Touch it, it's free
Alexandre Tharaud, the leading pianist of his generation, talks about his profession. Recollection after recollection, he shares his doubts, his deepest convictions, his most intimate habits.
"My hands, I'll show them to you. Touch it, it's free... While you're at it, touch my body, because that's what I play with..." This is how Alexandre Tharaud greets his fans after his concerts: between tenderness and irony, a posture characteristic of this book which talks about everything that surrounds music in his life as a world-renowned pianist. A life of arrivals and departures in cities the world over. With the halls in which he gives recitals at its center.
Alexandre Tharaud literally lives in concert halls. Each time, he discovers or rediscovers the same type of "animal", a piano, the other hero of this tale of a thousand adventures. Around him gravitate a host of curious characters, starting with the "page turner", whether it's a young man drunk on marijuana who misses every turn, the lady with the necklaces whose tinkling accompanies the "page turner".Appassionata of Beethoven, or the one with generous breasts that nearly suffocate him as he leans towards the score. They have formed a duo since he stopped playing without a score, following a traumatic "blank" at a concert in Buenos Aires.
In his environment, of course, is the audience, which never escapes the eye or, above all, the ear of this ever-watchful performer. Nor from his pen, cut from this slightly disillusioned benevolence. "Fires", the last part of the book, describes the fireman on duty, whose works he secretly hopes will please him. One thing leads to another: stage fright (his "little brother"), the silence before the first note, then the gesture, which he finally performs, having waited for all day. No. Alexandre Tharaud is not talking about music here, but... coughing. Coughing, whether open, full or closed-mouthed. And of the stern, merciless militia of the shhh!against the coughers. Then the bouquet, under the applause, which in Japan diminishes during the offering and builds to a crescendo. The signing session, on a cello case, a postage stamp, a corsage or a bald head, and finally the hotel. The next day, forget everything when the plane leaves the ground.
Alexandre Tharaud: Montrez-moi vos mains, 224 p., € 17.00, Grasset, Paris 2017, ISBN 978-2-246-86363-2
