Two young pianists and students of Christian Favre speak about his personality as a pianist and musician:
“To the great love-filled sun”. This line by Rimbaud could correspond to the piano playing of Christian Favre. The poet also inspired Luigi Nono, who wondered, “how can one know how to listen to the red and white stones of Venice at sunrise, how can one know how to listen to the infinite arc of colors on the lagoon at sunset?”
From the playing of Christian Favre, this beauty flows…
The accent is placed on rarity, strength and tenderness. Transcendental lines are revealed, warmth and grandeur. And the piano transforms into the evocation of a faraway wonder that is making itself close.
Pure flowing music…
The interpreter is a clairvoyant who creates structures of human truths—in the humbleness of the listening of the murmuring of life.
Antoine Gilliéron
Christan Favre is a great musician with limitless inspiration, as well as a wonderful pianist and composer. I have often listened to him on stage during recitals, concertos and chamber music concerts. Each time, I realised the privilege of having had him as my teacher between the ages of 10 and 19 and to be able to continue to regularly ask his advice.
If I had to talk about some aspects of his playing, I would cite his cultivation of a beautiful sound, always round, never hard, and the magnificent simplicity of his interpretations, which is always in the service of the music and always full of communicative passion. Moreover, when I meet one of his students, I specifically recognise this contagious passion inherited from Christian Favre that he was so well able to communicate to us.
His composer’s mind makes him a rare pianist. He really knows the music from the inside, his familiarity with the art of composition gives him a sixth sense allowing him to perceive the architecture of the works, their hidden foundations, their possible orchestrations … This leads me back to my luck in having had him as a teacher.
Jean-Selim Abdelmoula
Interprète privilégié de la musique romantique, Christian Favre excelle aussi bien dans les récitals pour piano solo que dans la musique de chambre et les concertos avec orchestre.
Il a parcouru toute l’Europe, ayant notamment pour partenaires des chefs comme Armin Jordan, Franz Welser-Möst, Marcello Viotti, Evelino Pido et Mario Venzago, les pianistes Martha Argerich et Alexandre Rabinovitch, les violonistes Pierre Amoyal, Raphaël Oleg, Tedd Papavrami et Gilles Colliard ainsi que nombre de comédiens tels que Corine Coderey, Richard Vachoux.
Il pratique volontiers le quatuor et le quintette, en particulier avec le Trio à cordes de Munich et le Quatuor Sine Nomine. Il est le pianiste du Quatuor Schumann dont il est le fondateur.
Christian Favre est passionné de littérature et de poésie. Ce que reflète son jeu pianistique, frappant par un caractère essentiellement poétique.
Loin de ne reproduire que mécaniquement le texte des partitions, il insuffle une vie intense aux œuvres qu’il nous fait revivre comme s’il s’agissait d’une création originale, sur l’instant.
Pierre Hugli
Journaliste