Welcome to Magazine Sixty, Christine. Let’s start with your wonderful new album, Éclats (Piano Works). How long did it take to compose all of the music? And how do you know when you have finished a particular piece of music, what is the conversation you have with yourself about it?
‘Eclats’ brings together tracks composed at different times, all part of an initial improvised musical gesture, some of which have been reworked, particularly in terms of structure. “Pluie d’arbres”, “Étreintes” and “Amours étoilés” date from the time of the album Only Silence Remains. “Rachel” was composed for a theatre play, in the middle of the night, to accompany a particular scene… In the end, each track has its own era and its own story… “Lunes Orientales”, one of the older pieces, was originally written for piano, then adapted as an Ondes Martenot Duo for a few concerts. But in general, when a piece is finished, the feeling of having finished it is almost as physical, I feel it inside me….
Listening to you play the piano on Pluie d’arbres makes me forget about other instruments. What for you is unique about the piano and how it can convey meaning?
The piano is important to me because it was through it that I was introduced to music as a child. But apart from that, it has power and a very wide sound spectrum, but also this orchestral dimension that is fascinating! Melodies and harmony can take shape under our fingers, and playing the strings and hammers opens up other horizons in terms of sound design, as well as a percussive universe!
Pluie d’arbres is described as: a powerful yet delicate allegory of deforestation. Can you tell us about your feelings on the subject and do you see a world where it could be prevented?
It’s a subject that touches me enormously, of course, and I find it hard to understand why our world has such difficulty realising just how essential nature is… It amazes us with its shapes, its colours… and I find it hard to understand why the awareness of gradually losing this treasure doesn’t make us react before it’s too late… However, I find it hard to talk about this subject, because everyone talks about ecology, but it’s all a sham, and unfortunately words don’t have the power of action in this particular case… Remarkable people like Anita Conti, Bernie Krause and organisations like Sea Shepherd have been warning us for a long time… I’m also thinking of the magnificent and visionary film Soylent Green, directed by Richard Fleischer and released in 1973, which really moved me. There’s a lot more to be said on this subject and on the hypocrisy of a world that tries to make us believe in change, while its main concerns remain money, profit and power…
Can you tell us about why you choose Léa Barbazanges to create the albums artwork?
It’s a story of encounters. Together with Mathieu Gabry (Snowdrops), we have our studio / rehearsal space for several years now in Strasbourg, in an art building where numerous artists, most of them painters, draughtsmen or photographers, are grouped together. We’re lucky enough to be opposite the premises of HH Services, a very friendly team of ‘Maîtres d’art’ coachbuilders and classic car restorers, including Isaak Rensing, Léa Barbazanges’ partner. When I went into their studio to talk to him, I discovered a piece of art that Léa and Isaak had just created together, combining their talent and know-how. I was speechless, fascinated by the beauty of the piece. I fell in love with her world, the delicacy of the works and also the textures, particularly the evocation of plants that is very present in her work. Then I discovered her “Optiques”, which I found magnificent, and it was also a great coincidence that there were 12 of them, just like the 12 piano pieces on my album. I waited quite a while before daring to propose a collaboration and I was more than delighted when she accepted.
The album also reference a wealth of cultural information such as the German pioneer of silhouette animation, Lotte Reiniger. What was it in her filmmaking that inspired you to compose music?
I fell in love with the work and films of Lotte Reiniger, whom I discovered in 2011 at the invitation of the Tübingen Film Festival, where my music (in a contemporary quartet) had been spotted for Roland Edzard’s film ‘La fin du Silence’. The town of Tübingen has dedicated a magnificent little museum to her, since she returned to Germany to die after spending many, many years in England. I immediately had the idea of paying tribute to her and putting her in the spotlight, as she was a major influence on other directors such as Michel Ocelot and many others. I also didn’t want to choose the best-known of her films, The Adventures of Prince Ahmed. I watched around thirty short films to create a ciné-concert featuring 4 short films chosen to create very different musical moods, sometimes poetic, a little jazz, orientalist, then romantic, with the piece “Die Jagd nach dem Glück” which, in the end, bears the name of Lotte’s short film.
It was Lotte’s delicacy and craftsmanship that inspired me, her poetic world and my fascination with shadow puppets. She was a true avant-gardist, and in “Die Jagd nach dem Glück” there are also some incredible special effects for the time. I also really liked the way she approached fairy tales, without any moralizing, quite the opposite, and she was also something of a feminist before her time, as in “Die Jagd” she depicts a fairy who chooses her lover, and who chooses to give or take happiness. This image of the whirlwind of the earth, accompanied by this mischievous fairy, greatly inspired me…
Outside of music who or what inspires you most (in terms of writers, painters, poets etc)?
