The Marseillaise : In the region,The general public has especially remembered your compositions for the adaptation of “ The glory of my father and two They wanted an apple » by Yves Robert, in 1990. Was this your gateway to Marseille and Provençal culture ?
Vladimir Cosmas : I began to know the region when Roger Luccioni invited me to the jazz festival he had created [le Marseille jazz des cinq continents, Ndlr.]. And some time before, through these films by Yves Robert, based on Marcel Pagnol. They opened the door to Marseille culture widely for me and it has never left me. Moreover, part of my repertoire stems from it and comes from there.
For these two films, you went against the clichés surrounding Provençal culture. Far from using fifes and tambourines, you instead delivered music with Mediterranean accents. For what ?
V.C. : I especially didn’t want to make music like you described it. I didn’t want a color that was too folkloric. To avoid this, I immersed myself in the music of Marcel Pagnol’s youth, in the 1930s. The folkloric inspirations were then rather Spanish, there was also the habanera… It was rather this which gave me the idea, subsequently, of using real cicadas that I sampled [fait d'échantillonner un extrait sonore déjà existant pour le réutiliser ensuite dans un autre contexte]. For example, I kept the beat of these cicadas with which I punctuated the habanera of The glory of my father.
In your eyes, Marseille is more the Mediterranean than the Provence ?
V.C. : My personal links with Marseille come mainly through knowledge of the work of Marcel Pagnol, which came to me thanks to the films of Yves Robert. In the past, I also had the opportunity to meet Marcel Pagnol. He even wrote me a letter in which he told me of his taste for music that I had made, such as that of Michel Strogoff [adaptation en feuilleton du roman éponyme de Jules Verne]and that he would like, one day, for me to make music to his own works.
How would you describe your relationship with the mandolin? ?
V.C. : I discovered this instrument quite early, because it is similar to the violin. The only difference is that, on the mandolin, you pluck the strings and there is no bow. The sound therefore comes from the plucking of the strings. We kind of play what we call a pizzicato violin. Because the problem with the mandolin is the duration of the sound. And to extend the duration of the note, you have to use the tremolo [répétition rapide d'une même note].
Vincent Beer-Demander, the director of the Mandol’in Marseille festival, writes about you : « His popular melodies, which belong to the collective memory, sometimes make us forget the great classical composer that he is. »…
V.C. : I don’t consider myself, for example, as a film score composer. I don’t make specific music in relation to a film, I don’t make descriptive music. Even music that seems as descriptive as possible, like The tall blond with a black shoe or La boom, do not actually describe anything. It’s pure music. If we listen to them without thinking about the image of the film, they do not dictate a specific action. But they accompany the image and give it extra beauty and emotion.
The idea is to give free rein
to each person’s interpretation ?
V.C. : Yes. I still don’t see the connection that people make between the music of Tall blond with a black shoemade with a Romanian panpipe with a rather folkloric inspiration, with the subject of the film and the adventures of this hero. It is above all music which has character, a style, but which is not dictated by image. I never liked descriptive music. I even believe that music by Bach or any other prelude or fugue does not describe to you the religious aspect, nor other sides that we want to attribute to them.
Music is mostly a feeling for you ?
V.C. : Yes, music gives off feelings. But it delivers neither meaning nor a story…
Feelings perpetuated by musicians of all ages who will play part of your repertoire during the festival. Especially since the Aubagne Conservatory will soon be officially renamed after you…
V.C. : I am very flattered to see my name attached to that of Pagnol, an author that I greatly appreciate and who has inspired me a lot in my music. I’m very happy with all of this. And it touches me a lot to know that young musicians still play my music.
