A concert at the time of Proust

In July 1907, the celebrated French author Marcel Proust invited close friends and special guests, including the director of the Paris Conservatoire, to a dinner and concert at Paris’ Ritz hotel. The concert was in honour of the composer Gabriel Fauré—and its featured music would go on to be a major inspiration for one of the most famous literary achievements of all time: Proust’s seven-volume À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). Proust’s masterpiece introduces us to the fictional composer Vinteuil, whose style owes much to the musical influences in that legendary concert, including Fauré’s great Violin Sonata and pieces by Chopin, Wagner, Schumann and Couperin. In this evocative and brilliantly performed album, Proust, Le Concert Retrouvé (Proust, the Rediscovered Concert), violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte and pianist Tanguy de Williencourt take us back in time to that magical soirée at the Ritz, recreating the original concert as closely as possible. De Swarte and de Williencourt tell their story with the help of two remarkable instruments: the 1708 “Davidoff” Stradivarius violin, once owned by the 19th-century Russian colonel, amateur musician and Francophile Vladimir Alexandrovich Davydov; and an Érard grand piano from 1891. Both are housed in the Musée de la musique, at the Philharmonie de Paris in the north-east of the French capital. “The quintessential nature of Proust’s music tastes is in this programme,” Langlois de Swarte tells Apple Music Classical. “This concert was a sort of a testing ground to see how all of the music would work together for the novels.” But this album doesn’t just feature what Proust heard that night. Proust’s lover and lifelong friend, the celebrated composer Reynaldo Hahn, was unable to be at the concert, so de Swarte and Williencourt bookend their recital with two of his works. “Proust wrote to Hahn the day after the concert, sad that there was no music of his in the concert ‘because the musicians didn’t know your pieces’, so we’ve included the beautiful, neo-Baroque ‘À Chloris’ and ‘L’Heure exquise’ to show the affection they had for each other.” Read on as Théotime Langlois de Swarte guides us through each piece in this beautiful recital. À Chloris “‘À Chloris’ is written in the Baroque style, with a descending bass like a passacaglia. It’s very beautiful and lyrical. For me, it represents the letter that Proust wrote to Reynaldo Hahn, telling him that the concert took place the day before. I find it a really emotional piece—it’s one of Reynaldo Hahn’s very best.” Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: Des Abends “‘Des Abends’ (‘At Night’) is an excerpt from Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, and was the first piece in the original concert programme. It has this melancholy in the way that it evokes the time when dusk turns to nighttime. In France, we call that time ‘the hour of the poets’: this moment of uncertainty when a warm feeling of expectation is, perhaps, tempered by an anxiety as night begins to fall.” 24 Préludes, Op. 28: No. 15 in D-Flat Major “Raindrop” “Proust didn’t specify which piece by Chopin was played at the concert, but this is my favourite. And Tanguy chose it for its striking alternation between major and minor, and for its stormy middle section. For me, its contrasts are like Proust’s states between conscious thought, memories and dreams, and it reminds me, too, of his evocative descriptions of medieval romantic heroes near the beginning of In Search of Lost Time.” Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Op.13 “This really is one of the great masterpieces of the French violin-and-piano repertoire. Proust was a huge fan of this piece and he insisted that it was performed at the concert, even when Fauré was too ill to come. The Sonata was a large part of Proust’s research. In In Search of Lost Time, he describes Vinteuil playing his own violin sonata, but in the book’s first draft, he says he was playing the Fauré Sonata. When I realised this, it was like finding the Holy Grail. At last, I knew that underneath the Vinteuil sonata was Fauré’s music.” Berceuse, Op. 16 “When I was a kid, I used to accidentally play this piece in a minor key. So, my first memory of this piece is really sad and affected. But in fact, it’s bright, very sweet music, full of joy and serenity. For me, every berceuse or lullaby has nightmares as well as dreams, and in this berceuse by Fauré there’s a minor-key passage that’s a lot darker, before it returns to a major key and to those sweet dreams.” Second livre de pièces de Clavecin, Ordre VI: V. Les Barricades mystérieuses “This Baroque piece represents the recital programmes that were often performed at these sorts of salon concerts. The programmes were always very varied, but there was usually a much older piece by a French composer—a kind of homage to French music. In Proust’s time, Couperin’s harpsichord piece ‘Les Barricades mystérieuses’ was his most famous work, which is why I think Proust chose it for his recital. It’s part of the French musical spirit.” Trois mélodies, Op. 7: I. Après un Rêve “With ‘Après un Rêve’ (‘After a Dream’), we venture again into the world of dreams. In fact, Tanguy and I had this idea that this concert was a bit like a dream, especially [during the pandemic] as we can’t go to concerts! Fauré is very popular today, so this wonderful piece is often performed out of context. It was nice, however, to bring the piece back to the salon environment.” Nocturne No. 6 in D-Flat, Op. 63 “All of these pieces—‘Après un rêve’, ‘Berceuse’, ‘Les Barricades mystérieuses’ and this nocturne—are about the night and our relationships to our dreams. I think this piece really explains why Fauré is recognised as a genius. ‘Après un Reve’ is like the beautiful tip of the iceberg, but underneath is this piece, the real part of the iceberg. It’s such great repertoire, but it’s sadly not heard very much.” Isoldens Liebestod, S. 447 “Proust was a really modern citizen. He had a ‘théâtrophone’—a telephone to listen directly to the opera. He would call a number and listen directly to the Paris Opera. It was like the YouTube of the day! Wagner was Proust’s favourite composer and he used to go and hear Wagner performed at concerts put on by the Countess Greffulhe. The Countess said that the first time she heard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde, she stayed in bed trembling for three days! Proust wrote his description of the death of the grandmother in In Search of Lost Time after listening to this piano arrangement of the ‘Liebestod’.” 7 Chansons grises: V. L'Heure exquise “‘L’Heure exquise’ (‘The Exquisite Hour’) starts in the same key as the end of the Wagner. Tanguy and I wanted to create this sort of meeting between Proust’s favourite composer and his lover, Hahn. And we also wanted to bookend the programme with Hahn, to signify Proust’s letter to him. This gentle piece also talks about the night, and that anxious ‘hour of the poets’ just before nightfall. We felt this was a great way to finish the album.”