At the Folle Journée Schubert the artists follow one another. In the great auditorium of Nantes the young Victor Julien-Laferrière completes his cellist’s bow with the conductor’s baton. Continuation of our encounters with musicians who speak to us of “their” Schubert.
Victor Julien-Laferrière is only 31 years old, and already has a busy career: first as one of the most brilliant representatives of the French cello school, both with prestigious partners (the Capuçons; the pianist Adam Laloum with who he formed the trio spirits, both joined by violinist Mi-sa Yang) But today he is embarking on a career as a conductor, founding the Consuelo Orchestra at the most ubiquitous moment he confides to us, that is to say a few weeks before the start of the health crisis.
We heard it in the Grand Auditorium of Nantes, surrounded by brilliant young musicians and first in a superb transcription for cello and string orchestra of the Arpeggione Sonata. Remember that the arpeggione was a big thing between cello and double bass which had no success, except that Schubert was the only one to write for him, in any case a brilliant work that we play today on the cello. And here is this beautiful transcription, whose origins we do not know, where, under the bow of Julien-Laferrière, a warm, modest bow, of rare elegance, we suddenly hear the only concerto that Schubert could have composed.
Members of the orchestra Consuelo C) Marc Roger / CREA
This within a Schubert program that Julien-Laferrière will take 12 times on this Crazy Day, and which will also include, instead of theArpeggione, a choice of lieder with orchestra or the overture of a forgotten opera, The Enchanted Harp; but a work will not change, this 5th symphony, a small masterpiece of a carefree Mendelssohn style that the Consuelo orchestra plays with finesse, however giving the last movement the ardor and the Beethovenian grandeur that Schubert had put there. Julien-Laferrière directs it with flexibility, beautiful to see but, of course, still perfectible in this art of direction that he absolutely wants to pursue (at 12 I was already looking to direct my young musician friends) even if he is not obviously no question for me of abandoning the practice of the cello.
The orchestra Consuelo
Consuelo is a novel by George Sand that fascinated me when I read it when I was 16 or 17. The story-river of a singer in the years 1830-1840, those of Malibran, Gritti, Pauline Viardot. One of the rare novels on the music, of the one which, near Chopin was with good school!
Schubert’s world
Each composer is a world for me, a world without limits. For Schubert I would gladly repeat what he would have said, but it is perhaps apocryphal: When I try to write happy music it sounds sad, when I try to write sad music it sounds happy. Whether it’s his or not, it shows the ambiguity of the feelings he’s trying to convey to us. At the same time, I also see his work as a space of which I may never know all the corners… He wrote so much. Few people know everything about Schubert. There are still many discoveries to be made, the piano 4 hands, the works for violin and piano, the operas of course, never played, the masses.
Schubert’s diversity
And also Schubert shows an incredible diversity. We talk about him as the man of the divine lengths and at the same time as that of short forms. Songs are sometimes long stories, and sometimes they are sketches. Each time I try to discover new countries, or landscapes, Schubertians, today it’s the symphonic repertoire…
Musicians getting ready C) Marc Roger/ CREA
The sparkling and the depth
There, tomorrow, for example, we play the opening of The magic harp. It’s the dramatic Schubert that we don’t know very well; initially it was an opera, but the story sucked and the press at the time was very bad, all the same emphasizing the quality of the music of Herr Schubert. Now it’s known as theOpening of Rosamonde. It’s an almost Offenbachian Schubert, between Johann Strauss and Offenbach rather, with a start à la Schubert, quite dramatic and suddenly a allegro very light, very fun. Schubert’s ambiguity! We are in it.
A fraternal composer
For me Schubert is still fraternity too. With several aspects of fraternity: of course making music, composing for a group of friends, but also, in this fraternal side, the feeling that he speaks to us directly. He also has a real relationship to popular music… He can use the great classical forms but suddenly it suddenly goes elsewhere and it doesn’t bother him; he never yields to the conventions of the time or in any case he is never a prisoner of them. When he writes a allegro for example, it’s always completely personal, never similar to those that were composed in his time, which corresponded to specific canons.
An address in the world? Or to an inner circle?
In the symphonies, we obviously also find that in Beethoven, we have the feeling of a concentration of their languages. Perhaps because of the large numbers, they prioritize the elements that they believe should affect everyone. It’s not at all the same writing as in the quartets. Beethoven did this even more obviously, as if addressing an even larger people than the Viennese public; in any case, he had this idea in mind. Schubert follows this model. Fraternity, there, is more in the sense a brotherhood of peoples.
Does Schubert address the world (in his masses, his operas, he wrote so young)? Or is he talking to his friends? More ambiguity!
At the Folle Journée de Nantes Victor Julien-Laferrière cellist and conductor Consuelo: by Schubert the 5th symphony, Lieder with orchestra, overture to La harpe enchantée, Sonata for arpeggione and string orchestra