The concert finishes: Igor Markevitch is still on the podium. Like children, we clap our hands; at concerts, this is our way of saying thank you. Musical works have just been directed according to their innermost secrets. They sing, and will sing within us for a long time, brought to life by the surest instinct, the keenest lucidity, and an unsurpassable mastery.

But suddenly, unforgotten, unforgettable images spring forth. In this moment, the past takes the place of the present. We are at the Théâtre Pigalle. On the stage, the orchestra, a chorus of men all in black suits, a beautiful young woman dressed in white satin; on the podium, a svelte and commanding adolescent. From the first notes, a mind and a presence impose themselves. The Cantate, for which Jean Cocteau wrote the words after the music had been composed, is a fully realized work: Markevitch is eighteen years old.

In London in 1929 (he was seventeen), he played his Concerto: infallible rhythm, clean attacks, a sonority of steel and velvet. The letters he wrote show he was as interested in his first suit as he was in the performance of his Concerto.

These are the rehearsals of the Psaume at the Salle Gaveau, which make apparent the astonishing prescience of the sonorous balance that Igor Markevitch now achieves. Few statements, few words, only instructions. The performers are on the defensive at first: this upstart who pretends to know what he wants! But they quickly perceive that he hears everything, knows exactly what he wants, and shows himself determined to get it. He already has the qualities that make a conductor. He will go on to develop a technique that will permit him to transmit everything through gesture, and a knowledge of men that will allow him to establish those contacts without which nothing worthwhile can be done.

The prodigious activity will unfold incessantly, through all the domains; the works follow each other, from the Sinfonietta to Lorenzo il Magnifico, from the Psaume to the Oraison dominicale [La Taille de l’homme], from Rebus and L’Envol d’Icare to Le Paradis perdu, to the Variations (Fugue and Envoi) on a Theme of Handel.