How to make conversation sublime through music - Interview with François Jacquet, member of the Quatuor Annesci
The remarkable ways that, through music, this quartet has created both unity and a larger presence. The musical conversation is at the heart of what they do.
I met François Jacquet and Guillaume Quarternoud after they performed magnificently at the APM Convention in Nantes 2023. The way they explained their method of performing blew me away, in terms of examples of a new form of leadership, how to explore all your senses when you communicate (and live) and how to manage mistakes and long-term relationships. There is something very special about the way the Quatuor Annesci have meshed. This interview with François Jacquet was done in French, transcribed and then translated. My translation may not always be as lyrical as the way François spoke, but the essence of what he delivers is a goldmine of material for more advanced forms of conversation.
Minter Dial
Francois Jacquet. I'm delighted to have you on my show to discuss the musical conversation. I heard you do a master performance on stage at the APM Annual Convention. It was a real pleasure to hear you perform and in your words you shared. So, who is François Jacquet, to start with?
François Jacquet
I am a violinist and I play second violin in the Annesci quartet. This quartet is made up of two violins, a viola and a cello. It is the classic usual quartet.
Minter Dial
What led you to pursue this profession? What was your path to get there?
François Jacquet
It is a very special path. It may not be unique in the history of musicians, but I think it deserves to be counted because its genesis is truly special. When I was a teenager, in my school, we imagined with five or six friends who were also musicians to organize evenings of music and poetry, because we were very interested in our adolescence in the arts. Teenagers spend their lives looking for themselves, but here we tried to find ourselves through, among other things, poetry. And then, this ensemble grew with friends and girlfriends from the conservatory until we created a chamber orchestra of 15 people who functioned independently. We were already in conversation since there was no conductor with a kind of power of arbitration. There was this relationship that was woven between us, already from the days of poetry and music. The relationship has always been in the form of exchanges and initiatives. I think the attitude we had at that time guided us. We were firm believers in this idea of talking, speaking and listening, because we really did everything between us.
We didn't depend on anyone. I think that everything we developed, everything we experienced in the Quatuor comes from there. This is why I insist a little bit on this origin. We weren't at all in the pattern, I would say a little standard, of four musicians who find themselves on the sidewalk with their first prizes in their pocket and who say to themselves "Hey, I see three more, we could maybe be part of the quartet?” The origin of our quartet goes back to these teenage adventures.
Minter Dial
So the four members of your quartet were among the 15 you were talking about?
François Jacquet
Yes, of course. We talked a lot, we worked, we rehearsed with this ensemble all year long. We played concerts in the summer. So, we took a car and then presto. At one time, I was the only one with a driver's license. I even had a van in which to put the instruments. And then the others arrived. I think that really fermented our relationship over the course of more than 35 years of Quatuor [our quartet] until today.
Minter Dial
35 years with the same four?
François Jacquet
So, there were two changes, but these two people, who were finally adopted by the Quartet, really got into the musical dynamic, the professional dynamic and above all the human dynamic that was the DNA of our ensemble.
Minter Dial
Could you describe this DNA for me? Because when we talk about recruitment in business, we will look to see if you have the same values, if you have the same ambitions. It's to get alignment in business. I think the idea of understanding each other on that level is essential, but I wondered how it could be different?
François Jacquet
In our ‘company,’ we debated the values. As far as we are concerned, I think we were not taught our values in adolescence. We discovered them ourselves. And there, I think it's still a richness to have gained these values through experience, through a shared experience between us, everything that is relational. We helped each other. We searched a lot, we questioned each other a lot. We had good times, not so good times, doubts, joys...
With the fifteen people, frankly, we developed our little world which made us grow, which made us return to adult life, if I may say so. But I want to insist on this story of experience, because everything we said to each other, if we put it down, we put it up for discussion, we developed it through exchange. And in our case, it was finally a lived experience. And so the values that we have developed with the quartet on the musical level and also in terms of the encounters that we can have enjoyed in each other’s company, all these values are embodied in a way, in our own way. But in any case, it didn't fall on us, not through biases, whether cognition, intellect, or wisdom. Rather, it is knowledge gained through what has happened to us.
