"As if we were discovering the Four Seasons for the very first time": conversation with Théotime Langlois de Swarte

This spring, violin virtuoso Théotime Langlois de Swarte leads Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the musicians of Les Arts Florissants on a 21-concert tour of North America, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the score. Before embarking on this exceptional adventure, he shares with us his personal perception of this music, as well as his “Arts Flo” career path...

Why play Vivaldi's Four Seasons today, 300 years after the score was published in 1725?  

Théotime Langlois de Swarte : I've always loved the Four Seasons. I listened to it as a child and as a teenager - I could even say that it was partly because of to these concertos that I became a violinist! Vivaldi's music is wildly energetic and inventive, but it also uses a whole palette of colors to depict different aspects of nature. His music can be both contemplative and expressive, introspective and open to the world. In this way, it has an existential and therefore timeless dimension: it invites us to question our very existence, by appealing to our senses to evoke the cycle of life. What also moves me is that this is an extremely popular work, in the best sense of the word. The Four Seasons concertos are among the great Baroque masterpieces of the eighteenth century, partly because they were extremely original for their time: a program-based instrumental piece of music composed from poems, that wasn't common! It is to this originality that the Four Seasons owe their immense notoriety – even if today, this same notoriety gives us the feeling that this work is no longer original. But when it was written, it was highly revolutionary, as shown by the fact that it resonated throughout Europe. 

Today, the Four Seasons are perhaps victims of their own success, and a little stripped of their original flavor. This is why I want to play them: to let the audience hear a version that tries to convey Vivaldi's original ideas, in a fairly raw way, without any aesthetic filter. As if we were discovering the Four Seasons for the very first time.  

As a musician, why do you enjoy playing this music?  

TLS : What I like most of all is the vocality in instrumental writing. Voice also means opera, or how to tell a story by emitting sounds that will touch the listener. To me, what's extraordinary about the Four Seasons is that it is without a doubt one of the most lyrical works for the violin in the 18th century. It has a narrative that carries us along in a dramaturgy very characteristic of the period. The idea is to seize an effect, a feeling, sometimes in a very frontal, raw way, and express it in a music that may be quite simple harmonically, but is always particularly expressive. Each musical movement communicates a precise, extremely clear message. Just like a theatrical set, from one act to the next: when you change the movement, you change the scenery. All this to tell a story made up of consonants and vowels, imitating the sounds of nature - without having to use words! 

Then, there's the rhythmicity of this music and its relationship to dance. Dance was an extremely important cultural component of the period - one could even say it was the rhythmic backbone of Baroque music. The rhythms of the Four Seasons correspond to those of 18th-century dances, and there's something about them that carries us along, beyond time. I find it very moving, personally. But I think it can also move everyone, even today, since the same principles can be found in present-day pop music.  

How has your experience with Les Arts Florissants nurtured you as a musician?  

TLS : I took my first steps with Les Arts Florissants thanks to the Arts Flo Juniors program, which enabled me to take part in concerts with them while I was still a student at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. After years of playing in the orchestra, I began to take part in chamber music projects, then as a soloist and in a duo with William Christie. 

What inspired me so much, and still inspires me in the approach of Les Arts Florissants, is the relationship to interpretation as an absolute artistic gesture. We are not seeking a pseudo-authenticity, but a personal interpretation that touches on our own experience and sensibility: we take this music from the past and reveal it through what we feel today. This creates somewhat of a dialectical process, in which the music is in a perpetual state of re-creation. Even if the music was created 300 years ago, in the performance it becomes a resolutely contemporary language. That's a very powerful artistic gesture. Fascinating, too. The question of vocality, which I mentioned earlier, is also part of my apprenticeship at Les Arts Florissants. I got all that from William Christie, 100%.  

As someone who has worked with a number of different ensembles, it is clear to me that Les Arts Florissants' style of playing is quite unique. There's a reason we call it the “Arts Flo sound”! This no doubt has to do with our experience, our memories of sound or playing styles... we work a lot on the texture of sound, while always trying to retain a great deal of finesse, as well as a certain breadth in the playing which, in the hall, gives a shimmering sound. It's quite magical - in short, it's “Arts Flo”! 

This major North American tour promises to be exceptional in terms of its intensity, the sheer size of the territory you'll be covering and the diversity of audiences you'll meet: what are you expecting from the experience?  

TLS : We never tire of hearing this music in concert. The Four Seasons follow a real dramaturgy, with a beginning and an end - birth, death... every time we play them again, we get caught up in the story. So that, even though I've played it many times before, I still take great pleasure in it. But above all, I think these concerti are a wonderful gateway to Baroque music, and even to classical music in general. For me, the masterpieces are our standard-bearers. Of course, there are some great unknown works out there, just waiting to be rediscovered; but I think people also need to be able to hold on to something they already have a connection with. And that's the great thing about the Four Seasons: everyone has heard an extract of it somewhere, whether in a commercial, a film, a pop song or a sample... this is a music that touches everyone. Hearing it live could be the first step towards many more discoveries - and that's what moves me!

Interview by Marie Lobrichon