I don't know if you can do the interview in Basque.

The other day I did one, in Basque, but with difficulty, I cannot translate my thinking into Basque. French, Spanish, Basque… The truth is that, if he did, he would do so now in French, calmly. I'm an oñatiarra, and there we have our own Euskera. Now, on the other hand, the Basque Country is unified in every corner, and I, on the other hand, have been out while that has been cooked. I really like to hear Basque and speak in Basque. A lot. That's my language: Basque. As a child, we spoke in Basque, also in Spanish, but with girls, and in Basque. Now I've multiplied the Basque. If I stayed here, I would recover it right away, I'm sure. On the other hand, I am very happy to hear Euskera on the street. Much more is heard than before, in Oñati, in Durango, in Bilbao and in everything! That is why the Basque country has made a great deal of progress. That was not the case in the past.

However, you have once said that behind the words you do in Spanish is the Basque.

Yes, yes! At the bottom of my words is the Basque. I've already noticed that. Many times, my Spanish is more Basque than the Basque.

You are Franciscan, the usual greeting is “Peace and good”.

“Peace and Good,” yes. Francisco Assisi’s farewell… I’m in a parish in Paris, I don’t have Franciscans around me. I think that farewell has been largely lost.

Franciscan and composer. How have you been able to reconcile them?

Uztartu… at least so far yes. I've made it natural. The Franciscans have always been very open to me, they have given me every opportunity. At the age of 15, in Arantzazu's novel, I explained to our teacher, Father Leonardo Celaya, who had two vocations, the friar and the music. “Quiet estate, you won’t have in your life anything that you can’t unite the two,” he said. And that's how it has been so far. Anyway, making music has been the center of my life.

The fondness for music comes from the family. Tradition.

Yes. That helps a lot. They said I started solfeo at 2 years old. Aitaita Felix was a musician, director of Oñati's band. Father Antonino was also a musician, and when his grandfather abandoned him, he was the director of Oñati's band. Music had a lot of tradition in our house, and I started studying solfeo and harmony with my father. We were four brothers, two girls and two boys. The two boys are musicians, the two girls are not. Ignacio, brother, is a great musician, director of the choir and the band of Oñati.

How important is Arantzazu in his musical journey? You were there at the age of 10.

No one has ever asked me about that... I wouldn’t know how important it was, only it has been great. One of my most precious works, for example, is that of Arantzazu, a poem by Salbatore Mitxelena: What do you have, Arantzazu! Of nest origin, erti-leku?…

I mean, in addition to what my father taught me at home, you had in Arantzazu Marzelino Idoiaga, Jose Iturria, Jose Maria Ibarbia, Estanislao Sudupe…

With all of them, I learned. I think I started studying piano in Arantzazu with Marzelino Idoiaga. I think. As for Estanislao Sudupe, he was a skilled organist and had a great reputation among us. He was in Cuba during the revolution and then he was an organist of the St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

Speaking of music, he then studied in Bilbao and in Paris in the early 1970s.

He worked in Bilbao with Juan Cordero Castaños. He was an elgoibartarra, director of the military music band. A very good musician. It was he who pushed me to Paris. I had studied here and wanted to learn new trends. All this time I was lost, boiled, at all levels. And also in music. The May 68 atmosphere was still alive. I went in 1969 and there was a great atmosphere: a multitude of acts, concerts everywhere, performances everywhere… As I had not done now.

Not like now?

I leave much less now, but there are no worries, no curiosities, no new trends. We wanted to move forward. Now it seems that young people don't have the passion of before. Now in music everything is possible, all doors have opened, but I think there is no depth. However, I cannot talk about young people, because I do not know ... Everything has been done and everything has faded. It had to be dissolved. In the previous music, that desire was present. Back in the 19th century. The music of Wagner, Richard Strauss and company is impressive. Schoenberg and his students. They took a giant step.

In Paris he was a professor of Max Deutsch, Henry Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana, among others. Composer Maurice Ohana has a milestone.

For me, Maurice Ohana was fundamental. We arrived in Paris and we met. He was a pure musician. It wasn't just anybody. I knew each other. The other day a book by Maurice appeared in my house: Full works by García Lorca. It contains the observations made by his own hand to El Llanto. The book is fully used, worn out. It had helped me a lot, we understood it perfectly, I had very intimate relationships with Maurice. And the first job I did for the guitar, Crystal and stone, I also did for himself. “For the guitar? In my life I have not thought anything like this!”

But you did the work for the guitar.