Minter Dial
Via the experience! Nothing to do with just having words written on the wall, in an annual report, if I dared compare to business. So, you know that I write a lot about conversation. I use the word "meaningful", which has a meaning and it's not quite easy to translate into French: filled with meaning. For you, what is a meaningful conversation?
François Jacquet
So, if we start from the English word and then convert to French when speaking of meaning, it's the most conventional word. And in French, we are lucky that this word has at least three meanings. I was able to find out that in the Middle Ages, there were actually six!
Minter Dial
The meanings of meaning!
François Jacquet
There you go. And so, a conversation that would be meaningful for me, it’s like a triptych around the word meaning. The most basic definition is to hear and understand the intellectual content, to understand in the sense of comprehending the words, their definitions. So that's a bit basic. At least that's the shell of the conversation. And then as soon as you get into it a little bit, having or giving meaning in French also means being able to perceive. So, we enter into a more subjective part of the conversation, whether it’s with one or more people. And then I think that this quality of perception, this ability to perceive, little by little, will animate the conversation in terms of enthusiasm, of expressing oneself, of giving, of receiving…
Then, I think that the meaning, this perception will also add conviction to what is said. It will give weight to the intellectual content which will begin to be tinged with value. And then there would be a third meaning of the word meaning in French, it's the direction, that is to say to give a direction, to enter into a project. And somewhere, as the conversation progresses, finally it leads towards the future. And it's also a way of “directing,'“ of directing the conversation so that it is fertile, so that it produces something. And then, after, there is a fourth meaning, in French, which is to speak of common sense. This idea of common sense means that the conversation will perhaps become a little bit more objective, i.e., to show common sense. It is also to show hindsight, to provide a certain distance with oneself, in relation to others, so that the conversation is even richer in the end, and that we are not entangled in completely personal data.
We will probably talk about ego later. But that's common sense. At least in music, in our search for the very technical aspect of music, when we can show common sense, that's interesting. And so, if we mix all these definitions of meaning, I think we can get to something meaningful.
Minter Dial
Powerful?
François Jacquet
It brings a certain power, a certain quality.
Minter Dial
So, switching into music, how would you describe the musical conversation, even before entering into a 'meaningful' musical conversation?
François Jacquet
Musical conversation is a subject that is extremely rich because it does not pass through the spoken word. It passes, in classical music, through a text. This will be the score that is bequeathed by the composer. Afterwards, the musicians will endeavor to enroll this score into the conversation. It implies that we are at least two. In our case, there are four musicians. Let’s look at the etymology of conversation, because for me it's a bit my hobby, the etymology and origin of words. And the word conversation: it's cum (with or toward). And then verse, which in Latin means ultimately "to turn to." So, when we speak, in the best of cases, I dare to hope that we turn to the person with whom we are talking. But in music, we're going to trigger a phenomenon of listening, a sound phenomenon and a panoramic phenomenon in the case of the quartet, because we're going to have to listen to the others, all the different voices. Conversing, in older times, invites encounter and even intimacy. So, in the human project that will be grafted behind the musical conversation, it's interesting. And then I found that in the 14th century, in France, conversing meant coming and going together on the same river. It's crazy, if we consider that music is a flow. In this musical conversation, which will be born in the quartet, the music can be compared to a river and the musicians will come and go together, little by little. Unlike the spoken word, there is the classical score. In other music, if we think of jazz for example, there is no score in itself. But there are, all the same, these famous chord charts which determine a framework and a canvas. And in the world of improvisation, there is often a structure that is perhaps a little hidden, discreet, but in any case, we don't improvise in a vacuum. So, the musical conversation is necessarily framed by various elements. And it’s not going to appeal to the intellect. To come back to this first definition of the word meaning, it will appeal to other affects, to other things. It's going to be different. And everything that will mingle between the musicians in the musical conversation will be extremely rich.
Minter Dial
Can we also speak of a conversation with ourselves as a musician? During the music?
