Canadian guitarists Steve Cowan and Adam Cicchillitti give a virtual recital of 20th Century French Music for arranged for guitar duo in Québec, Canada. This comes via Cicchillitti’s YouTube channel. Beautiful playing and great program of arrangements. Playing starts at 1:25 into the video.
Program
- Bruyères (Prelude no. 5 Book II) – Claude Debussy (arr. Steve Cowan)
- Prelude from Tombeau de Couperin – Maurice Ravel (arr. Henderson-Kolk)
- Modéré from Sonatine for piano – M. Ravel (arr. Adam Cicchillitti)
- Angelico from Musica Callada – Federico Mompou (arr. Adam Cicchillitti)
- Secreto from Impressiones intimas – F. Mompou (arr. Steve Cowan)
- Perpetuum Mobile from Harp Sonata – Germaine Tailleferre (arr. Cicchillitti)
- Retazos – J. Evangelista (arr. Cowan-Cicchillitti)
- i. Recordando
- ii. Marcha lenta
- iii. Alegre
- iv. Fluido
- v. Escalas
More info via their YouTube description:
This concert was filmed live at l’Entrepôt in Lachine, Québec. The virtual recital was part of a series with Concerts Lachine and organized by artistic director Richard Turp. Due to the ongoing coronavirus quarantine, artists across the world have had entire seasons canceled, and this series aimed to put musicians back on-stage albeit without a live audience.
With the exception of the work by José Evangelista, the programmed repertoire focuses exclusively on composers that spent the bulk of their careers in Paris. In fact, only the work by Evangelista was written originally for guitar. The piece Retazos or “fragments” was commissioned by Scottish guitar virtuoso David Russell but was deemed unplayable on solo guitar. As a result, Steve and I spent a number of years arranging the work and then performing it across Canada. In 2019, we recorded Retazos with the Canadian record label Analekta on an album of exclusively Canadian music. You can purchase our album “Focus” here.
The other pieces on the program by Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and Federico Mompou were originally written for piano, while the work by Germaine Tailleferre was originally for solo harp. We chose these pieces based on the contrast in moods and the intimacy of the musical language, which we felt were suited perfectly for guitar. Feel free to like, share and comment on the video below, we would greatly appreciate it!
