THIBAUT GARCIA

For many classical guitarists, Agustín Barrios Mangoré is the man who, better than any other, has succeeded in synthesizing the pianistic romanticism of Chopin and Schumann with the distinctive spirit of South American folk music. From the aesthetics of the former, he retains a sense of rubato, drama and cantabile; witness this superb transcription of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, or the Mazurka Appassionata, filled with Polish rhythms, but from South American harmonic construction. Mangoré may be indeed European at heart, but he is no less Paraguayan. Miniatures such as Las Abejas and Danza Paraguaya develop dance-like flights of fancy with varied accents, reminiscent of the music of his native country. In pieces of more ambitious dimensions, such as La Catedral, the composer achieves a synthesis of European Baroque formalism (the work is in three movements, inspired by European segmentations) and the Paraguayan spirit, flowing these movements into a single gesture that propels us from the first to the last bar of the score. An essential retrospective, which earned Thibaut Garcia, already awarded a Victoires de la Musique in 2019, a Diapason d’Or for the 2023 release of this ambitious programme, presented here live.