He plays Bartók, Brahms and Prokofiev in the world’s great concert
halls, works closely with contemporary composers such as Bruno Mantovani
and Marc Monnet, his recording of Liszt’s Harmonies poetiques et
religieuses has received glowing reviews – however the key element of
pianist François-Frédéric Guy’s
musical world is Ludwig van Beethoven. He describes in poetic language
his special relationship to the composer’s works: “You plunge into them
as if on a deep-sea expedition and discover a secret world, which seems
familiar and mysterious at the same time.”
François-Frédéric Guy has recorded practically all of Beethoven’s piano
works on CD in concert cycles. His recording of all 32 piano sonatas
was released in 2013 on the label Zig Zag Territoires, for example.
But it took a while to get to that point. The highly gifted child grew
up in a small town in Normandy and started receiving lessons with
Dominique Merlet at the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 11. After
taking part in a tour for young pianists, in which six French pianists
of his generation performed the cycle of Beethoven sonatas, he took it
upon himself to master all of the sonatas before his 40th birthday. Now,
he can regularly be heard performing the cycle, which he premiered at
the 2008 Monaco Festival in a series of ten concerts over the course of
twelve days. In the 2014/15 season he will also be performing it in Rio
de Janeiro and Pordenone in Italy.
In addition to the complete sonatas, he has recorded all five of
Beethoven’s piano concertos. The pianist, who at the start of his career
almost decided to go down the route of conducting, is leading
orchestras from the piano with increasing frequency. However, for the
recordings released on the Naïve label, his close confidante Philippe
Jordan conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. “We feel
like chamber music partners,” the pianist says of their relationship.
François-Frédéric Guy has found genuine chamber music partners for the
next stage of his project: he collaborated with violinist Tedi Papavrami
and cellist Xavier Phillips for concerts in Arsenal de Metz, which has
become a musical home for him as Artist in Residence over the course of
several seasons. In this way, François-Frédéric Guy is not far off
having performed literally all of the works which Beethoven wrote for
the piano in concert cycles. Does this mean that his personal Beethoven
project will soon be over? “Not at all, you can never be done with
Beethoven,” he claims. In the decades to come, he still wants to be
diving into the ocean of Beethoven’s works. He’s not afraid of becoming
bored; aside from Beethoven, in the last few months he has also
performed Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 5 in Zurich, Bartók’s second
piano concerto in Warsaw and Scriabin’s Prométhée in Monte Carlo. And on
top of all this, François-Frederic Guy may also be preparing himself
for the next world premiere.
Nina Rohlfs 03/2014 | Translation: Celia Wynne Willson
