Nadia Boulanger: Mademoiselle Page #3

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- So, what have you done?

- A question, an answer.

How a question and an answer?

Broadly speaking,

because this is never absolute,

what do you call that?

Ah, yes, a semi-cadence.

So what? Because it's easier

to call an umbrella, an umbrella,

a shoe, a shoe.

It doesn't lead to confusion.

So what?

It means going from the tonic

to the dominant.

- So, what do you call that?

- A semi-cadence.

That's it.

It is much more convenient

to call things by their name,

you see.

So here, you have a phrase

consisting of a few notes:

d, c, d, c, f, e, d, c, b, b, a

open the phrase.

d, c, f, e, d, c, b, b, a, b

conclude it.

And alongside this,

what is peculiar about this phrase?

Its rhythm?

Its rhythm is indeed peculiar,

and what else?

- Repetition...

- Repetition, and what else?

- The quietness...

- What else?

- The middle line...

- What else?

At the start,

he does d, c, d, c twice,

and then only once.

The 1 st time,

he extends the phrase

as far as the dominant,

as a kind of question:

d, c, d, c, f, e, d, c, b, b, a.

The phrase remains suspended.

But the 2nd time:

He takes time to do the cadence.

Would you play the 1 st phrase?

Too loud, the left hand !

Too loud, the left hand !

Mysterious.

What happened?

Take off the pedal !

- We are in major.

- We switched to major.

Can we guess

what is coming next?

We don't know.

Do you remember what Valry said:

''The Gods kindly offer us

the 1 st verse.

''What is difficult

is to write the next ones

''which will be worthy

of their supernatural brother.''

Emile Naoumov

is a young Bulgarian.

He recently came to Paris

to study with Mademoiselle.

I had composed a minuet

which I played to her.

Then I also played

a Tchaikovsky piece,

The Sick Doll.

I played pieces

I had learned in Bulgaria.

I feel I was far away from the level

I've now reached with her.

I can understand and analyse

much better now.

You are composing a concerto?

Do you have any other projects?

I am writing a piece

for a symphony orchestra

after paintings by my grandfather.

I gave them for the New Year

to Mademoiselle Boulanger.

Is it a kind of Pictures

from an exhibition of our time?

Yes, it is of our time.

But I did not try

to imitate Mussorgsky.

When you accept a new pupil,

the first thing

is to try to understand

what natural gift,

what intuitive talent he has.

Often enough,

you'll discover this very easily,

if you really respect children.

It's a serious question.

Can one go ahead

and develop a child

in quite a different direction

from his parents,

without being certain that

this is a talent that should be

developed and stimulated.

You just can't give talent

to everybody.

That would be madness.

One must dare to choose.

Yes, but on what basis?

Is talent necessarily linked

to the quality of a man;

or can a great musician

be also a mediocre man?

Mediocre? No!

A great artist can be a dreadful,

vice-ridden person

- vices pay for human weaknesses,

but certainly not mediocre.

So in your teaching,

when a child or even an adult

comes to consult you,

what happens?

I make him work at solfeggio

with Mademoiselle Dieudonn.

You teach technique.

A ''draconian'' technique!

Can you give him

both technique and lan?

Ah no! He has to have the lan!

It seems to me the one quality

lacking in many people is attention,

which, essentially,

is a form of character.

With some people

there is such concentration

that everything becomes important.

While with others everything passes

and is forgotten.

They repeat their actions

from day to day.

No evolution is possible

because whatever is produced

immediately dissolves.

Then, there are people

who take 20, 40,

50 years to find

what they are looking for.

So, before encouraging anyone,

you must find out whether

they're capable of loving,

of interesting themselves

in what they're doing,

whatever it may be,

for its own sake.

This is the fundamental distinction

between people,

it makes some

extraordinarily active,

and others

what I call ''sleepers''.

Let the sleepers lie

- there is no point

in waking them up.

They are nice,

happy with themselves;

unobjectionable as people;

they are what they are.

I had the good fortune

to be brought up

by a remarkably intelligent mother.

She wasn't musical,

but knew how to bring up a child.

She adored me - she had lost

a child before I was born,

so I was a miraculous new arrival -

but she loved me enough to be

dispassionate in her judgments.

One thing she could not tolerate

was a lack of attention.

From the first I grew up

with this absolute attentiveness,

vital to self-awareness.

Whether I had it in my nature,

or whether that can be developed

is asking me too much.

But that quality is something

that has struck you

with all the artists you have met?

Well, so much order is required

to produce a work!

Think of it:
in order

to write those million notes,

to organise them, well or badly,

the order required

is simply fantastic!

Nadia has always insisted

on the quality of ideas.

The chosen note:
for her,

it has always been

the most important thing in music.

That b flat in the bass line,

she didn't like it

because it wasn't well chosen.

At the present time,

when music is written

with so many notes

that you can't make them out.

Cocteau said:

''True tears are not drawn

from our eyes

''by a sad page,

''but by the miracle of a word

in its proper place.''

The chosen word

which no other word can replace.

It's amazing

how everyone does the same thing,

and nothing comes 999 out of 1000;

but one of them will say

something unforgettable.

So, where are we? It is not within

reach, it is beyond explanation.

As I said earlier on,

whether we want it or not,

whatever we do seriously

- I don't care

if I'm going to shock some of you -

is the demonstration of God.

You may prefer not to call him God,

but the supreme power,

or number one.

This is mere playing on words.

It is something that is given.

There is this marvelous word:

''Gift.'' He is gifted.

When Faur

with his southern accent said:

- he was so respectful, so loving -

''He is gifted'',

he meant:
''Here is a child

who was born with a sign.''

The one who has it

is naturally not faulty

but has an awesome responsibility.

Because if he has

an extraordinary gift,

an extraordinary technique,

but has no character,

everything goes to waste!

One day,

I had to dismiss two pupils;

I didn't want to carry on.

Both very gifted and intelligent.

One did not have

much technique though.

Very gifted and intelligent,

but no character.

Without character, one can't expect

anything from anybody.

We must be very careful.

You are going to be teachers,

or performers.

As performers,

you have to play with honesty,

not to express yourselves,

but to give expression to the work;

not to try to say

my Beethoven Sonata,

my Chopin Scherzo,

but a Scherzo, not even by Chopin...

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