François-Xavier Poizat on Ravel

François-Xavier Poizat was launched into an international career at the age of 12, when Martha Argerich recognised his “deep lyricism and remarkable virtuosity”. Now 35, Poizat performs across the world in solo recitals, chamber music and as a concerto soloist. He recently released a 6 CD set (on Aparté) bringing together not only Ravel's solo and concerto repertoire, but also his chamber music and songs. The set has already been crowned 'Recording of the Month' in the November issue of Gramophone, and I can echo Jed Distler's sentiment that "No Ravel lover should miss this important release." I spoke with François-Xavier to find out more.

Ravel is fascinating to me, because he intersects with so much of the cultural richness of the Paris of his day, including the 1889 Exposition where he first heard Javanese Gamelan and Rimsky-Korsakov, his contact with Stravinsky, and his fascination with Satie. What lead you to focus so much on his music?

I think your explanation is very beautiful and very rich, but when someone falls in love with a composer, it's like when we do with a person, we don't really know why, it just resonates and it's a wonderful feeling. I was always very touched by Ravel's music, as a child and then as a teenager. What you just said is what I could say as an adult, but before that I was already very close to Ravel's music, for reasons I could not explain.

You mentioned the Gamelan and the Exposition and maybe that touches a particular mixture that I'm born with, of French, Chinese and Swiss origins - this connection between Occident and Asia. And that's probably what touches me the most in Ravel's music, those harmonies which are mostly modal and very inspired by world music. 

Which Ravel work first captured your imagination? 

I was five years old. I remember the concert, it was the Boléro, and also the Nutcracker Suite from Tchaikovsky. The next day I told my parents that I loved the concert, and they bought me an album of the Nutcracker. It took me years to realise that it wasn’t the piece that really touched me in the concert, it was the Ravel.

When I started to practice Ravel's music, I started with Jeux d'eau. I really liked this piece, and then when I was 20, I found a deep interest in Le Tombeau de Couperin.

I found out really that, yes, that's my favourite composer. 

Is there something special you expect from the piano itself to support the range of colours you want to produce? 

Ravel is probably the one composer who pushes the need for a precise pedal the most. To get those colours, it's not only a story of fingers but of feet as well, because we need to use all three pedals. I don't know any Ravel pieces where we don't need to use the middle pedal that is otherwise very rarely used. 

Something I can bring that is new to the interpretation of Ravel is to remember that Ravel's father was an engineer. Everywhere in Ravel's music, we can see and feel this mechanical element. When we play Ravel, we need to always keep in mind the mechanics behind it.

We need our emotions and some spontaneity, but not in the physical way. It's exactly like Ravel's character; we can imagine a guy who was always extremely polite, clean and diplomatic, but with a gigantic internal world. 

Is there a specific edition that you use for Ravel?

Ravel's music was full of mistakes. It's not like a little mistake that we cannot hear, for example at the start of Ondine there is a big mistake in the right hand. It is written in Ravel's letters that he was complaining to his editors, but they didn't change it.

I'm grateful for Henle's work to bring out those mistakes in their new scores, which are very beautiful.

This set brings together all Ravel's music involving the piano. How important is chamber music to an understanding of Ravel the composer? 

The chamber music is important to understand any composer. Ravel’s trio is one of the greatest from the 20th century, and it's much harder to play than both piano concertos.

His treatment of the violin is extremely interesting. Somehow, Ravel's voice is maybe much closer to the violin than to the piano, because the violin can sing in a very light way, and that's exactly how Ravel melodies sing.

I'm also very enthusiastic about the two albums with voice. If a composer writes a lot of piano music, there is a danger that we may forget about the chamber music and the songs. 

In classical training we learn a very formal approach of playing what's in the score, but jazz was very much in the Parisian air during Ravel's life. How do the jazz jam sessions you play influence your approach to classical works?

We forget how unique classical music is in the story of mankind. It is the only music in world history that is almost completely written, because most music is half improvised. There's always a corpus of melodies... In jazz we call it 'the standards'. Every traditional music has its own 'standards' and the players know them, but then they improvise around them. Classical music doesn't have 'standards', we have repertoire.  We know exactly what the other musicians will play, so we expect it. In jazz and in every other music, I do not know what they will play and I need to be able to react and balance the music. 

In classical music we know the theory of the metrics, but we don't feel it. For lots of classical musicians, including myself, to have the feeling of where we are in a 16 measure form that repeats itself is so difficult at first. Any child can do that after two hours of practice, but we as classical musicians are conditioned out of it. When we can learn this, we can do something new and mix something that is rarely on stage, which is the naturalness of something basic and universal, and the complexity of a masterwork. 

Finally, name one pianist who inspires you.

I'm a big fan of Arcadi Volodos. Every one of his concerts is like a masterclass.