Product Description

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 Fingerstyle environment 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 will 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 in the series is inspired by a different style of popular folk music, 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 exposition 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.

Benoît ALBERT, February 2011

1. Les Dérangements, for guitar: Imaginary Tango

2. Les Dérangements, for guitar: Extraordinaire, le jardin!

3. Les Dérangements, for guitar: Green Spanish Tarantula’s sleeves

4. Suite for guitar No. 1 (‘Fingerstyle’): Prelude

5. Suite for guitar No. 1 (‘Fingerstyle’): Finger Estile

6. Suite for guitar No. 1 (‘Fingerstyle’): Quietly

7. Suite for guitar No. 1 (‘Fingerstyle’): Eastern rush

8. Les Anecdotiques Vol. 1, for guitar: Lente barcarole

9. Les Anecdotiques Vol. 1, for guitar: Balkan pop

10. Les Anecdotiques Vol. 1, for guitar: Simple élégie

11. Les Anecdotiques Vol. 1, for guitar: Esquisse en 10/8

12. Les Anecdotiques Vol. 1, for guitar: Choral et variation

13. Les Anecdotiques Vol. 1, for guitar: Les liés sont dangereux

14. Suite for guitar No. 2 (‘Siegfried’): Prelude

15. Suite for guitar No. 2 (‘Siegfried’): Allemande

16. Suite for guitar No. 2 (‘Siegfried’): Courante

17. Suite for guitar No. 2 (‘Siegfried’): Sarabande

18. Suite for guitar No. 2 (‘Siegfried’): Danses de ‘étrange

19. Suite for guitar No. 2 (‘Siegfried’): Gigue