It’s the same with different musical styles. I now understand the connections with popular music much better, the way in which rubato is tied to the way in which a singer sings texts rather than notes with a text. They start with the text. That will seem less strange to people versed in the English choral tradition, but when I just had to sing the names of notes at the Conservatoire it seemed very odd. This is the root of many misunderstandings, since when I read a score I’m reading motives, gestures, and words, whereas most musicians just play notes and need only musical markings in order to make sense of it. And that’s where the problem of rubato arises, the question of whether you are singing a text or note values. I listen to a lot of folk music, which pervades much nineteenth-century music. Chopin is a very good example. He drew on various influences, being an admirer of Couperin, of Mozart, of the operas of Bellini, Polish folk music and so on. So all these disparate elements played a part in Chopin’s style. But the pianists of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries had almost nothing but the sound of the piano in mind, the concertos of Liszt and Rachmaninov, or perhaps Debussy and Ravel. That is completely different music and the wider connections that are so important to Chopin’s music were forgotten. Liszt recognised the difference between Chopin’s rubato, which must be timed in the manner of a singer in a Bellini opera, and his own, much freer, style. That’s a fundamental problem for pianists playing Chopin – to be connected to vocal music. By the end of the nineteenth century pianists had lost that all-important link.

We’ve travelled some way from Martin Gester and Le Parlement de Musique! Let’s get back to that subject. How did you come to form the orchestra?

Well, it wasn’t an orchestra in the early days, just an ensemble. I had no formal training as a conductor, but I was always a frustrated singer.

It seems that nearly every conductor I talk to is a frustrated singer!

One of the main reasons for forming Le Parlement was therefore that I wanted to work with singers. What I tried to do was to bring together musicians who came from different traditions and schools, so that more questions would arise. I didn’t want players who were used to playing in just one style or who were accustomed to playing in the same orchestra. In Paris you had people who played for William Christie, who then formed their own ensembles and so forth. I wanted to get away from that idea. That was why it was called “Parlement”, to reflect the coming together of differing viewpoints. The musicians who play for me come not just from France, but also from Basel, and from Germany, Italy and Belgium. Later I was as able to involve younger musicians who have gained experience with Le Parlement.

But in general terms you have managed to maintain stability of membership?

I try to, yes, although obviously at varying times we have worked with many different instrumentalists and singers. And I have tried to unify the ensemble, which I think has been apparent in the last seven or eight years. Even if the musicians are not the same every time, when we meet they now quickly achieve unity because they are familiar with my gestures and my style. Players often say it is different playing with me because my approach to rhythm is not the usual one they meet with. In other groups, the rhythmic approach is usually much stricter.