CLASSICAL CRUSADER

French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca’s Wonderful World recording project highlights the environmental challenges facing humanity – and musicians really can make a difference, he tells Tom Stewart

It isn’t hard to understand why French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca felt overwhelmed by the scale of the challenges that humanity faces.Earlier this year, the usually cool, rainy cities of Vancouver and Seattle experienced five days of temperatures close to 50C. Meanwhile, as vaccines begin to allow citizens of rich nations to return to their pre-Covid lives, the largely unvaccinated developing world continues to bear the brunt of the pandemic. And the disrupted relationship with nature that gave rise to Covid-19 in the first place has, according to the UN, put more than a million species at risk of extinction this century. ‘The problems are clear but the way we can engage with them as artists is not,’ says La Marca. ‘This preoccupied me for many years because I didn’t know how to be an artist active in society. Classical musicians used to have a platform they could use to speak out about things they considered important, but it isn’t so much the case today. We have to be courageous and take positions on broader issues again.’

La Marca began to assemble a team of like-minded players to put on a concert for GoodPlanet, an organisation founded in 2005 by French environmental activist and film-maker Yann Arthus-Bertrand.‘GoodPlanet promotes environmental causes and sustainable development,’

La Marca explains. ‘That first concert raised enough money to build a school in Morocco, and the plan for the second was to fund a reforestation project in the Amazon.’ The likes of the Ébène Quartet and dancers from the Paris Opera were lined up to take part in the 2020 iteration, though Covid put paid to that. Undeterred, La Marca set to work on a double CD inspired by the success of 2019’s live show. ‘I had to build a programme around me and my cello which would give people a new way to think about the environment,’ he says.

‘WE HAVE TO BE COURAGEOUS AND TAKE POSITIONS ON BROADER ISSUES AGAIN’

‘It took me a long time to decide on the precise architecture, but including 15 photos by Yann that show the beauty and fragility of the earth helped to suggest a structure. There are texts, too, by writers including Al Gore, David Attenborough and Pope Francis that reflect the disc’s title, Wonderful World.’ For La Marca, the most important thing was to help people reflect on the beauty of the Earth without ‘lecturing’ them about what they should or shouldn’t be doing themselves.

The recording comprises some 35 tracks, most of them short, arranged according to themes including ‘the earth cry and the human cry’, ‘biodiversity loss’ and ‘songs of praise’. La Marca appears on each performance, joined by pianists including Nathanaël Gouin and Baptiste Trotignon, soprano Patricia Petibon and string players from the Orchestre de Paris (left), who he directs from the cello. The familiar, accessible tone of the music is set by the first piece, an arrangement of ‘Over the Rainbow’, while perennial favourites including Fauré’s Après un Rêve and ‘The Swan’ from Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals also make an appearance. ‘The whole idea was to bring the message to the widest audience possible,’ says La Marca. ‘I tried to find music in my repertoire that described the subject matter and would help to enrich the impact of Yann’s photos.’

STÉPHANE REMAEL

Although the connection between music and message may at times seem glib – no prizes for guessing which Rimsky-Korsakov miniature La Marca plays to focus attention on the plight of pollinating insects – not all the performances on the disc are of such ubiquitous works. Music by young Breton singer and harpist Cécile Corbel and Nils Frahm, the German composer and electronic music producer, features alongside Messiaen, Guastavino and Dvořák, as well as passages of controlled improvisation. The fact that Frahm and Corbel (who wrote the music for Studio Ghibli’s 2010 Arrietty) are known for their inventive, often programmatic soundscapes perhaps underscores the cinematic sweep of La Marca’s conception.

Christian-Pierre La Marca during recording sessions for Wonderful World at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, France

MARCO STRULLU

‘It’s always challenging to pass between genres and periods but that’s an important part of being a musician,’ La Marca says of the range of styles Wonderful World required him to play.Shortly before work on it began, in fact, he was busy with a very different recording project. ‘I was doing a full cycle of the Haydn cello concertos with a period performance ensemble playing at A=415. Being a chameleon like this is what I enjoy. I love getting as close as possible to the spirit of whatever I’m playing at that moment in time.’ Did this attitude help when it came to recording more than 30 tracks drawn from across the repertoire? ‘We had just six days to get the whole thing done, so it was vital that I made a good connection with the orchestra and other players right away,’ he says. ‘In that sense, coming in with the ability to shape the line, regardless of the genre, makes it much easier to establish that relationship.’

As a means of enriching the lives of people from all walks of life, classical music has a well-established role in a range of humanitarian and educational movements that have no shortage of high-profile advocates. Its ability to raise awareness of environmental issues like climate change and biodiversity loss is less clear, perhaps due in part to the lack of a clear link between the polish of much classical repertoire and the hard-edged realties of the natural world. ‘It’s easy for musicians to surrender and say there’s nothing they can do beyond small personal changes like avoiding single-use plastic,’ La Marca says.

‘But we have the power to communicate big ideas on a personal level because what we do is all about emotions. Music relies on honesty and integrity and, unlike politics, doesn’t tell people what to do or how they should react. I want to create an opening for people to reflect on the beauty of their surroundings.’

MUSIC BY Arlen, Baker, Bloch, Corbel, Dvořák, Enhco, Einaudi, Fauré, Frahm, Gershwin, Glass, Guastavino, Mancini, Messiaen, Piazzolla, Portal, Ramírez, Rimsky-Korsakov, Saint-Saëns, Say, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Thiele, Trotignon, Weill ARTISTS Nathanaël Gouin, Baptiste Trotignon, Thomas Enhco, Thierry Escaich (pfs) Félicien Brut (acc) Édouard Macarez (db) Michel Portal (cl) Patricia Petibon, Sabine Devieilhe (sops) Musicians from Orchestre de Paris/Christian-Pierre La Marca (vc)