© photo : Fabrice Neddam
"L’air de rien is a very personal piece. I left behind the adventure of Hiatus et turbulence, a dense orchestral piece with extremely rich instrumentation that was performed with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. The instrumentation in L’air de rien is lighter, and I myself am at the piano.
For the first time, because the piece would contain improvisation, I was able to combine my desires as a composer with what I am as a pianist. There are indeed places where the orchestral part is written and the piano improvises over it. That’s how I structured the score.
It was Enrique Mazzola who suggested combining these two disciplines in my work: improvisation, which is naturally in my genes, the way it is with jazz musicians, and what I’ve been championing for several years as a composer.
But this is not a jazz piece at all. Let’s just say that it contains rhythmic elements that could have been used by other composers, from Beethoven to Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Ligeti, Ravel... All of them played a great deal with rhythm, and that’s what I find interesting – more than jazz rhythms.
The period during which I wrote the piece was a difficult time in my personal life, so I needed a bit of lightness, a sort of casualness, which is why I found it amusing to end the piece with a thumb of the nose, a tango. I enjoy the idea of juxtaposing sophisticated language with melodic elements that are simple enough to serve as reference points for the audience."
Baptiste Trotignon
World premiere
Orchestre national d'Ile-de-France, Michael Hofstetter (cond.), Baptiste Trotignon (piano)
30 November 2018, Espace Carpeaux, Courbevoie
1 December 2018, Salle Gérard Philipe, Bonneuil-sur-Marne
2 December 2018, Théâtre Luxembourg, Meaux
4 December 2018,Cité de la musique, Paris
7 December 2018, Espace Marcel Carné, Saint-Michel-sur-Orge
8 December 2018, Centre culturel Les 3 Pierrots, Saint-Cloud
9 December 2018, Théâtre Jean Vilar, Vitry-sur-Seine
Dates to come
4 February 2021, Orchestre Victor Hugo Franche-Comté, Besançon
5 February 2021, Orchestre Victor Hugo Franche-Comté, Montbéliard