Pianist Alexandre Tharaud said his love for Michael Haneke

on Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Collapsing under prices, "Love" Michael Haneke depicts an elderly couple face to disease and death. In this film, classical music plays a major role rarely mentioned. Pianist Alexandre Tharaud , which plays its own role, illuminates for us the mystery.


One of the first scenes of "Love" is located at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris. In the room, Anne ( Emmanuelle Riva ) and Georges Laurent ( Jean-Louis Trintignant ), a couple of music teachers to retire came to attend a classical music concert. Music,"First Impromptu" opus 90 Schubert . On stage, Alexandre Tharaud, who plays the role of a student Anne became a famous pianist.Alexandre Tharaud says:

"Haneke wanted the role to be played by a real pianist, that I found interesting. For my part, when I see a player make the pianist in a movie, it makes me laugh out loud so I think this is wrong. Haneke and I do not know, someone told him about me and I did some tests.' 

The shooting happened during my sabbatical. I was fond of new experiences, I had time. But I was also terrified. I had seen almost all his films and loved everyone. Particularly "The White Ribbon" for me a revelation. '


Tharaud and Trintignant (Photo CD)
When it is a demanding and fastidious artist Michael Haneke, the choice of this scene at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées can in no way be fortuitous all his work is thought to point / second.

Music for the first time

Himself a great lover of classical music, Haneke would have dreamed conductor or composer. "If I had to choose my talent, I was a musician," he told the weekly Marianne in the film. He did not but he staged "Don Giovanni" by Mozart in 2006 at the Paris Opera.
And yet - but it is apparent paradox - until now there was no music in his films, except "The Pianist" but with existing records. This is the first time qu'Haneke registered a soundtrack for its achievements.How is the choice made ​​works?

"It was he who proposed them, while inviting me to change it if I wanted.There were pieces by Schubert, Beethoven and Bach, his favorite composers Mozart. Very quickly, I told myself that I had to go exactly his way. He chose tempi up and I let him. 

I recorded the soundtrack a little before the filming, which took place in the studios of Epinay [Seine-Saint-Denis]. Everything has been restored, to my lodge the Théâtre des Champs Elysées! The chorale Bach interpreter Trintignant, it is actually me who plays in the next room. '

If Haneke far refused to include music in his films is that it is most often used to hide a fault, give rise to an emotion, create suspense. "I find it quite disgusting," he told L'Express.

A very sweet movie about a very hard

In "Love", it gives the music a role, mysterious but certain. Moreover, the film's title was originally "Music stops." This is Trintignant, in a conversation that suggested "Love." Alexandre Tharaud continues:

"The title is beautiful, it could not be any better because it is a true story of amour fou. This is a very sweet movie on a subject very hard. Full of beauty, sensuality. '
Paradise Lost, crystallization of the beauty of music in "Love" suspends its flight but it is not to give free rein to propitious hours. She stops, because it is no longer tolerable to hear.

Filming of "Love" Haneke (DR)
When Georges / Trintignant listening to the radio the "Impromptu No. 3" opus 90 Schubert and then arises the image of Anne, his wife, piano and healthy it off immediately.
When Tharaud plays a "Bagatelle" from Beethoven to Anne, his former teacher, the latter asked him to stop quickly.

"In" Love ", the music, the memories. Which is no more. Anne and George do not want to hear because it is their life. My grandfather was a violinist. He had always said that when he could no longer play, he would die. This is what happened. 

For a musician, the stop is staggering. Anne can not play, so it dies.There is very little music in the film, but we can see that every time there is, it stops. '

The impossibility of religious chocolate

Alexandre Tharaud is very happy to have participated in this adventure. Would it be tempted by a new experience?

"I want to play again in a movie, just like a child who wants to eat a nun chocolate while it is not possible. Because if I know very well when I made correctly what is in the area of ​​my expertise, I know exactly what I do not know how ... 

In this film, nothing was very distant from my own experience. I played my role with my real name ... The scene where Anne / Emmanuelle Riva tells me about the " Bagatelles , Beethoven she made ​​me work for 12 years, is not very different from what I know personally. 

I regularly see my old piano teacher, Carmen Taccon-Devenat, which is less physically, but in my eyes found ... '

Victories of music 2013: victory Wins

Live the brand new auditorium Bordeaux, Wins classical music , broadcast Monday on France 3, were watched by 1.874 million viewers, or 600,000 more than last year. Victory for Victory. But music?



For a lover of classical music, the evening Victoires de la musique on television is often heart-breaking. The quest for the hearing accompanied by a prosaic which hardly accords with the purpose of the program.
How to "enter" the ultra fast television works that listen in time? No more than four minutes, it was set for interpreters on set.
How to get the best artists of themselves when they are subjected to the brutality of the laser beam and forced to play immediately very fast, clean and super makeup on them?
How classical music out of its ghetto specialists without falling into the facility?
How to propose a programming mainstream music while being varied? And therefore do not like Monday night with Bach played three times, and twice Gershwin?

The worst was avoided

These questions remain unanswered, but say that Monday night is not the best, the worst was avoided. And it's already huge!
The evening was presented by Louis Frederic Laforge and Lodéon, who art to be popular without being a demagogue. She was accompanied by the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, led by Kwame Ryan.
On the set, a host of guests: the violinists Vladimir, Sarah and Deborah Nemtanu, Hae-Sun Kang and Renaud Capuçon, Frank Braley pianists, Philippe Bianconi and David Kadouch, violist Antoine Adrien La Marca and Tamestit, singers Joyce Di Donato and Vittorio Grigolo, guitarist Milos Karadaglic.
Missing Katia and Marielle Labèque , who came to the Cité de la Musique three concerts stunning minimalist music and American avant-garde. They have not agreed to play, guess what? a piece of Gershwin!

2013 winners

  • Instrumental Soloist: Nicholas Angelich, piano;
  • Opera singer: Ludovic Tézier , baritone;
  • Revelation Instrumental Soloist: Edgar Moreau, cello;
  • Revelation opera singer Sabine Devieilhe, soprano;
  • Composer: Karol Beffa;
  • Recording: "The Ox on the Roof", Alexandre Tharaud , piano.