Used book – Variations sauvages, Hélène Grimaud

A world-renowned musician, a pianist who has won the most prestigious awards, Hélène Grimaud has also become known to the general public through her second passion: wolves.

Unanimously accepted first at the age of thirteen at the Paris Conservatory, winner of the Grand Prix de l'Académie du Disque at the age of fifteen, Hélène Grimaud recounts the adventures of a child prodigy who is also an enfant terrible: her passionate relationship with music, competitions, and rivalry, but also her break with the Parisian world, her exile to the United States at the age of twenty, her new life filled with a period of doubt and despair, then her rebirth, thanks to her encounter with wolves and her desire to defend them. While Hélène Grimaud recounts her journey here, she also provides for the first time the key to her inner world, her very special relationship with the mysteries of music and wolves, which have made her an icon with undisputed charisma. In addition to her account of a turbulent childhood and adolescence, there are reflections on Brahms or Dostoevsky, evocations of beloved cities and landscapes, as well as a detailed description of her wolves, both objects of anxiety and fascination, her daily relationship with them, the misconceptions and myths from all traditions attached to these wild animals who first teach us to love freedom. More than an autobiography, Hélène Grimaud offers a work that reads like a novel, in the vein of Jack London: she blends anecdotes and stories with a perspective on nature, a philosophical vision, and a celebration of romanticism, the only recourse to re-enchant the world.