Skip Sempé

Álvaro Teixeira: You just played some harpsichord pieces by Couperin and it seemed to me that you have a particular inspiration for this composer.

Skip Sempé: I am always inspired to play French music because it is our favorite repertoire after so many years playing the Marais, the Rameau, the Couperin. It is a repertoire to which I am particularly attached and to which I have dedicated a lot of work, many concerts and many records.

AST You record for what label?

SS We have our own label. It's called Paradiso. But before that we recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Astré and Alpha.

AST Do you like to do this kind of recital, accompanied by other musicians who sometimes play together, sometimes as soloists? I, as an audience, like it very much because it is more varied.

SS I like to play as a soloist but I also like to do chamber music. Being a full-time soloist is not always very interesting.

AST Do you prefer the French repertoire or the more traditional repertoire, like Bach, for example?

SS There are few things I don't like but I'm not a big fan of Haendel and Vivaldi. I like Bach but also French music, Scarlatti, Telemann but I also like Renaissance music very much, both as a group and as a soloist. Especially the repertoire that has been neglected over the decades.

AST For example?

SS The dance music of the 17th century as well as the chamber opera of that same century, all of that is a repertoire that is not really known. The public loves the discovery of those kinds of works.

AST So classicism is not in your scope...

SS It's not my music. There are colleagues, many, who do that repertoire, as well as romantic music. We're really on the path of Renaissance and Baroque music, with the instruments on which that music was played.

AST There are a lot of harpsichordists who play Haydn, for example. And Mozart...

SS Yes but I'd rather do the music of the renaissance than play the classical repertoire. I'd rather do the music of the sixteenth century than the music created between 1750 and 1830.

AST Okay. Do you notice a big difference, as a performer, between northern music, Holland for example, and southern music? Vivaldi, etc. Differences in essence... and form...

SS That difference has always existed between countries that have a lot of sunshine and those where there is a lot of snow, cold and gray skies. But I believe that in the 17th, 18th and even in the 19th century the aesthetics were much more shared than before. The Italian violin gained a lot of influence throughout Europe, as did bel canto with Haendel in London and Bach in Dresden. In fact Baroque music originated in Italy. And this aesthetic of doing everything full of luminosity gained a lot of supporters in Northern Europe and in England as well.

AST And French music is in the middle?

SS It's a music that comes close to the Latin countries because the French have a tendency to push and make visible their Latin rib. But France is not a Latin country at all. But in musical aesthetics France looks for this sunny side of creating music, being more sunny country than Nordic country.

AST You were born in the United States... Do you do a lot of concerts there?

SS: No, no. I studied there, at university and at the conservatory, but most of our work is done here in Europe. And this is where we recorded all our records. But there is a very loyal audience in the US for old music, especially in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Houston, etc. But in fact, the capital of old music in the Americas, both North and South, is Montreal. There is more old music in Montreal than in all the other countries in America.

AST Are there differences between European and American audiences?

SS No. The audiences in Europe are very different from each other. They differ according to the concert, the place of the concert, the atmosphere of the concert. There is the Sunday after lunch audience, the Saturday night audience, the opera audience... There is the young audience and the regulars' audience... The audience at a concert in a large cathedral reacts differently from the audience in a small hall attending a harpsichord recital.