My First Time at a French Festival: Part Two

Day Three

I was glad the Chopin Waltzes were over, but I couldn’t put my feet up totally just yet. There was still the duet recital to do. Bridget and I basically had one rehearsal—during which we were both sightreading—three months prior before we met again yesterday. She had spent the last two months in America while I was here in the UK. I wasn’t too worried since she’s a fantastic player but certain pieces such as the Schubert Fantasie definitely requires four-handed practice as well as timing issues in pieces with more flexible rubato like Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances.

By the way, yes, Liszt did arrange his famous Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C sharp minor for four hands, a semitone higher. And no, with its thick textures and flashy virtuoso octave passages in all four hands, it does not sound better than the piano solo version! But is it fun to play? You bet!

So after another sumptuous lunch, Bridget and I sat down together and got to work. Most of our rehearsal went by fairly smoothly. Bridget’s worries for the Liszt were quelled, as were my hesitations regarding the Dvorak and Ravel. The four-hand piano arrangement of Ravel’s Ma Mere l’Oye, beautiful as it is, demands Twister-like coordination but I was pleasantly surprised to see my hands flatten themselves or contort in weird angles as Bridget’s danced around them!

The piece that did worry me, however, was Schubert’s Fantasie. It didn’t have the timing coordination demanded by the virtuosic pieces by Liszt and Dvorak, nor did it make demands on physical coordination like the Ravel. What it did ask for, however, was synchronisation of musical interpretation between the two performers. This was a work that stretched on continuously for fifteen minutes—the four movements run into each other—with a knotty fugue that could easily descend into a muddy mess at the end. Bridget and I had slightly different ideas about the piece: I wanted it to be more solid and solemn whereas hers emphasized the brisker and more delicate side of things, leaning towards a more melodious flow. This divergence had a lot to do with our very different approaches to the keyboard: hers was a more delicate and lighter one, while mine was deeper and more powerful.

But after the runthrough there wasn’t much time to work on things, and we did decide it was better to have some time to rest at the hotel like the day before to mentally prepare for the concert. In the end, we had only to hope discussions at the rehearsal sank in and that during the concert we would each make compromises.

The ever-obliging Alain drove us to the hotel and back to the festival just in time for the concert.

How was my first ever four-hands concert, performing a 75-minute programme without break with basically only one runthrough as a rehearsal?

I’m not going to lie, it was scary. I spent a lot of time trying to guess what was going to happen, preparing myself for the unexpected. But it was also exciting. There were times when we were both in the zone that we respond to things the other was trying out, almost like passing improvised ideas between one another in a jam session. That only happens when both parties are willing to take risks.

The concert went better than expected, and we gave an encore of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance in G minor, op. 46 no. 8. Did I wish we had had more time to rehearse? Bien sûr! But for the time we had we still managed to make the performance better than the rehearsal, and I do think much had to do with the relaxed and stress-free environment we were performing in, which allowed us to be more free and take more risks.

After the concert I finally let my hair down and went for their locally brewed blonde beer, which was really nice. We were treated to yet another beautiful dinner by the private chef, and I stayed to to see the concert at the main stage later that evening, by a well-known French pop chanteuse called Jeanne Cherhal. She had really good stage presence, something from which I always take inspiration, but my terrible knowledge of French meant my mind kept wandering, so eventually my legs did the same and I wandered off, led by my nose toward the crepe and ice cream trucks.

Walking around the festival free of concert stress, soaking in the music and inhaling the fresh night air, I realized just how much it takes to put a festival together. I had been living in my own head (as I normally do pre-concert) that I barely noticed everything going around. All the bénévoles who were so patient and obliging towards us, making sure we were completely stress-free, had so much more to take care of. For me, my performance was everything, from tempi choice in Schubert to a clean descending arpeggio in the Chopin Waltz; but I was only a part of a much larger festival! I wasn’t even a main stage performer!

That’s not to say I therefore don’t have to put 100% in my performance, but that my performance is a part of a much bigger festival experience, and I was glad I got to enjoy that after my performance only because everyone in the Lunel-Viel community who worked to make this festival happened worked really hard to put it all together and made sure every artist felt valued and even pampered.

Under the starry southern France night sky, Jeanne Cherhal gave a glittering performance, while elsewhere sous les arbes, people were enjoying conversations over wine while listening to dixieland jazz. As the night sank deeper and the music mellowed into a gentle lull, somewhere among the trees another Scandinavian jazz trio gently swung while the audience lay on beanbags and deckchairs scattered across the mound. All were relaxing in nature; all were receiving inspiration from nature.

From the conversations of the bénévoles I found out that there was to be another mayoral election in Lunel-Viel and the competition was going to be fierce. If Fabrice lost this one there wouldn’t be another “Un Piano Sous Les Arbes” Festival.

I do hope he wins next year, and this beautiful gathering of people under the trees continue to happen every year in this little village in the south of France.

To see people working hard voluntarily just to provide an experience for their community is inspiring. It may seem a small thing, this annual gathering of four days under the great trees, but when everybody contributes selflessly in their own way, this energy because a great thing indeed.

Thank you, Lunel-Viel, for this inspiring time.