François Jacquet
So, already in a very consubstantial way, if I may say so, the musician plays as he is. He is between himself and himself, between himself and his instrument. The instrument is a mirror for the musician. When I say that he plays as he is, what he is going to emit, what he is going to produce is according to his nature in the very broad sense: his physical, physiological and I would say above all psychological, spiritual nature. And then, when it will mingle with the others, well there are these four worlds, within the framework of the quartet. These four worlds will interpenetrate. And this is where the great adventure begins.
Minter Dial
Brilliant, this idea of a mirror. So obviously, like you said earlier, you have a human project. Imagine you have a concert to do and lunch before the concert, you argue, where you have a setback. Will we find it in the music when you play? Or does the music in this case allow you to make abstraction from it, to sublimate this problem?
François Jacquet
So there, I think it will depend on the nature of each musician. As far as I am concerned, in our experience, there have been difficult times and then by great luck, I dare not say by miracle, from the start at the time of the concert, there is a kind of bubble which will settle around the musicians and we enter another world. There, precisely we begin our conversation, and the deep listening especially. We enter a different notion of time. Music, there is an incredible thing. It is that it only exists when it is played. Otherwise, we are aware that the right and duty of musicians: when it comes to producing music, you have to play. And in our case, when you have to play, you have to ignore everything else.
Finally, we have to perform with and for each other. You have to play. Then, if it's a concert, not a rehearsal, you'll also have to consider the public. But in any case, what is important to see is that the music will have to exist when it is needed. And so that ignores everything else. In a slightly flattering way, we could say that there is also a professionalism which means that in that moment, here we are, we will have to be there and do what is necessary. And then again, in our case, little by little, over time, the moments or issues of crisis were managed much faster than in our youth and much more effectively. Experience, maturity, and the contribution of our personal lives, too. The Quartet is still a great mix of many things, well beyond the notes of Mozart or Schubert.
Minter Dial
I imagine. And the question that comes to me now is when you have to do the same thing night after night. For example, on Broadway, there is the whole orchestra. They have to play the exact same music, night after night. In the quartet, do you ever have performances where you perform the same thing several times in a row?
François Jacquet
So, yes and no. In any case, not at the time of the concert. Because like I said, music only exists when it's produced. When it is played, therefore, it will inevitably be different. Very recently, we have had to play music on a film which tells the story of a sycamore maple. We see the tree from its birth in nature in the forest until it’s cut and then transformed into an instrument. This film lasts 55 minutes and we really adapted the music to the vision, to the story, to the images. And there, each time we give this concert, we don't have more than two seconds of margin per piece of music; and these are pieces that last several minutes, so two seconds over several minutes, it's tiny. And there, on the score, we had to put little markers. We wrote that there were birds in the tree, a description of the sky, a mountain, in order to try to bring them to life.
So, it's interesting. It's a bit of a challenge and it's a little bit disturbing all the same to be really honest, because at the same time we have to play, we must also look a little at our benchmarks on the screen. We have a timing, a stopwatch too. That's it, but it exists.
Minter Dial
That’s awesome. I have to mention the fact that I just recorded a conversation with a man, Hervé Franceschi, who holds conversations with trees. [You can find that interview here.]
François Jacquet
It's true. In this film, there is a voiceover in 4 places, and this voiceover is the tree that finally speaks and says that somewhere it will transcend everything. It will sublimate its own nature by becoming music. And in the case of our quartet, the four instruments are made with maple parts that come from the same tree, from one and the same tree! In the history of lutherie, it is believed that there are only three quartets that were built like this by a luthier who worked in our case for a year and a half to build the quartet with the same pieces of wood. And it was to express at least one of the values that we seek to bring to life in the quartet, that of unity. Diversity is four signature models of old masters from Cremona. But the unity here is this old maple since, when it was cut down, it was already 600 years old.
Minter Dial
600 years of wisdom.
François Jacquet
Exactly and 50 years of drying before being worked by the luthier. And now, over the 22 years that we have had this quartet, it has a new voice, it expresses itself.
Minter Dial
So you mentioned earlier the fact that, among the fifteen, you didn't have a conductor in the quartet. The question that arises out of this film story where there was an imposed tempo, how do you keep this timing? It's the story of a team without a “leader?” It's something that's very foreign to most people. Whether it's a football team or a group at work, there’s always an identified leader. How do you guys keep the tempo? What happens when there is an error? Who punishes whom?
