By Achilleas Kourias
The moment of his encounter with the world of music, when being just four years old first sat down at a piano, was explosive. The pianist and composer of international fame, Alain Lefevre, had been immediately acknowledged as a child prodigy, while during his astonishing career, he has been honored with distinctions and awards that prove him as one of the greatest soloists in the entire world. Just a few days before Greek audience enjoy an extraordinary recital, on Thursday 24th of February 2011, as well as a MasterClass, in the line of the festival A Month for Bad Fellowships that is being hosted at Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, Alain Lefevre talks to www.mcf.gr for his relationship with music, as well as the inspiration that he derives from Greece.
Since you had immediately been indentified as a child prodigy in the fields of music, already at the age of four years old, could you please let us know these extraordinary feelings that you had this very first moment that you encountered the world of music?
You know Ive started playing piano when I was very young. I come from a family of musicians, my father was fantastic clarinettist, my mom was also playing flute and we were four boys in the family, so each of us have been exposed to classical music very, very early. I didnt realise my talent before people told me. You know…, you play piano, you are five, you are four, I did my first little recital when I was six years old, I won my first piano competition when I was seven and of course its by the time that you realise that you have a special gift. The gift is to play music. So, child prodigy? I dont know, I would love it, I would love having seen that thing at that time, but I know for sure that music is now a big part of my life if it isnt even, I would say, all my life. I started playing piano at the age of four and a half, my first concert was at the age of six and from the age of nine or ten, I am practising for the last… couple of years. Since age of eight or nine years old I am at piano every day, thats me.
How those feelings have been transformed into the following years of experience? Do they settle just like a feeling of success or expertise after a long and great career like yours, or perhaps they are being shaped beyond that, into something deeper for your own existence?
The concept of success is something that I dont have because it isnt my temper. I think that when you do any art, movies, painting, writing, theatre, if you have the concept of success it can be dangerous. I think that the artists by essence always have doubts, they doubt all the time. You never know if something that you do is good or bad. You try to do the best. You can never know that you have succeeded. I believe that this is something that others have to see. Im a modest guy, I m not someone who believes in victory, Im someone who works, someone who tries to do his best and the rest is God. You know… You work and work and certainly you have the doubt of something else. It could be very pretentious to say Im an artist, I know what I do. You never know what you do, you just try your best.
Does really doubt, that you mentioned, lead to creativity?
Of course, one of the most beautiful stories Ive heard was from Franco Zeffirelli, who told me once that before a really big concert of Maria Callas, she took his hand and she was so nervous, she doubt herself so much that her nails almost penetrated Zeffirellis hand. She said to him I want to die, I doubt of myself. Zeffirelli was so touched and moved, seeing one of the greatest singers of all times having those feelings. While at the same time, he knew some singers that were not singing so well having no doubt. So, I believe that great artists and great creators live with their own ghosts and doubts.
Do you identify yourself more as a pianist or as a composer? Is it a matter of creativity the difference between the two identities? In other words, is it a motivation for self expression that led you to compose your own works?
My first job was, of course, to be a concert pianist. Then, I was exposed to the fact that to compose was sometimes a great relief. When you are sad, when you have the impression that sometimes no one loves you or people dont understand you. So, composition for me was a way to express something different. Because, by composing, I was able to express different things. It became something quite important because now people and orchestras around the world play my own compositions. Im always surprised, because I dont think greatly of my compositions but people like them.
They might have a reason…
I imagine so….
Which are your influences when composing? Is the admiration to the artistic range of great classic composers, or a more experiential inspiration?
It is impossible for me, to have been practicing Bach, Tchaikovsky, Gavrilov and Mozart and try to be them. I love movies, I have seen a lot of movies. There was a specific period of French, Italian and Greek movies where the composers were fantastic. Like Michel Legrand, Francis Lai, Maurice Jarre, Theodorakis and all those composers were great, might not today, because now we have superstars like Mickey Mouse. At that time there were really great composers for the movies. So my masters invisibly have been the ones who have composed for movies because it is always interesting to see a story and put music on it. As you might also have seen in the short film that we have just watched (The short film N ME FOR MYSELF by Tzortzis Grigorakis) of this very moving story of a man with no arms and I think that the piano behind that movie was perfect, it was well matched and put. So I think that in my composition aspect is a more personal inspiration than trying to pretend to be someone else, like Mozart or Chopin. It is impossible because those people are too high for me.
We are aware of your passion to motivate young people get engaged with the world of classic music. Since you are going to offer a Master Class on the forthcoming Thursday at MCF, how would you advice a talented youngster to cope with music? What does it really take to become successful or creative?
This is very difficult question. Because, unfortunately, this period in our society the arts are not very well supported. The victory for what we call art is more the enormous machine from the Anglo-Saxon world, the British and the American. When they want to promote a singer and just take the example of Lady Gaga, during the last two- three years, the money they have, the power they have, is so extraordinary that less and less young people are interested in classic music and in classic work. So, the real problem, actually an enormous problem, is that we continue to have those schools of music where we encourage young people to do classical music and classical art like ballet, and I wonder when I see the little exposure that classical Art have in our society if it is going to be possible to survive. I believe that the choice weve made will have consequences. Millions and millions of people will buy CDs and music from singers like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, you know, it changes every day. So, less and less people will go for classical art. The biggest challenge today is to convince the younger generation for the importance of the arts and that importance is related directly to democracy, to a style of life. We wont be able to have a strong society if we dont support the arts. This is the way I see it right now. I might be a little depressing, but it is a matter of survival. So many young musicians, who I have the chance to meet every year, just struggle to survive. We are not even talking about making a career. They have no open window, no open door. I have been playing and giving Master Classes in Greece for the last fifteen years and I know this country very well. I have seen so many talents from Greece, but there is no space for them. Just try to do a concert with a very wonderful and young Greek pianist, you will only have five or six people in the audience if you are lucky. At the same time if you go to a bouzouki hall, despite the economic crisis, it will be filled. The big problem is what do we do for that. Of course, there are some people who try to do the difference, like Lambrakis in Greece, but those people are getting old, dying, disappearing… So, Im not very much optimistic for the future of the arts, for those thousands and thousands of young pianists, violinists and singers who try to do something beautiful. It is going to be very difficult.
