Classical Music

‘You don’t come to England for eating,’ says Pierre-Laurent Aimard, admittedly when pushed on the subject. But it was at a London dinner party in 2004 that the concept of the current Olivier Messiaen festival was born, and it was decided that he should be its artistic director.

Such is the London life, although it does help if the event is Harrison Birtwistle’s seventieth birthday celebration and your fellow diners are in charge of the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Southbank Centre.

Aimard was the natural choice; his credentials are impeccable. The 50-year-old concert pianist from Lyon had known the French composer since he was 12. Few other young musicians can have lived in such close proximity to a composer whose work they are learning. And the insights came not just from Messiaen himself: Aimard studied piano at the Paris Conservatoire with the composer’s wife, Yvonne Loriod. It was there that he took first prize in the Messiaen Competition in 1973, and at a tender 19 was chosen by Pierre Boulez to become the first solo pianist for his Ensemble InterContemporain.

It must have been an intense time. ‘I was mad for his music; a fanatic,’ he explains, in his wonderfully slow and considered French manner that makes everything he says sound sophisticated.

In a photograph of him with Messiaen, taken in 1980, he looks happy yet slightly awed in the presence of the great man. What does he think when he sees it now? He laughs fondly: ‘Memories. It’s another part of my life. Probably at that moment I thought that Messiaen was a kind of pope of music… He was a very illuminating presence. ’

At the time Messiaen was in his seventies. Was he a father figure to the young pianist? There is a long pause. ‘More a grandfather, I think,’ he says. ‘They had been married for some years before I arrived in Yvonne’s class. And having waited for a long time, they had no children. So Yvonne always said I was their first adopted son.’

Tempting as it must have been to play as much as possible, Aimard has restricted himself to just five concerts, although these include the mighty ‘Turangalîla Symphony’ and the solo ‘Vingt Regards sur L’Enfant Jésus’ (‘Twenty Reflections on the Baby Jesus’). The former is a celebration of nature; the latter a meditation reflecting Messiaen’s profound religiosity.

Aimard, who once shared the composer’s deeply Catholic faith, doesn’t believe that the audience or performer need hold this conviction
to appreciate his vision. ‘You don’t need to be Christian to admire cathedrals,’ he observes.

Despite the exotic and eclectic nature of Messiaen’s music, does he agree that it is still very French? He reflects, before revealing enigmatically: ‘I think so. This is a music to be heard, which has a lot to do with timbre, and is very precisely defined. So it seems to me there are three good reasons for this music to be French.’

And as a Frenchman, surely Aimard has an advantage in interpreting it? After another Pinteresque pause, the pianist explains: ‘Maybe. I don’t know.

'I have the advantage of having known the culture of a lot of new music that he heard and appreciated, allowing me to point to the modern aspect in his music – a dimension that seems to me essential.’

Anyway, never mind all that. What does this Paris-based Frenchman think of our much more exciting capital? With a year-long festival ahead of him, will he be spending much time here?

‘Not that much,’ he says. ‘I spend time in London when I have to.’

Touché.

The Olivier Messiaen festival, From the Canyons to the Stars, continues at the Southbank until December.