François Jacquet
So, the story of Tempo: If we assume that -- and it's not always so -- a conductor is responsible for synthesizing the format of a group of people, such as an orchestra, we can think that he ensures the pulsation. And in the pulsation, we integrate the rhythms, and from that all is built. In our case, something that's specific to quartets, but also generally to chamber music, the tempo will be co-constructed. It will come from an internal mesh. In any case, this tempo does not come from outside such as a conductor might impose on an orchestra. In the ideal, it is co-created, co-constructed from within. So, in a somewhat technical way and without going too many into musical details, we could say that the shortest values will become the reference. For example, if one of the musicians has eighth notes and the others have quarter notes, the quarter notes adapt to the eighth notes, that's how there is a first form of knitting.
Afterwards, I'll skip the details, because it's much more complex. What is interesting is that this reconstruction must be intelligent with regard to leading where there are the four voices of the quartet. And, by dint of work, we will decide which of the four musicians will be best able to provide this guidance for the others. And then it comes through mutual agreement, by being responsible and above all intelligent, really honest if I can say so on an intellectual level. It may, for example, be the cello on which we will have to graft ourselves on its rhythms. And then it's the viola, there it's the second violin, there it's the first, etc. So, we divide up the roles and then it meshes. Once again, it's a very subtle conversation in the end, to have the hearing ability, the technical ability, the attention span, too, to get information from the person who will have been declared responsible in the moment. Sometimes it changes every two or three seconds.
It goes very, very quickly, this awareness of each person's function. And then, what is interesting is that the responsibility is shared, not unilateral. It is the ability to change hats very quickly. I am the leader for a moment and then I will seek my voice elsewhere. Ah well, I come back here for two measures and then hop, it goes to someone else. So, it does not stop moving. When I talk about intelligence, it's that everyone really has to know when they have to contribute.
Minter Dial
So, I feel like you have to have a leader to play. Whereas it is a shared, collaborative, intelligent role. But still, there needs to be a leader?
François Jacquet
The real leader is the composer. Let’s start with that. But the composer didn't take care of the technical restitution of his work. On the other hand, he has provided the structure of the work. But when we say the leader, it depends on what meaning we give it because, in our case, it is not a leader with arbitrary authority. When I speak of intelligence, of understanding how the score is constructed and understanding how the roles are going to be divided up, it's not through a phenomenon of authority, of cold and arbitrary authority. In our case, it is often an unknown authority, not accepted by others. So, as I like etymology, with the word authority, there is, among other things, a word inside: author, that means someone who creates. But for me, the real authority is not that. It doesn't fall from the sky. It's something that is exchanged, that is built and implemented, and then it works.
Minter Dial
It is funny because at the very beginning you said a text. I am a musician, but I would not have thought of the texts of the notes for the music as being a text. For me, it's more the opera where there are words written in the text there, below the clefs, that are sung. Just a small note of difference.
François Jacquet
Yes, yes, it's true, but it's also writing in music.
Minter Dial
And it amazes me every time I'm on public transport and I see a musician reading a score. This ability has always struck me. As if I were reading Victor Hugo. And you are reading notes!
François Jacquet
And hearing them. The reading of an article goes through the eyes, and when all is well, it also depends on the musicians, when we contemplate the score, it turns into notes. It's as if we were living with our ears after all.
Minter Dial
On this subject, Hervé Franceschi who spoke with the trees said that in fact his communication with the trees is multi-sensorial. I can thus suppose that in the music, the notion of bodily vibration, almost in the guts, is part of the conversation. Because there are the eyes that you look at, there are the ears that hear. One could even imagine with the notion of strings, the bow? The bow, too, with its bristles.
François Jacquet
And then the whole body is engaged in music. Earlier, I said that a musician plays as he is. He is as he is, let's say roughly at the psychological level. But at the physical level, the instrument offers this famous mirror effect. The instrument vibrates like the person's body. Finally, each has a sound heritage. Every human being has a sound identity. It doesn't speak all the time. But as soon as you play an instrument, it is this identity that will manifest itself in sensitivity. We use the physical aspect. There is the very visible aspect of movement to signal other information, to express the music. But there is more than that. There is an energetic relationship between us. And in all that, this consciousness appeared over the years, through experience, through the performances.
