At each edition of the festival “A violin on the sand”, the festival and its organizer Philippe Tranchet invites a “variety artist” who comes to sing one of its titles during an evening on the beach. The programming of the 2014 edition allowed the meeting between the classical pianist Nicholas Angelich and Jean-Louis Aubert.
Angelich in tears, Aubert comforts him
Philippe Tranchet: It’s true that with around fifteen artists invited each year, there are a lot of anecdotes and memories. But there are some that marked us a little more and that we remember. I am thinking, for example, of Nicholas Angelich, a magnificent and extremely sensitive pianist who sadly passed away a few weeks ago.
I remember an incredible story about him since when he was in Royan for the festival, the hotel where he was staying called me saying Philippe, we have a problem. Your pianist has ordered a taxi for us, he absolutely wants to go back to Paris. If you could come! Of course, I quickly came on my scooter and found Nicholas Angelich slumped over in an armchair, crying. He said to me: your secretary called me saying that I had been bad at rehearsal and that you didn’t want me anymore. So I’m leaving.”
Extremely surprised, especially since Jean-Francois Zygel, who was staying in the same hotel, comes down and tells me the same story. He had just received a phone call asking him to leave. It was pretty epic and everyone was trying to console Nicholas Angelich.
At the same time, Jean-Louis Aubert, who also participated in the concert that year, arrives at the bottom of the hotel, in the reception hall, and he sees Nicholas Angelich in tears. We explain the situation to him and he really takes him under his wing. They both spin to the bar and we haven’t seen them again. In any case, they remained inseparable until the end of the festival.
For the record, the same evening, there was the concert in which Nicholas Angelich and Jean-Louis Aubert took part on the Grande Plage de Royan. And at the end of the concert, Jean-Louis sang the song “another world” and Nicholas Angelich, who was backstage with me, took me in his arms and said to me: but it’s telephone! It should be remembered that Nicolas Angelich is American and that he did not know that Jean-Louis Aubert was the singer of the group Telephone. And there, he confided in me, he said to me: but this song, it’s the first one I listened to when I came to France.
The next day there was a recital with Nicholas Angelich on the Talmont cliff and Jean-Louis Aubert stayed longer to see his friend.