Part 2

Collaborations can take on many forms. What role do they play in your approach and what are your preferred ways of engaging with other creatives through playing together or just talking about ideas?

There are indeed different types of collaboration: master classes, sharing the stage with other musicians or simply meeting other musicians are all precious and indispensable experiences.

We have been very fortunate to play and work with great artists such as Sir Andras Schiff, Menahem Pressler, Mathieu Herzog, the Artemis Quartet, the Ebene Quartet ... The encounter with such artists is very inspiring, both what the person and their knowledge has to transmit to us on a score, and their sensitivity and vision of music. Sometimes their opinions are totally at odds with our own interpretation, but this is precisely what allows us to put things into perspective, to question ourselves and to make choices. Working on the Beethoven Trios with Sir Andras Schiff, for example, was a very special experience. Even if we didn't apply all his suggestions and ideas, it allowed us to deepen our reflections considerably and, above all, to sharpen our ears. It's like a new world of sound opening up to us.

Sharing the stage with someone is just as interesting: feeling the energy of another, the whole experience, is like a memory of an exceptional concert.

How is preparing music, playing it live and recording it for an album connected? What do you achieve and draw from each experience personally? How do you see the relationship between improvisation and composition in this regard?

"Preparing" the music, playing it in concert and then recording it are the three essential steps in the process of making an album. First of all, we rehearse daily for several months or even years on the pieces we record. It is essential to have as perfect  knowledge of the text as possible by analysing the score, and then a technical and musical mastery that allows us to record the music in the best possible conditions.

We then played the Beethoven Trios a lot in concert before recording them: the experience of the stage and the audience allows us to discover other facets of the music and also makes our interpretations evolve. The concerts are also a moment of creativity, where on the spur of the moment we will experiment with new ideas and emotions about the pieces we play. In this sense, we see a clear relationship between improvisation and composition. The music we play is written, so it leaves no room for improvisation. But interpretation, and its possibilities are infinite. We never play exactly the same way twice, and the experience of playing the same trios several times in concert has shown us just how countless the possibilities for creating and improvising ideas at the time are. This is what makes our music lively and modern.

The recording requires only one version, the one that will be burned on the disc and will remain as "our version", but often we experiment during our recording sessions with several different versions of a musical phrase that we then choose during the editing process. It's like a journey where several paths are open to us but bring us back to the same destination.

How do you see the relationship between the 'sound' aspects of music and the 'composition' and 'performance' aspects? How do you work with sound and timbre?

In our work, we always start with a thorough analysis of the text. We analyze the form of each movement, the squares, but also the harmony: the most important tonalities, the modulations (when switching from one key to another), the colors and functions of each chord. All this work, upstream of the instrumental work, allows us to guide all our musical interpretation.

In a musical phrase, we will know which measure to move towards and why, we will know which timbre to use on a specific chord and why, we will know which note to emphasize, which balance to use etc ... and this, on a small as well as on a large scale thanks to the analysis of the form and the indispensable squares: starting from the largest to the smallest, like an archaeological work of the score, we analyze the form and the squares of a movement, a development, a bridge or a phrase.

This work, which we complete with a biographical research for each composer, will thus directly guide us in the use of the sound, the timbre and the colors we wish to use.

We work daily to make sure that these sound colors are made in a very homogeneous way with three people, just like the work of a string quartet.

Our sense of hearing shares intriguing connections to other senses. From your experience, what are some of the most inspiring overlaps between different senses - and what do they tell us about the way our senses work? What happens to sound at its outermost borders?

Clémence : Indeed, hearing will very often awaken other of our senses, such as sight or touch.

One of the most frequent intersections between the senses is synesthesia, i.e. the correspondence between a sound and a color. During our rehearsals we work a lot on the "color" of sounds. The opposition of light and shadow is also something we can all visualize, and which can be illustrated with sound with our instruments. It is therefore a cross-over between sight and hearing. The visualization of images on certain motives or musical phrases is also a powerful expressive tool, and a completely natural process: when we listen to music, we sometimes plunge into our memories, and music generates images in our brain. This correspondence between sound and images is fascinating because it is specific to each of us: we will visualize very different things on the same melody, because our senses are closely linked to our memory and therefore to our emotions.

This process is precious for us artists: it is a personal and unique source of inspiration.

