The future lasts a long time

What has the Autumn Festival meant to you and your music?

George Benjamin: I am greatly indebted to it. In 2004, Joséphine Markovits contacted me to offer me a wide-ranging overview of my work two years later, but on the condition that I agreed to create my first piece for the stage. Thanks to her perseverance, ingenuity, dedication and charm, in addition to the legendary reputation of the institution she directed, Joséphine succeeded in achieving her goal, and Into the Little Hill came into being at the Opéra de Paris.Heiner Goebbels: Having the opportunity to present my work over the past three decades in one of the most important European festivals has been an immense privilege for me. My admiration for the various conversations that we have had, whether they be of the good-humoured or the divisive kind, has always been a very deep one. Our conversations have always been very frank and inspiring. I even forgive her for not liking two of my best works: Hashirigaki and Stifters Ding!Jérôme Combier: The Festival d'Automne heralded my entry, in 2004, into the professional world of creation. Joséphine Markovits ordered a chamber music score from me, more than likely on the advice of Gérard Pesson. A few months later, I learned that I was going to spend a year and a half at the Villa Medici. The announcement followed on from a lean period lasting several months. However, I was not unhappy. “The future lasts a long time” I was once told, but suddenly everything seemed to change into a wonderful story. Much later on, after thumbing through the Festival archives, it came home to me the incredible lineage within which I had taken up my place. The Festival d'Automne hosted, among others, shows of a very large scale indeed, and this ultimately convinced me to broaden my practice towards the questions of stage space and multimedia objects.

 

Is there any particular anecdote that has marked your experience at the Festival?

HG: One of my most moving experiences dates back to the very first concert dedicated to my work, in 1992. The program included the French premier of La Jalousie, which is based on the structure and a selection of texts from the eponymous novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet. Of course, as was often the case in my young, restless years, I had not asked permission from either the author or the publisher. The concert was a success and, immediately afterwards, a friendly-looking elderly man with a thick beard and a deep red scarf approached me. I whispered in Josephine's ear "Who's this guy?", to which she discreetly replied “Alain Robbe-Grillet". I turned pale, worried about what he might say. But he loved the play, and took me in his arms. It was the beginning of a long and warm relationship, a friendship, which lasted right up to his death in 2008. He told me that my musical theatre piece The Repetition, based on Kierkegaard, Robbe-Grillet and Prince, which premiered in 1996, gave him the inspiration for his very last novel, and which bears the same title.JC: There are two images that instantly come to my mind. Firstly, that of my son, barely a few months old, and how I used to place him, fast asleep, on a blanket on the corner of my composition table while I was writing Estran. Indeed,the piece was dedicated to “sleeping Jules”… And then the taxi journey home, with Joséphine and Salvatore Sciarrino, and the way they greeted, with a mixture of kindness and delight, the title that I had given to the piece I was writing at the time: Essere pietra .

 

How do you perceive the scope of music in society and the role that composers have in it?

HG: What artists, choreographers and composers (and theatre directors for that matter) should do is to work as architects do. They need to build spaces in which the imagination and experiences of each audience member can find their place. Their role is definitely not to demonstrate to us the quantity of their ideas, nor to use art as a tool with which to deliver messages. We are surrounded by enough media to tell us what we should think.JC: Between my desire for music and the societal reality in which it is expressed and tries to exist, I believe that there certainly are many obstacles and adversities in its path. I grant music the possibility of expressing itself in thought. Although far from language, and concepts, music, through the construction of forms, the elaboration of sounds, counterpoints, and improbable chord progressions, is a form of thought that questions (how?) the world around us, and also the composer himself, the performer, the listener. The same goes for poetry. “What good are poets in times of suffering?", wrote Hölderlin. Heidegger thought the same way, and Christian Prigent followed suit. Poetry never stops dying (can you name any poet under the age of 50?), and the same is perhaps true regarding music. But they certainly do exist throughout the world and will never cease to exist. What is changing and will probably continue to change are the modalities of their existence. Composers know this and never stop inventing new forms.GB: I think we should be grateful for the quality of the orchestras, operas and specialist ensembles in existence today, as well as the network of concert halls, festivals, conservatories and radio producers. That said, the scope of music seems, broadly speaking, and with a few rare exceptions, so limited, and its place in education, so restricted. I wish more lives could be enriched and transformed through contact with this incandescent art form. As for composers, their role is to create something beautiful and new, nothing more and nothing less.

 

In a society that constantly strives for success, what is your view of the importance of experimentation in music, given its inherent risk and potential for failure?

GB: Every piece of new work should be an adventure, both in terms of craftsmanship and expression. But I also believe that a composer should offer a finished work to performers and audiences, rather than mere experience. What about success? If you want to see just how little some things have changed then you should try reading Mozart's letters to his father.HG: For me, failure would to be repeat myself, and to live up to expectations. Failure would also be to ignore the complexity of the media itself, as well as the knowledge and tastes of my creative team. A failure would be to end up not being surprised by the result of this work. A failure could also be that of composing too much music. There is already quite a lot of it.

 

 

This interview was conceived with the complicity of Joséphine Markovits, artistic director of the Music program of the Festival d’Automne's 2024 edition. Alongside Laurent Feneyrou, Clara Iannotta carried out a series of interviews with George Benjamin, Jérôme Combier and Heiner Goebbels in March 2024.