I never fully counted the tens of thousands of hours that we spent together, but I think there are a lot. We have many examples. And when, sometimes for a special circumstance, we replace one of the musicians for a brief spell, the identity of the quartet changes. And the change is immediate. We replace someone for 1 or 2 hours, even for a small, not very important event and boom, everything changes. The sound collates and collects how we emit the information. It reflects this assembly of bodies and physics.
Minter Dial
And this is even more striking, I imagine, the longer you've been together.
François Jacquet
That's it! Yes! We had the chance to spend three years with the Amadeus Quartet in Cologne who took us generously under its arm, under its protective wing. And these musicians had lived 40 years of their career together. The very same four. And the quartet lasted until the death of the violist. And we were with them in Cologne when this great gentleman passed away. They had already decided 25 years before, that if there were a problem, they would stop the quartet. There would be no replacement. You see how rich this path of life can be?
Minter Dial
A lifelong contract. So, we talked a bit about having moments of friction. I also brought up the story of having an error when playing. So, in this situation, here I'm trying to find out how important it is to have actually had friction for the better meshing afterwards.
François Jacquet
If we talk about purely musical errors, obviously we make mistakes.
Minter Dial
What? Aren't you perfect?
François Jacquet
So precisely, that's what I was going to say. When you work in a company, there is one thing that we say loud and clear: it's that if you wait until you're perfect to go on stage, then I don't think you'll ever go up. Or else one would have to be endowed with a large dose of unconsciousness, blindness to oneself and to what one does. And so, errors exist and what is interesting in music, in the case of a quartet in particular — and we come back to listening and to this quality of conversation — it is that when there is an error from one person, for example, the three others are going to hear it. Then all of a sudden there is a kind of dampening, of absorption of the error by the three others, which means that this error will be tempered and recovered.
And in the case of a concert, for example, where there is production in the moment, if there is an error, it will be caught back in less than a second or two. All of this is going very, very quickly. Even to the point that sometimes, because the person who made the mistake a priori does not notice it, it is the others who will notice it. Suddenly, there's a slight acceleration, a false note, or a strong slowing down, a little distraction. So, the person who makes the mistake does not notice it. The others seize it and recover. At the same time, of course, as they dampen the error on the auditory level, they also recover the person who suddenly, gets back into the groove again. And here's a crazy thing, we've often found that sometimes we don't even know who made the mistake, it was caught so quickly. And then the mistake is absorbed, hop, and recovered. It's amazing. We manage the very short moment of discomfort by our flexibility, by catching up. And in any case, for sure we are not going to glare at the person who did the stupidity. It's counterproductive, it's useless, it distracts, it bothers, it creates stress. This is inappropriate.
Minter Dial
I'm just imagining at a time where the mistake happens in a chorus, for example, or something that is repeated later in the score. You made the mistake at this moment, and the same refrain will come back later on; and there is a little look saying: Hey! Are you gonna do it again? How does that play out?
François Jacquet
A bit of everything happens! When we have worked on the pieces a lot, we can free ourselves from it, to take a step back. It's true that we exchange a lot between ourselves and in the case of an error, most often in concert, if there is a repeat of this passage where there has been a mistake, we will rather pass over it quietly. We're not going to remind each other too much again, remember three minutes ago? No, but, we do think about it. Of course, we know it because in addition we could also call it out! Will the stupidity be repeated? We will have to manage again, but we organize ourselves to get through it — not to hide from it — in any case, to remain discreet in this kind of moment.
Minter Dial
Suddenly there are conversations in your own head with yourself. There are conversations that go through the music. There is also energy that is exchanged. It's a whole mixture of means and channels of communication.
François Jacquet
Yes, so that's for sure. And the longer it goes on, the more this mesh I was talking about earlier will thicken. There were people long ago who were investigating where the mind exists. When we talk about the spirit in the spiritual world, is it in man, is it in the sky, or in black holes? And then there was a researcher who imagined that there were energy fields in the universe. Like knitting, weaving, there is warping and meshing. And he located the presence of the spirit at the intersections. Because the sum of energies exists at an intersection, where and since it intersects. And this is interesting as a thesis on the scientific, energetic and spiritual levels. And in music, this knitting I was talking about earlier, exists at the level of musical creation and the rhythm between us.
