From this short dialog, apparently insignificant, between a student and her teacher and which could have discouraged more than one, an idea is going to nevertheless germinate which still guides Catherine Michel today : to fine scores with a passion, a veritable bulimia ! to form a repertoire ! and then to play, to play ! always more and always at the highest level, in order to make the instrument better known and to avoid its disappearance...

" Oh, all of that was not done in one day " she likes to make clear when one interviews her. " First, I needed to wait until I was 22, I had just entered the Radio France orchestra and for the first time, I had time. Therefore, I went to the National Library and, quite simply, I started to search in the harp catalog, which was very incomplete. Then, I systematically went through all of the catalogs, one after another, composer by composer and each time that I found the word harp, I studiously recopied in a large notebook, like a student. And like this, without other ambition than to compile a repertoire for myself, little by little, I found myself in front of an enormous mass of documents - it was a veritable gold mine and it filled my cellar! ... Then very quickly, I realized that I had enough for a book. "

It will take her five long years to "nose about" in the libraries for the venture.

In the first place, she limited the period only as far back as 1805. Why ? Because, for harpists, it is the year that Erard invents the instrument like the one they play today. Then, she wants her files to be as complete as possible and that the works are easily accessible, in order to avoid the frustrations for her readers that in her childhood she could have resented and that brought her to begin this adventure.

" But all of this " she insists - " I always did it as an interpreter passionate about my instrument and not at all as a specialist. I always refused the idea of becoming a musicologist, I like to play too much and if one of my colleagues asks me to date a score, I am very incapable ; on the other hand, If it is part of my repertoire, I can play it or sing it, because I know it by heart. And even though I have the reputation of being a library rat, I only did all of that to save my instrument, to have something to play, not for the applause. "

C.M. and Jane Birkin, February 1996

The more Catherine advances in her research, the more her repertoire grows and the more she discovers an entire epoch, much more rich and varied than she ever could have imagined :

" Marie-Antoinette arrives to court with all of her instructors, all from Bohemia, and she turns the harp into a royal instrument. All of these ladies play it. Josephine very much admires Marie-Antoinette and she wants the music to enter Malmaison. She does not really play the harp but she has one delivered from Cousineau Father and Son, a wonder, which is still in Rueil. The greatest pedagogues, those who really established the Modern School of the harp, live in its wake. You have Päer on the piano, completely forgotton today, Baillot on the violon, soloist of the Opera and conservatory teacher, Duvernoy on the French horn, Duport on the cello, also soloist of the Opera and conservatory teacher, Naderman on the harp, Tulou on the flute, all of the great stars and all of the great virtuoses, so strong that they could transcribe anything on exiting from the Opera, where they came to listen to the great themes, that they adapt for our instruments in order to then play them in the Salons. Josephine is someone who likes to bring people together, and there is practically a concert everyday, either at her home or at the home of Madame de Récamier. We play everything, but in the collection are works of a very high level which merited to be better known and played more often. Her library abounds with this chamber music, always convivial, very shared, which gives many a vision of the harp that I love and the sonority of which blends very well with that very crystalline sonority of the piano forte, which goes wonderfully... All of this gives a very vibrant and dynamic atmosphere that I didn't know and that since I am starting to better appreciate... "

Unfortunately, at the end of years, all of this is going to get lost, this beautiful society and this music, as brilliant as they are, are going to find themselves at one go put out of the way by the current impressionist and the disappearance of the salons. Considerably enlarged and expanded by the will of the Maison Erar in order to make a solo instrument, the harp will sustain definitive transformations and little by little, take steps on the ancient instruments which will slowly disappear before finishing in the museums where they will practically never be played. And this will be Berlioz, the great Berlioz who is going to give the final blow by making it descend in the pit, to the middle of the orchestra, where it will lose this convivial side which made its charm and which was worthy the rank : of " royal instrument... "

Catherine Michel and Leonard Bernstein, at the time of her first arrival in 1974 to the National Orchestra of Paris
"maybe the greatest musical love of my life"

By following her career in Europe, North America, South America, The Middle East and Asia, and by teaching at the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg, in 1978, Catherine Michel was named solo-harpist at the Orchestra of Paris where she plays under the direction of the greatest conductors, Bernstein, Celibidache, Maazel, Ozawa, Boulez, Rostropovitch, etc. Parallel to this function and always animated by this idea to make the instrument better known she achieved incursions in the music world called " more commercial " and plays regularly with Maurice André, Michel Legrand and Jane Birkin, in concert or on television. Little by little, she becomes an outstanding figure of the harp. To record, give interpretation courses, where she was in demand all over the world, study pedagogy and finally create an international academy of music in Villefranche sur Mer where she teaches in summer... And then, five years ago, in a very busy period of time, she accepts the wonderful idea to play this music from the beginning of the 19th Century, in costumes from the epoch at the Malmaison Castle !

" I was immediately seduced. For an hour and a half, the spectators find the atmosphere of a Salon. The music is there : Duet for harp and piano forte by Dussek, Grand sonata for flute and harp by Bochsa etc, etc. All this that I love...The instruments are there, the furniture is there, we are in costume and during the time of the concert we are completely disconnected in order to find ourselves there, at the beginning of the 19th Century... And when I am in these marvelous places, I admit that I am very, very happy... "

" And the most extraordinary is that the first time that I found myself in this great white dress, sublime, with the diadem on the head and the five meter long train, and that I am slender, well decided to cross the room, in one go, down the central aisle in the middle of the public, I had the impression that I wasn't going forward, that I would never arrive there, that I needed to reduce my pace, to walk more slowly, because I was stiff, uneasy, and I had to slow down, all of my gestures, even for playing, once in my chair, I had to slow down, to change my interpretation. All was modified. "

" And that helped me enormously in my teaching. When my students go too quickly, that they are agitated, that they make a mess of their work, I tell them : Imagine that you have a train five meters long, sleeves, that you are a little cramped in it, the bust tight, that it passes at another tempo, that it is the manner in which you are dressed that imposes on you... I have a treat. "

" Unfortunately we cannot transpose such an experience in our great concert halls, this would be too quickly a puppet-show. The music of this epoch is a music full of spirit, not violent, made for intimacy, like these people... "