Discography
Thibaut Garcia pays tribute with El Bohemio to the Paraguayan guitar virtuoso and composer Agustín Barrios (1885-1944). As Garcia explains, “Barrios is an essential composer in the guitarist’s repertoire. His music can be described as a skilful mix of South American popular music – inspired by the jungles of Paraguay – and the Romanticism of Chopin and Schumann, composers he idolised.” El Bohemio duly complements 16 varied works by Barrios himself with three of his transcriptions of famous pieces by Chopin, Schumann, and Beethoven. In addition, the album includes readings of two of Barrios’s poems: ‘Bohemio’, which lends the album its name, portrays the composer as a wandering troubadour; ‘Profesión de fé’ (Profession of faith) honours the Guarani, the indigenous people of Paraquay.
À sa guitare takes its name from a song by the 20th century French composer Francis Poulenc. “The album is a journey between different cultures, different continents and different languages,” says Philippe Jaroussky, “but each piece is a world in itself. The idea was to take some risks … sometimes moving to a completely different world between one track and the next.” “We can evoke hugely different colours as we juggle between renaissance music and a song by Barbara,” explains Thibaut Garcia. “It’s our job to play with a palette of colours to produces something unique … We put a great deal of thought into the album, but we also put our hearts into it.”
Expressing his own cultural identity, guitarist Thibaut Garcia combines Rodrigo’s archetypally Spanish Concierto de Aranjuez with a declaration of l’esprit français: Alexandre Tansman’s neoclassical Musique de cour, inspired by the court of Louis XIV. Garcia’s heritage is Spanish, but he is French, born in the city of Toulouse, where this album was recorded with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and the young British conductor Ben Glassberg. It is completed by four solo pieces by Regino Sáinz de la Maza, the guitarist who gave the premiere of the Concierto de Aranjuez in 1940.
BACH INSPIRATIONS
“Bach has been part of my life as a musician since the very start,” says Thibaut Garcia, “and I have always been fascinated by him – by the purity and grandeur of his works, but also by his emotional dimension.
“We have Johann Sebastian Bach the man and composer, but also Johann Sebastian Bach as muse and inspiration. This album is built around his music and the influence it had on later generations of composers. The central piece is the Chaconne from the Second Partita for Violin, well known as a work that develops with particular grandeur and drama.”
LEYENDAS
"For my first album with Erato, I wanted to show the guitar in its full glory. These legendary works are so close to my heart because they are part of my life and my travels. I wanted this first recording to be full of energy, sun, emotion, pain and tenderness – and to focus on repertoire that has sustained me since my childhood.”
“Most of the works on Leyendas evoke Spanish or Argentinian cities where I have spent time: from Seville and Granada to Buenos Aires, passing through the Basque Country and Asturias. This meant I was able to give every piece a personal quality, as if each one featured in a travel diary.”
