description
The piano is a polyphonic instrument par excellence ; its very conception is a clear statement of intention for the solo player. Yet in spite of this built-in destiny, how can a musician used to the rhythmic impact of the drums, the expressive quality of the saxophone and the energy of electric instruments do without them and still make high quality music ? How can the pianist take the environment, whether urban or rural, and the surrounding sound context into account, plus other acoustic and electric music, and work to integrate them all into his musical language ? How can he make the piano sound supple, malleable and versatile when he has no means of blowing into it nor of bowing the strings, as other instrumentalists can do in order to alter the sound itself or its intensity and pitch ? These are some of the questions that have always guided my approach to the piano, from my first trials in solo right up to the conception of this record... But for me, it was not a question of trying to make “an arrangement, albeit reduced, for piano” of some sort of orchestral music I had imagined, nor was I trying to fill gaps. No, what I wanted was to create an intimate musical universe organised around pieces conceived for the piano on its own and worked on as such. Replies to these questions were mostly discovered by not venturing too deeply into the differing worlds of harmony, melody, rhythm, timbre and style already familiar to me,but by choosing instead to explore the Lisières [Fringes] of those worlds. Each composition was intended to be as clear, simple and special as I could make it, with each piece condensed into a single idea, thus giving me the chance to show what these Lisières might seem like every time I inaugurated any improvisation (rather in the manner of so-called Studies for piano); then I could stage them, as it were, give them form and turn them into some sort of musical fiction, just like short stories.

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