From our experiences we have felt other overlaps but perhaps less obvious: the correspondence between sound and touch for example. A sound can indeed give a feeling of softness, hardness, or even pungency. It is an abstract and purely personal notion, but one that we feel strongly. Because sound is a real thing, its vibrations are captured by our bodies, and that is why we think that a live concert is an irreplaceable experience.
Much of the power of music comes from these infinite intersections between hearing and our other senses. Some may find music "sweet" for example, and some musicians can match a wine to music.
This shows us the incredible power of sound on our psyche, and why people all over the world have always played music, because music goes far beyond sounds.

Art can be a purpose in its own right, but it can also directly feed back into everyday life, take on a social and political role and lead to more engagement. Can you describe your approach to art and being an artist?

It is very important for us to perform traditional concerts but also to have exchanges with diverse audiences and to make them discover the world of music in which we are immersed: we have been able to work with children from the DEMOS program (equivalent in France of El Sistema), we have organized concerts for Syrian migrants with the association Emmaüs Solidarité, we are planning projects with the association Aurore which helps the homeless, and we are working with the international organization Middle-East Children Institute for a project with children in schools in the Middle East where we will spend 4 weeks creating a project from start to finish with the local population. From the management of the ticket office to the creation of scenery, through the creation of instruments, we will bring them together by creating a musical show and give them the cultural autonomy they need for their daily life!

It is remarkable, in a way, that we have arrived in the 21st century with the basic concept of music and performance still intact. Do you have a vision of music and performance, an idea of what they could be beyond their current form?

Angèle: I believe more and more that we should stage different arts; concerts with paintings, concerts with dancers, singers, and try to make the audience experience more "an experience" than a traditional concert. This is what we tried to do with a tango project at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence where we were on stage with a tango dancer and a contemporary dancer, and we performed traditional tango mixed with contemporary Kagel music inspired by Argentinean music; we also built a concert with different styles of music, classical music with Mozart and Handel, and traditional Algerian songs with the singer Sofiane Saidi.

We should also think more about the traditional way of positioning ourselves physically: why would the audience always sit in front of the musicians? Shouldn't we imagine experiences where we have a "travelling" concert in a hall, where the musicians, the singers, could be in the audience, where the audience could be on stage? We attended such a concert during the Folle Journée de Nantes 2017. The percussionists were playing Steve Reich, a traditional concert at the beginning ... suddenly, dancers hidden in the audience started to make small movements. More and more dancers, more and more movements, at the end the whole room was dancing, going from the stage to the stairs, it was unforgettable!

Please recommend two pieces of art (book, painting, piece of music) to our readers that they should know about.

Clémence: If I can recommend two works of art, I would choose Victor Hugo's poem collection "Les Contemplations" and Beethoven's Trio Opus 97 "A l'Archiduc". It may not be very original, these two works of art being classics, but I never cease to marvel, and to discover new dimensions in these universal and timeless works.

The collection "Les Contemplations" is very rich, very dense, it is the great masterpiece of French romantic poetry. Victor Hugo relates his own life, his memories, his loves and joys, then the mourning over the death of his daughter Leopoldine, his despair and his relationship with God. While Victor Hugo expresses his own feelings and the religious and political ideas of his time, the simple writing, which goes to the essential, allows the reader to identify with his emotions, to share them and to project his own life into them. For through these poems, it is the human soul that speaks, which is universal.
Beethoven's Trio "To the Archduke" is the last Trio written by Beethoven, it is the crowning achievement of the genre. Never before had a trio reached such a symphonic dimension, such virtuosity, and such lyricism. Beethoven makes the piano sing, and marries the timbres of the three instruments to perfection. We find all that makes Beethoven a great musical genius: his humor, his passion, an audacity and modernity that make the work timeless, and an immense love for nature and humanity.

Angèle: I recently discovered in the exhibition at the Philharmonie de Paris " Les musiques de Pablo Picasso " 2 amazing pieces of his: the mask " le chanteur aveugle ", and the painting " homme à la flûte et à l'enfant " (man with flute and child).

Pauline: It is always difficult to have to choose such a limited number of works of art! The first one that comes to mind is the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. It is neither a book, nor a musical work, nor a painting, but for me it is a real masterpiece. I am an atheist, but the emotion that overwhelms me when I enter this cathedral is beyond any form of belief. The architectural richness, the stained glass windows, the immensity of the nave, all these details leave me speechless. And what can I say about the rays of light coming through the cathedral through the coloured stained glass windows, it is simply magnificent!

The book I would recommend today would be Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry, it is one of my favourite books. It is a universal book, intended for both children and adults. Under the guise of a children's tale, it is a powerful poetic and philosophical work.