La Mystère Tisné V

So, here we were:  in front of this huge artistic success...but which translated into exactly nothing in France.  We couldn't even get ten people to attend our concert in Paris.  I mean, it's about time to throw in the towel, right? 

And it was even worse, because....well, Antoine had burned a lot of bridges over the years.  He had been in an exclusive publishing relationship with Billaudot since he won his Prix de Rome.  It was just that they decided hat they weren't going to publish any more music because....well  Antoine hadn't played the game according to their rules.  So, that was over.  As it happened, I had just produced a recording of two-piano music by Germaine Tailleferre and had made the rounds to all the major houses in Paris;  I had a recording which was being released in the US....and I had corrected and copied Finale files which were ready to go.  I mean, this looks like money on the floor, ready to be picked up, right?  No dice.  Everybody said "no".  All of the major houses passed on this.  So here I was with this stock of music by Antoine which I knew was important....and also this stock of music by Tailleferre that I knew was important.....and nobody would touch it.  So, what to do?

So, what I decided to do was to take the bull by the horns and just start publishing these scores.  I had NO IDEA what this meant at the time I decided to do this.  It's just this:  I had no other choice.  There were no other options, so I had to invent a solution.  So I did;  Luckily, there were people like Ralph Jackson at the other end who understand that something was going on (exactly what, I'm not sure that even I understood, but he seemed to sense that this had to happen.  I would like to thank him for that.) 

So, suddenly, I had another hat to wear:  Music Publisher.  And we had work to do, because the Chartres String quartet had commissioned a work to perform with me:  "Offertorium de Chartres".  And my own saxophone quartet had also commissioned a work for Saxophone Quartet based on the Labyrinth of Amiens Cathedral, Labyrithus Sonoris.  So I had to get these scores out.  Plus the scores which were part of the "Musiques pour des Espaces Sacrés"  So, my relationship with Antoine changed.  Suddenly, we were much more involved with the whole compositional process.   He talked to me about intimate details in the music, about what it meant and about why it had to look certain ways.  Plus, we were working on new projects:  projects which were to take him in a new direction.  The project about Liszt was taking shape.  Jean-Thierry had asked a friend, Pierre Dubranquez, to write the Libretto. Pierre worked at the revue Poésie which was under the tutelage of the great poet Philippe Solars.  I explained my concept to Pierre and he had written an entire libretto.  Jean-Marie Lejude, with whom I had worked on the staging of Jeffrey Stolet's Frankenstein, was to do the staging;  The on stage orchestra was to be saxophone, violin, cello and piano.  Antoine was very excited about this project, but I don't know if any part of it was ever actually written.  Our meetings were full of excitement talking about this.

Our friends from Erfurt came for a visit.  I almost died in the "Port Royal" bomb explosion, as we saw the train that exploded go past on the platform.  Somehow, I made it back home that evening.  We had planned a party that night for our German friends and had invited our clan of musicians in Paris.  We had a three-room apartment in the 20th, but there were about fifty people crammed in 40 square meters.  Antoine was quite happy, as he was the center of attention, with a complete row of adoring female fans who wanted to hear about his music.  As we got him into a taxi that night, he said that no one had ever organized a party for him.  I think that he was happy that night. I certainly hope that was the case.

Antoine started coming over for dinner, with other friends.  We generally had an "open house" kind of atmosphere at our place and in any given evening, we would have people over for dinner.  Antoine came over about once a week.  We would make pasta or some sort of mixed dish.  There was always plenty of wine and a nice dessert.  One night, we were there with another friend and Antoine let his tie go down a bit.  He suddenly told us "You know what I like more than anything?  I like to go to the movies.  Not for the films, but for the MUSIC.  I love film music and I really wish that I could write things like that. I love anything by John Williams and I LOVED the music to Titanic!".  So, we all said "why not?  Why don't you write that?".  And he said "for me, it's too late.  I've got too many reflexes I can't let go of yet.....". 

Antoine had written an Oratorio on a Radio France commission years before.  It was called "Le Chant des Yeux", and it was scored for soprano solo, mixed chorus and orchestra.  The text was by David Niemann.  It was an important work for Antoine and he had to fight to get it done.  As chance would have it, I had a meeting to talk about the Weimar project just after he meet with Claude Samuel, the former head of Radio France.  He was still red with anger...but he had gotten what he wanted.

Antoine had done the unthinkable:  he had told off the head of Radio France in no uncertain terms.  I couldn't fault him because years before, I had told the same person that I would not play a concert if Gian Paolo Chiti's Tenor Saxophone Concertino wasn't programmed.  But Antoine had gone a step further:  yes, he had a contract.  Yes, they did have to do his piece.  But never again would they be required to program any of his music.  He went that far, and then some.  Years later, when somebody asked Samuel to moderate a panel discussion, he had the good grace to decline.  I think that his ears were probably still ringing from what Antoine had told him that day.

I think that Antoine already knew then that he was dying.  And I think that he wanted to hear this piece.  And so he was burning all of his bridges, once and for all  One last burst of glory before leaving this planet.  I can't say that I blame him. 

This was far from my mind when I went to the concert at the Grand Auditorium of Radio France.  There was some sort of Concerto for Viola which opened the concert.  The viola didn't play much.  And what the viola played, it' didn't really work.  Instruments have to sound.  And acoustics work in certain ways.  There is getting around this.  This piece was warmly received. 

And then there was Antoine's work:  the soprano soloist was a woman from the South-east of France, from the same region as Antoine.  The orchestration was opulent and quite clever---I remember especially the two mallet percussion players on each side of the stage giving the work a wash of color.   And towards the end, there was a passage in which I thought "well, the raiders have just found the lost arc".   It was beautiful.  It was what Antoine wanted to do.  I was so proud that he would let that out.

At the end, moderate applause.  And booing.  I saw Antoine briefly afterwards.  He didn't care.  He had heard his piece.  He know what it was.  And that was enough.