bar; and Scott had this uniquegift of convincing us that both can cohabit in one bar, and that youcan give a sort of "swing" completely unique in a courante, which isto make both cohabit without having a clear decision, as for anassimilation to a bar, to an inside division, rather than to theother. But sometimes, admitting that, for half a bar or for a wholebar, you be in a floating condition because, (what he maintained), itbrings the tempo to be almost suspended for that whole bar; and youfall back upon the first beat of the next bar.
You know, he has a really very eloquent way to mention this; and Ihave a lot, at that moment, worked upon some; and I had trouble atfirst, I had trouble; then, at a given moment, I understood thesystem, and there, ever since then, I have been able to play anycourante in lecture, and soon been able to seize the goals and therhythmic divisions. Then, what I really appreciated from him, was hisway, sometimes, to pass upon us applicable models, inside of whichone can keep a certain liberty. It's ten years now since I finished,more even since I had my last lesson with Scott. It's sure that sincethose days there are things for which I sent him packing, that'sevident. But these very tools have proven very precious to me
moi Donc, on peut dire que ce qu'il a apporté à sesélèves, du moins ceux qui ont eu la patience de vouloirle comprendre, ça pas été tant une façond'interpréter, mais des outils pour savoir trouver unefaçon d'interpréter ?
CP Yes, a manner of interpreting, that's what he wanted,temporarily, and I think that this is what we all did. (É)
(return to the Scott Rosspage)