The field of energy is also filled with the melodic aspect, on the horizontal side of the music, I would say. It is also filled with harmony, with the chords that underlie and support the melody. And then I like, with this image, to say that there is also a diagonal because the melody is horizontal and the harmony is vertical. What is interesting to experience in conversation is in the moment what you play; and that's in the diagonal. Because when we play, we have a form of tension. It’s as if this tension is an arrow that cuts through, because the music appears a little into the future. It's important that we always be half a second ahead of it, the music, to take it to the future. So, there is a form of tension, one between what will drive and what will relax the music. Because music is a pulsating phenomenon; it's like a heart, like day and night.
This tension and relaxation is like breathing, like the great life of the universe. We know that it is expanding and that one day it will shrink. And there’s a uniting tension, through listening. The fact is that the listening tunes the intonation on our instruments. We have no benchmark. It's very easy to play out of tune. When I place a finger on my violin, I never play it by myself. I pose my finger according to what I hear in a given context, so that its location adapts to find the correct value. And it is a question of tenths of millimeters. It's tiny. So this whole mesh becomes richer and richer, one could say in energy. There is the beat, there is the melody, there is the harmony, there is this diagonal, and there are all the technical parameters of our instruments, and God knows it is also complex to play the instruments in time. And all that is the energy that sounds, that wanders.
Minter Dial
So, François, I talked a bit about this subject of disputes. And I was wondering how much you feel that having had these problems, the fights etc., how much does that help to reinforce the thickness of the mesh that you have been talking about?
François Jacquet
So the disputes, they were... because I can almost only speak in the past tense as we've been a quartet for more than 35 years. They existed. And then when we analyzed them, we saw that they came, roughly speaking, from people's egos. They come from people, from individuals. So, the individual, at the moment, he’s in a state. He has his dose of ego which also inhabits him, which little by little, over time will evolve. And then we’ve gained experience in our arguments. Over time, we asked ourselves what generated the argument? When it’s over, we analyzed. And, for a good part of them, it's about the ego. Much of it is mental. When I say mental, it's in relation to the score, in relation to the situation at the time, to rehearsal time, because that's often when there are heated exchanges. It also comes from an absence of consciousness, if there's no ability to step back, there's no distancing, then it's also anger. But to be angry towards a colleague, what does that mean? Maybe we didn’t execute what we had decided, what we had planned? It is very complex the origin of a dispute. So luckily with these famous thousands of hours that have passed, we ask ourselves, in fact, is it really necessary?
Thus, we gradually learned to manage that as soon as there was friction, rather than letting it grow, we had to put it on the table. And then to contemplate, to look at it. And in general, whether it's a dispute at a personal level or at the professional level, or about the score, when we put all this on the table, we say to ourselves, what was the detonator of the issue? And very often, we learned to leave the personal detonator aside, because it's irrational, it's not very important. On the other hand, we strove to look for the almost-technical cause of the dispute. And there, by putting down the score on the table and looking really, humbly and above all with hindsight, we always find the solution. And there, we defuse immediately. It's because the score hadn't been understood enough, not analyzed enough in its technique, but also in its scope of interpretation... That often something was missing.
The argument is often that something is missing. So, when that one thing is identified, then rather than get carried away, over time, we pose, we watch. Wait and see.
Minter Dial
I love the idea of stepping back, laying the problem on the table. We don't have much time left, so I'm going to focus on one last question that we talked about a bit about and that’s the place of the ego, the personality. And I would like to add the place for empathy in the musical conversation that you have together.
