There are those who know how to return to the interior ‘‘battlefront’’ within a few minutes and who thus keep a check on every difficulty and every resistance. These people have acquired, or received, the means of building themselves a rich and fertile life, an exciting life in search of themselves.
The balance thus obtained between knowledge and ability, between ignorance and impotence, makes possible a thought process, a movement towards others and towards its own truth. This subtle thought process, once acquired, has nothing in common with hierarchical ambition. It is not important to become the best, simply better than what we knew before.
Everyone is agreed that this thought process is not easy. It jolts, and hesitates, and will sometimes lead us to despair (something which the man who doesn’t ‘‘move’’ avoids).
It is at such moments that friendship among musicians, among men of good will, can be decisive and beneficial.
The teacher, for example, must realise that every stage of evolution is an adventure. He is fighting at the ‘‘ignorance front’’ alongside his pupil. The only thread which can unite us in the solitude of our individual thoughts is that spun by friendship (which includes respect for the other’s ‘‘work front’’ and the sacrifice of self, that is to say of what we have already completed ourselves).
All other forms of communication, whether they inspire fear, submission or dependence, create a disastrous contest of vanity where the prize is a short-lived and pretentious vainglory, where each contestant tries to crush the others.
Unfortunately the world of music is often still obstructed by incompetent people in love with prestige.
I am convinced, however, that there is an imperceptible growth in new and less extrovert forms of music-making thanks to which musicians are in greater communion and communication with one another.
Chamber music is developing more and more for and among brass players. It has unexpected resources to offer them.
The audience takes (or resumes) a secondary role. Instead of a programme being played for them, they come to listen, to be present at the event brought about by the sublimated union of a few friends in the art of uttering the inexpressible.
What is incomprehensible to thought or spoken language is revealed in the sounds and silences.
How fortunate to be a musician!