Original Compositions For Solo Guitar
About the Music
"Les Dérangements" (derangements) as their name indicates, are very free arrangements of famous works from the repertoire. "Greensleeves" takes on the shape of a green Spanish tarantula, John Lennon's "Imagine" transforms into a tango, and the famous french song "Le Jardin Extraordinaire" by Charles Trenet turns into a long-forgotten maze.
The Suite "Fingerstyle" is dedicated to the French Finger Picking legend Christian Laborde. Meeting Christian and the Finger-style milieu in the 2000's allowed me to reconsider the guitar as a more friendly and popular instrument.
The suite consists of four continuous movements that borrow heavily from the styled "song" form (verse chorus). The final "Eastern Rush" has an arch structure, strongly influenced by Eastern European music. The slow movement "Quietly" is a tribute to Pat Metheny, following countless plays of "One Quiet Night", a disc that I would happily take with me to the proverbial deserted island... an atmospheric, improvisatory Prelude was the last piece added to the Suite, it serves as a unifying introduction to the other three movements.
"Les Andecdotiques" is a series of short imaginary anecdotal pieces written for my students who were looking for graded repertoire to take to exams and auditions. Every piece i n the series is inspired by a different style of popular folk mus ic, each posing a separate technical and musical challenge associated with the guitar and its practice.
The Suite "Siegfried" is dedicated to the British painter Paul Storey. It was commissioned by the Festival "Guitaromania" of Agen for an exhibition at l'Eglise des Jacobins that was premiered on May 21, 2008.
Through our frequent travels and countless discussions, Paul has directly impacted my understanding of composition and esthetics. Since he is an impassioned guitarist himself, it seemed natural for us to work together and create an exposi - tion that combined the visual arts with a large-scale guitar composition (The Ring Triptych).
The Suite "Siegfried" (23 min) is the central solo section of the larger-scale work that uses electronics along with guitar (45 min). It evokes the death of Siegfried, the hero from the legend of the Nibelungen, a central figure in Richard Wagner's well-known opera cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen". The Suite "Siegfried" blends British 20th century music language with dance forms of the 17th century.
Tracks
Les dérangements
Imaginary Tango [3:09]
Extraordinaire, le jardin ! [3:35]
Green Spanish Tarantula's sleeves [2:24]
Suite #1- Fingerstyle
Prelude [1:27]
Finger Estile [3:04]
Quietly [3:25]
Eastern rush [4:21]
Les Anecdotiques Vol. 1
Lente barcarole [1:41]
Balkan pop [2:01]
Simple élégie [2:10]
Esquisse en 10/8 [1:43]
Choral et variation [3:41]
Les liés sont dangereux [1:46]
Suite #2- Siegfried
Prelude [5:29]
Allemande [4:57]
Courante [2:16]
Sarabande [5:04]
Danses de l'étrange [2:40]
Gigue [2:48]
Total running time: [58:29]