François Jacquet
So, as concerns the ego, little by little, on the professional level and above all on the human level, we have always considered that the quartet was a laboratory, a laboratory of humanity. Maybe one day it will turn into a laboratory of humanism, but in any case, a laboratory of humanity, a laboratory of encounters. And when we say meeting, there’s necessarily a meeting of egos, that's for sure. And to gradually manage these four egos. In fact, with the ego, everyone is in his own prison of himself until the moment when his consciousness will expand. Everyone is in his own prison. He does not even notice it, in his own ego-filled nature. And as we found out over time, it is that experimentation solves all the problems, or at least 99% of the problems. Because rather than being trapped inside this telescope, this distorting magnifying glass of the ego, once again, we take a step back from the technical aspects or — and especially of — the interpersonal human encounter, and we lay it out flat.
And at that moment, the egos deflate right away. Were we lucky with that, with the four of us? We had those two times where we had to replace the musicians. But I think that in our nature, little by little, we were perhaps favorably disposed in relation to this egoistic approach. In any case, we learned to ignore these ego phenomena as much as possible and to build a quartet entity that was freer, more open.
Minter Dial
And so suddenly, there is a co-construction of the culture of your quartet and a co-construction of yourselves. How do you manage virtually the co-construction of an ego above you all?
François Jacquet
Yes, so we can say it like that. Our famous teacher whom we had after Quatuor Amadeus, Eberhard Feltz, has always spoken of a chapel dome phenomenon. An egregore phenomenon. You see, this meeting of a collective which will mature, will grow, and which will put itself in a state of resonance, finally in any case, into a state of human synergy. Over time, one can hope that we have removed the parasites, of which the ego is one. And then we can hope that we have created a fabric, an assemblage of sound, and once again only in the time that the music was played — there is no trace afterwards — and it's in the moment that it's created. In the best of cases, let's imagine in good acoustics, for example at the time of a concert, this egregore will grow and will take the form of a dome of a synergistic chapel. Which means that the sum of the four people will become a proper quartet, not one plus one plus one plus one equals four, but one plus one plus one plus one equals one. This egregore phenomenon and...
Minter Dial
Unity?
François Jacquet
One plus one plus one plus one equals more than four. And on a human level, it's very interesting. We also achieve it on the musical level with the phasing of the harmonic sounds that we produce so that in the end the quartet plays with more voices than the four that are specifically emitted.
Minter Dial
It's quite funny that my friend, Hervé Franceschi, talked about the egregore in nature. When he speaks with the trees, he first watches from a distance, then he goes under the umbrella of the tree and there, all of a sudden, this egregore arrives, when he is waiting, when he is calm, when he listens. Now, François, just to ask one last item that was about the place of empathy when you converse. Is it something you have talked about among yourselves or is it something that's just implied?
François Jacquet
So it's implicit. Thanks to or because of those hours we spent together, empathy is almost automatic. In Greek empathy means "em-pathos", it is to suffer. And the "em" is inside. So, our connection has existed for so many years, it has created all the bridges that are necessary. And when one or other has a problem, whether it's health-related, or a little discomfort, curiously, we deal with it, we take it, we consider it. We talk, we exchange. It's no longer on a musical level, it's on a personal level, based on a team spirit that has turned into something really strong.
Minter Dial
That's why I often talk about this need for arguments, bad times and mistakes. Because in fact it's the little pain or expressions of pain — the pathos — that brings about the empathy. So, François, that was brilliant, I loved it. It made me think of a lot of things. How could someone listening find out about this movie for example? Or check out your site if they are interested in having you speak to their business. Tell us the links so that I put them in the show notes.
François Jacquet
Ah! So, our site is QuatuorAnnesci.Com. We have a YouTube channel. There are audio publications, especially videos, some of which come from us, but there are also videos that have been uploaded by people who have often recorded from telephones or what. So there, obviously, it's bad, that's not recommended! There's the most information on the site and it's also in English. And here’s the show (film), L’Arbre Murmure.
About François Jacquet
François Jacquet, is the second violin of the Quatuor Annesci, a quartet that reveals harmony. The Quatuor Annesci has been in existence for over 30 years and has worked with 600 companies, in 23 different countries. Along with the Quatuor Annesci, François was awarded the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation premier prize for chamber music dedicated to Mozart. This Quatuor Annesci ensemble is a major reference in terms of Music Management - a message that the world really needs today to help us better understand how we interact with one another, to learn to agree with ourselves and with others with more ease and self-confidence.