We accompanied him to his concert, we discussed with him, we exchanged thoughts of all kinds, and not only on music, a field in which he is inexhaustible. Literature, philosophy, the march of the world: Debargue pursues an itinerary that mixes so many possible paths, whose concerts are anchor points, exciting each time, for others obviously, but also for himself.
Pianist and true hiker
So let’s start with the music. By the concert. Here we are at the Théâtre des Terrasses de Gordes, Vaucluse, perhaps the most famous, or busiest, village in the Luberon, perched on its cliffs, so that, lost, we had to climb one and Debargue, backpack like a true hiker, to precede us with a supple stride while we pulled our legs a little. Because obviously that evening it’s hot, even stormy… and, little worry, the piano is not covered, which would mean cancellation. Fortunately the clouds leave, the spectators arrive and Debargue tells them a word about this program – Debargue’s programs are always carefully constructed – which is, around Liszt, that of an “orchestral” piano, more exactly, of what Liszt did with the piano, going to see composers who followed the Hungarian master in their compositions for the instrument. Although in their own way…
Lucas Debargue, 2015 C) Joël Saget/ AFP
Ravel’s Darkness
And first of all Debargue himself. Who adapts a work for organ by César Franck, the Fantasy in A minor, and there is at the same time this Franckist writing à la Bach, also – from Debargue? – flashes coming perhaps from the orchestra, the Symphony in D minor of the same Franck or Tristan and Isolda of Wagner.
Gaspard of the night. Ravel. Debargue will have spoken to us at length about the dark side of Ravel, who too often disappears behind the image of a “Swiss watchmaker” always under control as well as his outfit so “dressed to the nines”. The bantering Ravel, also frank, sometimes brutally frank, curious; and, in some of his scores, of a desperate darkness that we rediscover, that we lay bare. The waltz, the Concerto for the left hand, the Bolero also, in its automaton immutability. And this Gaspard of the night which culminates in a Scarbo, the evil gnome whose promenade Debargue really controls, as if Scarbo could not content himself with wandering haphazardly through the gloomy night of the city where everything is asleep, where everything, perhaps, has succumbed.
A structured mood
A Undine constructed too, hesitant at first to dive in, then growing bolder, splashing water in her dreams, until the final explosion. And when asked how he handles this pivotal note ofAt the gallows (constantly repeated, often doubled, like the swing of a hanged man at the end of his rope), this note which is the red, indelible stain of Lady Macbeth, he answers: According to my mood.
Panorama from Gordes C) Bertrand Renard, France Info Culture
This is what is fascinating with Debargue: according to his mood, but never out of pure pleasure or fantasy, or, more precisely, by trying other paths provided they lead somewhere. Thus, at the end of Scarbo, we hear very well that the gnome leaves the city but Debargue gives us the feeling that he burned it down.
Infernal “Divine Comedy”
We were less convinced that evening by the Fantasy opus 28 of Scriabin, a period when Scriabin abandoned Chopin in favor… not of Liszt but of himself. The structure disappears a little to the profit of the excess, this piano-orchestra which one will hear much better in… Liszt precisely. the sonata After reading Dante where Debargue deliberately plays the terrifying visions of Divine Comedy, next to which the painting by Delacroix, Dante’s Boat, is a piece of zenitude. Raging reading, from a superb piano and, this time, truly orchestral, where we leave all hope, as Dante wants. We even say to ourselves that Liszt should have stopped reading Dante if it put him in such a state. But Liszt reading the Comtesse de Ségur would have succeeded in drawing infernal visions from it.
Triumphant applause. We were at the heart of an enthusiastic group (legitimately) who asked the pianist for encores, so a sonata by Scarlatti (calm and uncluttered) then the Scherzo No. 2 of Chopin, a Chopin, according to Debargue, who looked towards Liszt, except that one heard Ravel there and even… Cuban rhythms.
And, as we asked him in his troglodyte lodge (these cliffs of Gordes are a strange mystery) if he felt tired, in a calm voice: I would have continued. The public too.
Lucas Debargue, Moscow, Tchaikovsky competition, June 21, 2015 C) International Tchaikovsky / AFP
The Faurean mystery scrutinized
Where is he going now? In the mystery of Fauré, of which he explains to us the intense difficulty that one does not necessarily distinguish by ear (Fouchenneret had also spoken to us about it, chronicle of ): this rhythmic swing of Fauré which requires finding a breath in the sentences , breathings always indicated in others (Liszt, Chopin, Ravel, precisely), and which hides the apparently peaceful progress of the works of Fauré. The richness also (we enter into the technique) of the counterpoint, of the bass lines, of this continuous flow where it is necessary to create contrasts (all the romantics, since Beethoven, used them abundantly), which make Fauré an enigma to which his attacks few pianists. But puzzles fascinate Debargue, we understand.
There is also this opera commissioned from him by Gidon Kremer, excuse me. A friendship was born with the Latvian violinist, the order is already a few years old but, in a pianist who is not even 32 years old, the question undoubtedly arises: am i mature? He answers us: The process is very slow for me for this project. Maybe because he is so close to my heart.
The composer, the audience, the performer
Questions about Art, with a capital A, about the relationships between the arts to which Debargue, he, the great reader (including of contemporary American philosophers whose names we have not necessarily retained), is very sensitive -and necessarily musicians like him, more than in other arts, began their apprenticeship so early that it does not leave much room for other curiosities. So we have to build them. But a conversation with Debargue (who, on his return from Gordes, will start a lively discussion on Scarlatti with Pierre Hantaï and another harpsichordist) is always surprising because it is like a thought that is always in motion. That we can dispute or not because the debate feeds him and if the argument is valid he is ready to hear it (perhaps not to accept it. There are limits!) We have “connected” it pompously on the “metaphysics” of the artist. Eminently long answer – and a conference of Debargue in front of the public, after concert, would fascinate many. Because the composer-performer tête-à-tête is replaced by the triangle, and its third angle, the audience. But not as a sort of dark, undifferentiated mass: the audience is each of us individually. And being a musician is a vocation. Not a vocation of elected officials but of volunteers. By the way to say that an artist “has” talent is not fair. An artist IS or IS NOT in his art. We could continue with him, too (observation so shared, but nothing really moves) on the elitism of art, which we do nothing really to reduce…
Lucas Debargue, Gordes, rehearsal C) Bertrand Renard, France Info Culture
stars and earth
On the way back, in the Provencal night, we talked about Berl and Bernanos, perhaps grace, which is not just a matter of religion. There was a strange peace under the starry sky, much calmer than Van Gogh’s. We left him with Scarlatti and Hantaï. Still asking him the question:
– The next project?
– Get my driver’s license.
Back on the ground.
Lucas Debargue: Franck/ Debargue (Fantasy in A minor) Ravel (Gaspard of the night) Scriabin (Fantasy opus 28) Liszt (Sonata “After a reading of Dante”) Gordes (Vaucluse), Théâtre des Terrasses, July 28 (as part of the La Roque-d’Anthéron piano festival)