Bruno Serrou: Almost simultaneously with Kassandra, you composed a piece for eight instruments, simply entitled Octuor. You gave it an opus number, something you'd never done before, giving it the immediate number 35. Why did you do this?

François-Bernard Mâche: Yes, the previous opus numbers are simply implied. With Octuor, I wanted to take stock of a certain number of types of writing I'd explored, bringing them together in the form of a synthesis. With a title that is neither poetic, evocative nor exotic, but both traditional and formal, I wanted to explore a new territory, that of pure music. Relative purity, since I refer to distant cultures, use birdsong and so on. In the Octuor, I integrate various techniques. For example, at the beginning, I exploit the quarter-tone, which allows more gradual color changes than the semitone, and I draw inspiration from the "lyra pondiaki", a variety of bowed instrument played by Greeks on the shores of the Black Sea. It is close in its playing modes to the Iranian kemanche, a small instrument analogous to the medieval rebec, with an extremely fast and articulate bowing technique. Octuor is one of my few works based in places on a visual model: some passages follow the lines of a vine leaf. The divergence of the leaf's veins suggested instrumental lines that in fact resemble what Xenakis calls arborescences, diverging lines starting from a central axis.

Bruno Serrou: What is the instrumentarium of Octuor? 

François-Bernard Mâche: It's a string quintet with clarinet, bassoon and horn. This formation was used in the 19th century, and at the time I composed it, the Octuor de Paris had just been formed, a permanent group exploring this repertoire. Since it disbanded, I don't know of an identical ensemble, but this chamber music group is easy enough to put together.

Bruno Serrou: What led you to premiere this piece at the Musée Guimet, which was devoted to ethnology at the time? 

François-Bernard Mâche: By chance! The association headed by Nicole Lachartre, who organized the concert, used to run the hall, but had nothing to do with oriental music.

Bruno Serrou: Why did you feel the need to take stock of your creation in Octuor?

François-Bernard Mâche: I think it's only natural to take a break in the middle of one's career. "Nel mezzo del camin di nostra vita...", as Dante says. I have a pronounced taste for exploration, but from time to time, the explorer makes a halt, which seems natural to me. In this review, I include the spiral construction. After listening to Octuor, Alain Bancquart said to me: "But, this work is in D... in D major!" He no doubt expected a vehement protest from me, and I nodded: "Mais oui, tout à fait." Indeed, this score is organized around a pivotal D, beginning and ending in D, but without any syntax comparable to the tonal scale. There is not even the slightest tonal sonority, but a fixed horizon that is the note D. Before Octuor, almost all my works were atonal, with the exception of Solstice, which is in the karnatic nâtakapriya mode.

François-Bernard Mâche, De la musique, des langues et des oiseaux, Michel de Maule -INA 2007, p.257-258