Interview with Jérémie Szpirglas

What lack does your piece, Study on Lack, refer to?

I composed my piece for a musician who plays the viola, also equipped with a camera, and Disklavier. The Disklavier being a piano that can be played with or without a pianist, the lack in question is that of the pianist. And not just any pianist, since he was my childhood piano teacher. I want to express here the intimacy and melancholy associated with his memory.

In what way?

The piece takes the form of a rehearsal between the violist, Hortense Fourrier, and this absent pianist. Together, they work on a distorted version of a Brahms Capriccio, one of the last pieces I learned with my teacher. Using her camera, Hortense penetrates my memory of him playing this music.

So you combine music and photography.

A paradox of photography is that it evokes both an absence and a presence. A photo reminds us of the absence of its subject through its own presence as representation. It is this paradox that allows Hortense to form a more active relationship with the powerful and nostalgic lack that the photo arouses. However, I believe that the paradox is reversed here, since the absence of the pianist on stage summons a ghostly presence. By entering her photos, Hortense enters into dialogue with the memories they contain, and the lack they evoke.