Thibaut Maurisse

What an intriguing idea to want to transcribe one of Berlioz’s work for four accordions! What an even more curious idea to want to transcribe the Symphonie Fantastique and bring into their squeeze boxes this astounding and radical masterpiece, true breakthrough in the history of orchestra thanks to the introduction of rarely used, despised, or even forgotten instruments, in a celebration of sounds, and a magical demonstration of Berlioz’s Treatise of Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration.

The first joint album from countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and guitarist Thibaut Garcia, À sa guitare takes it's name from a song by the 20th century French composer Francis Poulenc. But it's frame of reference is extraordinarily wide - both culturally and stylistically. It's 22 tracks range across 400 years and music by composers and songwriters from France, Britain, Austria, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Argentina and the USA.

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.

Guitarist Thibaut Garcia proves here that all roads lead to and from J.S. Bach. In a colorful homage to the 18th-century German master, arrangements of Bach’s music for guitar sit alongside five composers’ own tributes. Garcia begins his journey with Agustín Barrios’ Baroque-flavoured La catedral before turning to the album’s cornerstone, a technically and dramatically assured performance of Bach’s solo violin Chaconne. There are some fine discoveries here—Tansman’s Inventions are skilful pastiches while Bogdanovic’s Suite brève shines Bach’s music through a 20th-century prism. Soprano Elsa Dreisig brings passion and poise to Gounod’s Ave Maria and the aria from Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas brasileiras No. 5.

Night is falling. In this twilight of the reign of Louis XIV and at the end of his Grand Coucher, the king is at last free from protocol. He then orders the musicians of the Kings Chamber, to come to him; they are the most excellent in the kingdom. These Petits Concerts which were held in the evening before His Majesty enabled the king to hear his preferred repertoire from all that he had loved and even danced to. Here is the Sleep scene from Lullys Atys, the Sombres Deserts by Lambert, the Mutine by Visee, the Grande Piece Royale by Lalande, A Gigue by Marais, La Plainte by La Barre Thibaut Roussel has gathered around him the finest interpreters of the French baroque repertoire, to give us, as if in a walking dream, the intimate music of this Coucher du Roi. Let the night last, sings Le Camus, right up until Couperins Land of Dodo.

Praised for his “smooth, rich and sweet sound and impeccable virtuosity”, guitarist Thibaut Garcia releases his second album on Erato, a recital of works composed and inspired by Johann Sebastian S Bach.
“Bach has been part of my life as a musician since the very start,” he says. Taking Bach’s mighty Chaconne as his centrepiece, he ranges wide: from Gounod’s much-loved ‘Ave Maria’ and Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras No 5 to music by Agustín Barrios Mangoré, Alexandre Tansman and the contemporary Serbian-American composer Dušan Bogdanović.

C'est par là qu'il aurait fallu commencer. Par le début, la genèse… Par toutes ces années qui ont précédé la mort de Grégory Villemin, quand une voix rauque persécutait au téléphone une famille ordinaire, tapie dans une vallée méconnue de l'est de la France.
Par ces jalousies nées d'une promotion à l'usine, d'une voiture ou d'un salon de cuir neufs, des repas dominicaux mal partagés…