Michel Legrand

To play piano is a significant part of my life, my existence. It fulfills a very physical & spiritual need for me.

I would listen to something on the radio and try to tap out the melody, then the harmonies.

I have a very strange melodic gift: melodies come to me effortlessly.

My father had left behind an old piano. My sister was already going to school, my mother was out working, and I stayed at home alone with my adorable grandmother who understood nothing I said. It was so boring that I stayed at the piano all day long, and that saved my life.

Here is how I work: when I think that a film needs to have a principal theme, I search for a melody.

So I write melodies - thirty, forty, fifty - then I cast them off until I have just two or three. If only one is needed, I go see the director and ask him to decide.