How was the idea for this concert born?
I must confess it was born in several stages… It has turned out to be a real challenge for several reasons. Firstly this is a concert without a soloist. This always proves to be an interesting situation for the orchestra who have to carry the whole musical ‘conversation’. It is also a challenge because this concert is dedicated to three composers that normally would never be thought to have anything in common. When I think of Pierre Bartholomée my mind doesn’t automatically jump to the idea of Debussy! I am more inclined to think of a legacy from Stravinsky. This concert takes us to worlds that are very distant, one from the other.

Let’s talk about these different worlds...
The Pierre Bartholomée piece, Folie d’Œdipe, is an orchestral suite, a direct descendant of the opera Œdipe sur la route. This suite is very difficult, very tormented, very breathless and yet at the same time very distinct, typical Pierre Bartholomée. With Debussy’s Images pour orchestra we are into a kind of music that I adore, which has no limits, in spite of what they try and tell you, with a marvellously colourful orchestration, but which at the same time offers a complex musical development imitating the unpredictability of improvisation. Debussy is, without a doubt, the composer most in tune with the music he is composing. You have the impression that the music is permanently reacting to what has just been said and what is to come. With Brahm’s First Symphony, another great landmark, we completely change worlds again. I think that one of the challenges of a concert like this is to get the orchestra to sound different for each composer.

Why have you chosen only two out of the three Images by Debussy?
There was a moment when I thought we would do all three but then the programme would have been too long. We therefore chose the first two: Gigues and Ibéria. With these two pieces we are really at the pinnacle of Debussy’s work. It is virtually a hymn to Europe; it is in fact a work by Debussy in three styles, three perceptions of music that was eminently popular. Gigues is based on a nursery rhyme, a little English jig, an excuse for creating a melancholic image reinforced by the particular sonority of the oboe d’amore. With Ibéria we are enfolded in the perfumes of Spain, it refers to the lifelong work of Debussy on Spanish musical idioms and his notions of an imaginary Spain. A taste he shared with Ravel, by the way… There are then the famous Rondes de printemps which we shall not be playing this time but which are based on an imaginary France, making reference to the French nursery rhymes Do, do l’enfant do and Nous n’irons plus au bois. This third part of Images pour orchestra will be conducted by Susanna Mälkki with the Monnaie Symphony Orchestra on 24th March next year.

How do you relate to these three composers?
That’s quite an interesting question because I have always been drawn to different things, different styles. I would say that the composers featured in this concert have a lot to say to me. I should normally have had a lot to do with Bartholomée the composer but that didn’t happen. It was more Bartholomée the conductor that I had most contact with. He was the embodiment of the profession that I and the other students studying conducting under him at the Liege conservatory most wanted to follow. Every time he revealed one of his rare compositions to us we discovered a composer full of imagination and originality propelling himself in his own unique way along the path first opened to him by Stravinsky. I have always been fascinated by his music and, because I have not conducted his work very often, I now want to have a go. I keep saying that Debussy is perhaps one of the rare composers on whom there is still a lot of work to do. Firstly there is work to be done introducing his work to more people and a challenge to be taken up: to give young performers a taste for the perfume, the subtlety, the lightness and the alchemy inherent in his music. The problem with Brahms is that his list of works is immense and you would have to get up very early to find one that’s not good! The challenge is to rediscover his particular concept of sound and structure. Certain elements like the vibrato, the sostenu, the texture, the rhythmic and melodic curve require concentration and determination. You have to rediscover the recipe for a specific sound mix. This is really important.

You are well-known to the Monnaie Orchestra...
Since Peter de Caluwe arrived at the Monnaie I have been lucky enough to be invited to conduct on a regular basis. I direct almost an opera a year now and next Spring I will be conducting the orchestra on their tour to Paris with La Muette de Portici. I am thrilled about this concert that we will give on 2nd October – the orchestra will really have to roll up its sleeves and adopt various styles! The relationship now between me and the orchestra is one of confidence in each other. I love the Monnaie Orchestra – they are always ready to give you their all and you have to prove yourself worthy of that.

Interview by Marie Goffette