Bertrand Chamayou on Ravel Fragments

I first enjoyed the piano playing of Bertrand Chamayou in his Saint-Saëns recordings, and I've been following him ever since, so it was a pleasure for me to speak with him about his new album, Ravel Fragments - released in this year celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth. We also talked more widely about Ravel's music, playing the piano, the recording process and a concerto by a French composer who is rarely associated with the piano. Once you've enjoyed hearing more from this fascinating and creative musician, there's a promotion to explore, offering up to 45% off selected French music titles.

What inspired you to create the Ravel Fragments programme?

I had this idea very late. Normally my albums are processing for years - you know, when I recorded the solo Ravel ten years ago, the Messiaen, all the Liszt things... That was music that I was cherishing and that I had in my system since childhood. Somehow, I knew that I would do something with them sooner or later. In this case, suddenly during the autumn, I had the idea of the album and recorded it two months later.

I have a special link to Ravel that I've played his music so much, and I'm also curating the Festival Ravel in France. So, everybody was waiting for me to do something for this anniversary. I want to do the concertos, the chamber music and the songs, but for many reasons it didn't happen yet, so I decided I didn't have any gift for Ravel this year. I started to think especially about the transcriptions by Ravel himself of La Valse and Daphnis, and those fragments that I didn’t reject but decided not to record ten years ago.

I went for pieces which reminded of an aspect of Ravel in that when you play the whole program together, it's sometimes seamless and hard to find what is real Ravel. It’s a fragmented portrait of Ravel without boundaries because sometimes, especially in the contemporary pieces, it's very far from Ravel, but there is something still that can link it to the rest of the music. If you don't listen carefully, you're always caught in this Ravelian spirit, and that was the idea I had in mind. I recorded it just before Christmas. I was still processing one week before, still changing things, changing the order and learning some pieces.

I see that the Ravel complete solo works collection is coming out on vinyl now, but I guess your relationship with that music has developed even further.

That's for sure. I'm playing them again now in concert, the complete works and I can tell my thoughts have evolved. I didn't try to do something different, but it's ten years later and I went through a lot of different things since. 

When you have recorded something, there is always this phenomenon that then you feel a little bit freer. Sometimes it's the best way to learn a piece in a very solid way because it's like watching yourself in the mirror all the time during recording. And of course, then I let it rest and come back to it with a different angle, with a lot of different experiences with other pieces and other composers. But it's really something that I never try to force myself to have a different perspective, it's coming naturally.

What's your approach to pedalling in this music? Do you use the sostenuto (middle pedal) to help control the complexity of the lines and achieve the clarity in your playing?

Almost not at all. I use it only when it's written, so mainly in contemporary pieces. I always find it superficial, and I don't like it. I prefer to really play the game, even sometimes to blur the harmony if you have to hold a low note, for example, for a long time. I don't think Ravel thought about the third pedal, and when you use it, it becomes too clean in a way.

Many colleagues are saying to me that I use very little sustain pedal, and it's funny because it’s very rare that I completely remove the pedal, but I'm changing it all the time, sometimes in a very subtle way. More often, if you balance a little bit with the fingers, you can achieve this feeling of having a real legato and the pedal just adds something, a colourist thing. Probably this is why people think I'm not using so much because I'm very often cleaning the pedal, but I am using it like 95 percent of the time, actually.

In the booklet notes for the Messiaen, the Ravel complete works and this new album, it is specified not only that the piano is a Steinway D, but also the serial number of that Steinway and the technician who worked on it. How involved do you get in choosing the piano and working with the technician to bring out what is important to you?

A lot of my albums are made on my own piano. On Fragments, I didn't use it because I have to change the hammers and for now, I use my own piano to practice at home, but it's resting a little bit for recordings.

I'm very much involved in the choice of the piano. I'm working always with the same technician that is a friend and a person that I really trust. First, he's a great technician, but what I like also about him, and this is the same with the sound engineer that I'm recording with, is the attitude. When I made those recordings, even until the last moment, I'm having new ideas and changing sometimes. And I love people who don't come with a completely fixed idea about what they are going to do. They have their knowledge and their skills, but I love the idea that everybody likes to be in this kind of laboratory, experimenting a bit. Some people are sceptical when you go out of any comfort zone. I can understand that we have limitations, but I don't like the attitude of being immediately sceptical when you don't do the traditional thing.

My sound engineer is the same - when you propose something, he's always ready to try. The piano technician has some skills also in sound engineering, so they can discuss everything and we are working as a team. We are having lunch and breakfast together, we are working at night, everybody's totally one hundred, two hundred percent involved in the process of the recording. It's really special.

I can see you're playing the Ravel concerto in concert soon. Might we expect to see you record the concertos at some point?

For sure. It's just a question of time and having the right partners, conductors and orchestras. I've played those concertos so much, and I'm still wondering a little bit which direction to take. It’s something that is processing for so long that I would like to be sure I'm going in the right direction. It’s just I want to find the right opportunity with the right constellation of people. 

This is how I built everything in my life. It's through partnerships and really with conductors, with managers, with promoters, with chamber music partners… They are very close relationships and strong collaborations, and I believe in working hand in hand with people who make you grow.

Your schedule also includes performances of Massenet's piano concerto. What attracts you to this piece?

I've known this piece for a long time, and it's different, but still very well written for the piano. It's quite unexpected because we always think about Massenet as an opera composer, but actually he knew very well how to make the piano sound. It's very brilliant, superbly orchestrated, and the melodies are like in the operas - very catchy, very lyrical. The slow movement is quite beautiful but it's on the easy listening side, but I like sometimes to have those moments. The French romanticism is also part of me, and of course, when you think about Ravel or Messiaen (also very different composers to each other) you wouldn't think it was linked, but actually both have been influenced by Massenet's lines. Messiaen referred to Massenet when he was writing Poèmes pour Mi, for example, and Ravel definitely referred all his life to Massenet. This is leading to the music that interests me the most, it brings me some joy and it's a French concerto that should be defended, and I think I'm in a position to do that. 

Finally, are there any pianists whose playing you enjoy the most?

A lot of them, all the great names. I've been very much into Horowitz, Cortot, Michaelangeli, Lipatti, and Sofronitsky. Also Radu Lupu - I have loved so many of his concerts and recordings. Out of living pianists, I very much enjoy the playing of Krystian Zimmerman, but I could name many.