I’m very curious and I’m very interested in cinema (I’m thinking of my album “Time To Die”, which featured the monologue from the film “Blade Runner”), literature, art, sculpture and engraving, but I think that in the end, it’s mainly long walks in the forest that do me good and give me inner strength. But I don’t know if all that can be called ‘inspiration’?
I was wondering what you thought about the way in which artists/ musicians are able to generate income from their art. How do you see the future in those terms, either as positive or negative?
I’m sometimes very surprised, perhaps impressed, by the way some artists manage their careers, like real businessmen. I think maybe that’s a strength that I don’t have in any way… For me, it’s always terribly difficult to evaluate my work and my music in financial terms. But if I had this ability, I would certainly live more comfortably and perhaps more serenely, even if I think that comfort doesn’t always serve creation.
Looking back to the title track from your 2021 album Time To Die and its exhilarating use of synthesizers. Do you feel that they could help transport the more traditional aspects of Classical music into the 22nd century, as a way of keeping the music culturally important and radical?
Yes, I think that could be a possible route. As an Ondist and teacher of ondes Martenot at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg, it’s obviously a subject that’s close to my heart, as this twentieth-century instrument is one of those bridges between the world of traditional instruments and that of synthesizers. But for classical music, it also implies a way of thinking, an instrumental practice, teaching… It’s not always easy to have this kind of 360° approach with synthesizers, where the gesture of the instrumentalist, the human gesture, is sometimes diluted by the interface technique. And that’s something that sometimes scares me a bit, the temptation to robotise everything, to put AI everywhere. There’s undoubtedly something that fascinates quite a few people about playing baroque music on modular synthesizers, or robotizing pianos or portable organs, but it often remains a simple pleasure of form and concept with no musical interest. But not always… For example, I’m very intrigued and interested by Colleen’s approach to this. And that’s what we sometimes tried to do on “Chimères (pour Ondes Martenot)”. For some tracks, like “Comma” or “Sirius”, you can talk about classical music. Others are a bit less so, as there’s no writing involved. Like the track ‘Time to Die’, where I feel more like a plastic artist, a sculptor, agglomerating layers of sound material, acoustic or electronic (it doesn’t matter), to form a satisfying whole.
Does music have the power to change the world? Or just the individual listening to it?
If music had the power to change the world, I think I’d be composing day and night, non-stop!
But yes, I think it does have an effect in different ways on the people who listen to it. I sometimes get some very nice testimonials from certain listeners who write to me and tell me that my music has a calming effect on them. After the release of the “Time To Die” album, I received a message that touched me deeply, both strong and humorous: “I love your music, please don’t die…”. Messages like that give you wings!
And finally. Where did your love of cinema come from? How do you see the link between moving pictures and music? Has the art of movie soundtracks been lost, or found in more subtle ways to reinvent itself?
Perhaps as a teenager, I was lucky enough to have a teacher at my lycée, Mr Lucas, a German teacher with a passion for cinema, literature and philosophy, who set up a film club and opened up many horizons for me, giving me a great introduction through his very specific choices and helping me to discover some golden nuggets of silent and contemporary cinema. Thanks to him, at the age of 14, I discovered films by Tarkovsky, Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal’, and a film that made a particularly strong impression on me, Robert Mulligan’s ‘The Other’ (1972), images of which often come back to me….
Then… I think that, whether we’re talking about the link between moving images and music or film and music, we need to proceed with caution, and it’s all about a delicate balance, so that the music serves the image and never overwhelms the images. The important thing is to strike a balance between the two, in the knowledge that the film or moving images are in some way our conductor, and sometimes guide us (in surprising and exciting ways) towards unsuspected musical horizons. The attitude is different from that of composing for an album.
And about your last question, I think it’s very difficult for me to answer this question, because of the great diversity of film music. But I do think that sometimes, certain composers tend to use too many ready-made ‘recipes’ and sometimes they also tend to ‘plunder’ and rework classic themes, without hesitation… but sometimes this is the director’s wish… For me, when I approach the music for a film, it’s the context, the synopsis and the atmosphere of the film that will guide me every time in my choice of instruments. Each film is a unique jewel and it’s this that will guide me in my choice of instruments, musical style and instrumentation.
buy Christine Ott – Éclats (Piano Works) – Gizeh Records
https://christineott.bandcamp.com/album/eclats-piano-works
https://linktr.ee/christineott
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