Jean-Michel Pilc, pianiste – Le Questionnaire de Proust

Michel Pilc, pianist, has kindly agreed to continue our series of the famous Proust questionnaires, given a light Couleurs Jazz twist…

An original way to climb the first steps into the world of these extraordinary jazz musicians, artists of our time.

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What, to you, is the ultimate expression of musical poverty?

A lack of passion, routine. Anything that is “normal.”

Where would you like to live?

Wherever my family is.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

That depends on how you define happiness, a concept I have always found difficult to grasp. “Ten minutes of happiness a day is already pretty good,” Edith Piaf used to say. “Happiness is sorrow taking a rest,” said Léo Ferré. Sometimes, it is better not to be too idealistic…

Which wrong notes are you most inclined to forgive?

Those played by others.

Who are your favourite fictional heroes?

Those I struggle to understand, the ones who challenge me, make me question things, sow doubt and unsettle me. Camus’s The Stranger, for instance, or Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter.

Who is your favourite classical musician?

Whichever one I happen to be listening to at a given moment, as long as they move me and set my imagination free. I don’t like having to choose between artists who are entire worlds in themselves. I prefer to travel freely through their universes.

Who are your favourite heroines or divas in real life?

Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Maria Callas. I am drawn to the pain, the cracks that show through their art. Their strength and their vulnerability.

Your heroines in fiction?

Carmen, for her freedom.

Your favourite painter?

Once again, why choose? Among those who are perhaps mentioned a little less often: Goya, Ingres, Cézanne, Modigliani. And Jean-Marc Reiser, who had the extraordinary, inimitable gift, though many have tried to imitate him, of defining a character with just two strokes.

Your favourite jazz musician?

Same answer. The first was Bix Beiderbecke. Many others followed.

Your favourite quality in a man?

Nonconformity, character, personality in the fullest sense of the word. But also vulnerability. You have to be both angel and demon, as Vladimir Horowitz used to say.

Your favourite quality in a woman?

Same answer.

Your favourite virtue?

Silence.

© Photo Conor Nickerson

Your favourite occupation?

Walking in nature. Listening to the silence.

Who would you have liked to be?

Honestly, I have no answer to that question. My own experience is the only one I know, so imagining myself living someone else’s seems illusory and a little pointless. Being myself is enough. That is already quite a lot of work.

The principal trait of my character?

Impatience.

What I appreciate most in my friends?

Their friendship.

My main fault?

Jealousy.

My dream of happiness?

Never to wake the sorrow that is taking a rest.

My greatest misfortune?

Losing a child.

What I would like to be?

A bird. Or a butterfly. Anything that can fly.