I was thinking nothing more than symphony music, but I did that for guitar and everyone has since played it. My first job for guitar. Thanks to Maurice. That and a lot of other things. Maurice knew the music. I lived with very little thing: a grand piano, a small kitchen, a catre and nothing else.

He died in his arms...

Yes, yes...

Why did you choose contemporary music, for example, not symphony music?

A moment! I can do nothing other than what I do. I'm not advanced. I've also dressed as you saw today. Why did Miró paint as he painted it? Why did Picasso paint as he painted it? And Van Gogh, in due course? They didn't think it was earlier or later, and I didn't care about being yesterday or tomorrow, or playing my music. The important thing is to do what I have to do. I cannot avoid that. Yes, I could make some other kind of music, classical music, for example, that I could like all listeners, but music is much more than that. Music is much deeper than doing nice things.

What do you have, then, music?

An intimate, profound, essential, absolutely essential commitment. For me, there's nothing further than music. I mean, high-level music. There is no one who better portrays the intimacy of the human being than this music. Superior music, I repeat. And there's not much of that. There are many beautiful but fundamental works, few. It's the height of humanity. They're often referred to as mystics, but the closest thing to mysticism, to artistic abstractions, is music, in my case. The painting is also large, but in the end the painting is within the painting. The music, on the other hand, we hear it from within. I write notes, but the listener lives, lives inside, without any kind of barrier.

What attitude does the listener need to assimilate his music?

That is key! In Bilbao, for example, there is a very loyal audience. Pay a lot of attention. However, I believe that the listener must be given keys, to what to pay attention, to what to help. Music has evolved and the listener needs a little culture to realize it. Sometimes, I say the listener has to open up, but I've realized that the thing is more complex, that the listener has to be helped. You can't leave the listener in the middle of the hurricane.

You've ever criticized hypocrisy around musical performances. Fashions and others.

There's a lot of nonsense. However, there is also a faithful listener. The one in Bilbao, for example. Very faithful and attentive. There are people who leave with that attitude and get educated little by little. That's worth a lot. But not that great crowd, which almost has the obligation to attend such or which actions, because the time orders it.

What is the relationship between the composer and the interpreter?

Total linkage. Everything is an interpreter. I'm with them, a hundred percent. I've recorded several works and I've always worked with them. I'm very demanding, I want to be with them, I have a lot of interest in it. What's more, sometimes I let him go to concerts that played my music, because I didn't know how they were going to play, or because I haven't been prepared for the concert. If somebody has to play my music, I want the hundred percent to be my music. Not an approach. Otherwise, my music isn't hard to play. Internal difficulty.

Internal difficulty?

My notes, in themselves, are not difficult. However, the meaning given to notes… is more difficult. So I have a bunch of interpreters to play my music properly. Now I'm working with a txistu association. I give them txistu works that they understand and interpret correctly. The relationship with the interpreter is fundamental to me, he is the facilitator of my music, the transmitter.

Who's your favorite musician?

Beethoven. Chopin is also terrible, there is nothing else to see his work. But I'm further away from Beethoven. Their attitude towards music, and the one I have, is the same, in many ways. I've never been asked who I'd like to meet in life, and my answer is always "Beethoven." Beethoven, more than anyone else. I'd like to know her life, as I met that of Maurice Ohana. Many times I wonder what interior world Beethoven had, how he did the work of that size, how he lived… Of course, living, Beethoven lived as I have lived so far.

Do you mean Beethoven lived as you have lived so far?

He lived enclosed in himself, completely dedicated to creation… There are moments in his symphonies, amazing. The fifth symphony, the seventh, the third -- to be able to do them, you need a huge, terrible inner power. I see no one but Bach. And I'm going to tell you something else: with age, I get a lot more into his music. Now, with my life experience, I listen to his works and make much larger discoveries. I used to make much lighter auditions.

Create, can it become an obsession?

Creating is an obsession. All day long. That's the word: obsession. It's total life.

What's beyond music, after music?

Death. I know a lot of composers, they live in the world, they're tied to the world, and I don't know how they invent themselves to make music. I, on the other hand, live in music day and night. Others write music and write a lot. They say they also write music on the train. It is not possible for me. I, if I write music, must be alone, completely alone.

“Alone.”

I have to be in front of the piano all day. Playing, writing, but all day sitting at the piano. Some say they write on the table, but I don't know how you can write music without listening, without listening to everything around the sound. It's possible. I guess everyone works their own way.

“Music is a commitment to life,” as you have ever said. What do you mean?

I live committed to music, from the beginning and with the mind. I do what I do, what I do or not, without looking at it. In that I am very selfish. I like them to perform my works, but that's not fundamental, but what I do is make music. I'm a selfish at that.