A mystery text message appears. It’s Jean-Claude Vannier. Yes, the same Jean-Claude Vannier who wrote and arranged the orchestral flourishes and vertiginous strings on Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg, the 1971 album that set the benchmark for rock-meets-classical, marrying sexy grooves to lush orchestration. It was a consummation that still staggers four decades later; some might say it is yet to be bettered, no matter how many rock songs with an orchestra you’ll hear. And, yes, the same Jean-Claude Vannier who’s still asked to conduct in countries all over the world regularly, and has written songs for the likes of Françoise Hardy and Brigitte Fontaine, and has arranged orchestration for Petula Clark and Whitney Houston. He’s rarely been out of demand in a career spanning more than 40 years.
So, anyway, what does the Gallic living-legend want? “We’ll do photos outside,” he writes. “I have a scaffold in front of my window.”
It’s less poetic than I was expecting.
We find Jean-Claude’s house located in a well-to-do district in central Paris not far from the Seine. It has stood there since it was built just after the French Revolution. The one that was there before was a hangout for royalty and was burnt to the ground.
He answers the door with a bewildered expression on his face — one he retains throughout the interview. The interior is compact with books and pictures, nice wood and a grand piano as the centrepiece of the flat. While slightly cluttered, little gives away the eccentricities of its owner, though on closer inspection I notice miniature pianos tucked in every available nook, cranny and orifice.
“Yes, I like surprising instruments,” he offers. “I like cheap instruments to make some music mixed with fire engines. I like toy pianos. You can see them around here. I like toys.”
He’s just returned from Los Angeles where he had been invited to conduct the orchestra for a full rendition of Gainsbourg’s finest work at the Hollywood Bowl.
“We played …Melody Nelson with American artists — Patton, Beck, Zola Jesus… it was very nice; 18,000 people.” His mind’s clearly still boggling. “Incredible. I don’t understand very well how this happens. I was just on stage conducting the orchestra.”
Such misplaced humility punctuates our meeting. How did the ensemble approach ‘En Melody’, the album’s wholly instrumental track, but for a ticklish Jane Birkin grunting and squealing and making sex noise?
“Each artist takes a song. And on stage Zola Jesus was laughing, you know, in dialogue with an electric violin. Very nice.”
A similar concert at the Barbican in 2006 featured Jarvis Cocker, Gruff Rhys and Mick Harvey.
“Yes, at the Barbican, a Japanese girl, Seaming To, was laughing!”
Vannier’s lost classic L’Enfant Assassin des Mouches was also played at the Barbican, and re-released the same year by Andy Votel’s Finders Keepers label. It soundtracks a tale written by Gainsbourg about the journey of a young child traversing through a nightmarish kingdom of flies. Esoteric and bizarre though it is, it’s certainly an enrapturing listen, full of wah wahs, songs that sound like cop shows, cowbells and fire-engines.
“The man who paid for the recording was not happy with my music. He said, ‘Really, I don’t understand your music,’ so he didn’t release it.”
Vannier has no idea why one record he makes is universally embraced and another is shunned. “I don’t know what is success, I only write music.”
Modest as ever, he was amazed when he got the call from Votel some 24 years later.
“I must tell you, when Andy sent me his first email he said to me, ‘Oh, I love your music,’ and at the time I was so surprised that I thought it was a joke. I thought it was a young man who wanted to laugh at me.”
The new album, Roses Rouge Sang — his first solo album proper since 1990 — which he sings on, was played by some of the original musicians from the Melody Nelson sessions — Vick Flick, Dougie Wright and Herbie Flowers, as well as the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra. Translated as ‘blood red roses’, Vannier says it is “a metaphor for women… with thorns, you know?” He looks mournful. “They have beauty and they hurt.”
It seems in stark contrast to his old mate shagger Serge.
‘Au Désespoir Des Singes’ uses a monkey puzzle tree as another metaphor for the difficulties of navigating relationships (“I love this tree because it has a funny shape, and thorns so the monkey can’t climb the tree”), while on ‘Dans Mes Rêves’ he fantasises about women who spurn him. “In my dreams I do with you what I want,” he sings. “The girl doesn’t love me, but in my dreams she’s with me.”
It sounds sad.
“Yes, of course. I live in the city and I look out onto the street and it’s a sort of grey life. Despair and introspection…”
He shrugs as if to say, “So what?” C’est la vie.
There’s one thing he can’t abide, though.
“I’m not a string arranger. I arrange for the whole orchestra. I met a girl in America, she was a string arranger. I could not understand why just the strings.”
Would he describe himself as an avant-garde composer, then?
“Me? No.”
A musician?
“Yes,” he says, and a smile settles on his face.
This article originally appeared in The Stool Pigeon in 2011