During these concerts, we are going to have the opportunity to attend you performing live three pieces, entitled Ilios, Thalassa and Anemos, inspired by Greece. How those pieces express your relationship with Greece? If those three words illustrate the image of Greece for you, how this image can be interpreted into sounds or melodies?
It is very difficult for a classically trained pianist when he or she discovers the richness of Greek music. I have a radio show in Canada, in CBC, and I did many radio shows devoted to Greek composers, like Kalomiris, Koukos etc. I know very well their inspiration. My love story with Greece have started seventeen years ago when I started coming to Greece regularly and playing in Thessaloniki, in Kavala, in Epidaurus, in Athens, in Samos, in Hydra, Ive played almost everywhere. And I love Greece. There is something magical in this country, therefore its been an inspiration for me. So Ive tried very modestly to listen to some Greek music, Greek scales and Ive tried to make some music on my own, to honour this country that has been so good to me. Ilios was composed in Samos, Thalassa was composed in Epidaurus and Anemos was composed when I visited the Cape of Sounio. I did try with each of those pieces to expose something. Ilios is the possibility of the happiness of the sun. The happiness of Greek people, since you have that inside your soul, like Zorba the Greek, when everything goes catastrophic and you still are able to sing and dance. Thalassa is a story that someone told me about an old man that lost himself in a little boat and the sea was very violent and he said to his son that he was able to find back his little village by the sound of some bells of the church. So I imagined a piece with a lot of waves. Anemos is the wind in Greece because I was amazed by the way that wind even if it is very calm in twenty seconds can change to violent. So its like the Greek temperament. I dont know if they are good pieces or not, but I know that I have composed them with a lot of love for this country, thats what I did.
Could you please let us know from which specific elements of this country derives that love?
What I understand from Greece is that Greek people have geniality. Greek people are people who have in their blood something profoundly different than the rest peoples. However, it is very difficult for Greek people to find back their confidence, as a great country. Im amazed to see a population with so many talents, people with so much love, passion and generosity. Greek people are givers. My love with Greece is that I know that Alexander the Great and his father Phillip, and all the rest of great Greek personalities, like Melina Merkouri, were genius. This is Greek, but you have to find that confidence and strength that can be inspiring for your population the rest of the world. You have built the world somehow, with the Philosophy, Medicine Astronomy and this is the Greece I love. This is the Greece I have confidence in.
It sounds as a cliché, but a lot people claim that music is an international, common human language that overcomes frontiers. Do you really believe that you can communicate with people of different cultural backgrounds through your compositions? If so, how this transnational communication can be accomplished?
I believe that music can touch everyone. What I do when I compose and when I play the great genius composers from the past, like Brahms, I tend to realise that somehow the language of music is something that do not have to be spoken. Your heart, your soul, just get the feelings. The best example is that, when NASA, once, wanted to send a satellite to check if there is extraterrestrial life, they have put Bach on a tape in order to communicate. It would have been possible to see ballet, read literature or see theatre, but music is above all languages. So, referring to the former question, I think that governments all around the globe have missed something terrible. They promote internet and technology but they forget that when Alexander the Great was building his empire, the first thing that he was doing was to bring artists of theatre, sculpture and music. That was the only way to win the war. Lately, the governments we all have, actually let down the arts, thinking that arts do not have influence on the economy. That is completely mistake. Arts are the biggest influence on a population. Therefore Im going to be a bit sarcastic. When I see little kids, thousands and thousands of little girls in America who have as hero Lady Gaga and try to imitate her, we have to ask our self, if this is the good example that we promote for our kids. Unfortunately we do not think about that, because it is a question of money after all. It is just the function of the machinery and it is very sad. On the other hand, we see our countries in economic depression, unable to recover. So education, music, arts, cinema, theatre, painting have spiritual values that can make a society strong and better. We just have to see the conclusion of the decisions that different governments take. Im always surprised when a new government comes to power all around the world and promote the representation of all the kinds of music, like pop and jazz and country but always apart from classical music. And I always keep asking why… Why our hero today should be just U2? I do not have anything against them, but this is not enough. So well see what is going to be the conclusion. For example Im impressed to see what one man, like Michael Cacoyannis, have done here with that beautiful building, this cultural centre, and I am sure that this great man has a passion and love for arts; otherwise he wouldnt have done that. Is that man thanked by the government? I am not sure. I think that we give too much attention to stupidity, that sometimes people forget that society is built by the education and culture.
If I asked you to entitle your live performance at Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, what would it be that title? How would you characterize this chance to meet Greek audience again? What should we expect from you?
It will be a special concert where I will present music. It is going to be a concert of my soul. I will express my inner side, my intimacy I would say, and some little parts of me that people dont know very much. So, I hope it will be interesting for the public. But certainly, it is very moving for me to play these pieces, as Im going to play a tribute of what I have composed for Megaron Athens Music Hall, pieces dedicated to Christos Lambrakis, who I loved as he has been my mentor in Greece. He is the man who helped me a lot and it is sad that he is not here anymore. Therefore, I will have a very special part for him because he was a prince, a great man.
SEE MORE DETAILS FOR THE CONCERTS OF ALAIN LEFEVRE AT THE WHATS ON SECTOR WITH A CLICK HERE
