Prisms

The French composer Mark Andre writes music of a vivid, fragile melancholy. To me, it sounds modest, careful, and penetrating, like W.G. Sebald’s book The Rings of Saturn, in which precise observations of landscapes, meals, rooms, and destruction accumulate to devastating effect. I met Andre one rainy afternoon in a café in Berlin, where he has lived in a neighborhood of the former East for the past 12 years. If the word “modest” can be used to describe his music, it certainly also applies to his personality. Andre ordered a sparking water with lemon and, “if possible,” ice cubes. At several points in our conversation, he explicitly thanked me for taking an interest in his work. Despite this modesty, he is one of the most important voices currently working in European music.