Alexandre Tharaud

Alexandre Tharaud – Barbara (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:18:07 minutes | 753 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Erato – Warner Classics

For this double album, pianist Alexandre Tharaud invited a spectacular array of guest performers to join him in paying tribute to the great French singer-songwriter known simply as Barbara.

One of the icons of the poetic chanson française, Barbara shares a place of honour with two other ‘B’s’, Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens. Among her most celebrated songs are ‘Ma plus belle histoire d’amour’, ‘Göttingen’, ‘Dis, quand reviendras-tu?’, ‘Mes hommes’ and ‘Nantes’.

It is 20 years since Barbara died, aged 67, on November 24th 1997. Alexandre Tharaud’s idea for this album dates back to the day of her funeral. He, like many other fans, went to the cemetery in Bagneux on the outskirts of Paris. After the crowds and TV cameras had departed, a group of devotees remained at her grave and joined in an impromptu rendition of her songs. “I realised then that Barbara would live on through our voices,” says Tharaud. “I was young, but the recording studio was already central to my life. That morning, at Bagneux Cemetery, I vowed to make an album dedicated entirely to the music of Barbara. I needed time, and singers … The guests on this album are not those anonymous mourners, but dear friends I have invited to lend their own unique voices to this tribute” .

For Hommage à Barbara, Tharaud has assembled a rich and imaginative line-up of performers from a variety of generations and diverse artistic and cultural backgrounds. While there is inevitably a Gallic bias among them, many of their names are well known around the globe. Among them are: actress-singers Juliette Binoche, Vanessa Paradis and Jane Birkin; rock star Radio Elvis; singer-songwriters Bénabar, Juliette, Dominique A, Tim Dup, Jean-Louis Aubert and Albin de la Simone; singers Camélia Jordana, Rokia Traoré, Hindi Zahra and Luz Casal; actor-director Guillaume Gallienne; Erato violinist Renaud Capuçon, clarinettist Michel Portal and the Modigliani string quartet. Alexandre Tharaud himself plays on nearly all the tracks – not just piano, but also electronic organ and keyboards, celesta and bells.
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Alexandre Tharaud – Autograph (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:18 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Erato/Warner Classics

Despite all the somewhat hip graphics, this release from the new partnership of the venerable French label Erato and the revived Warner Classics imprint is at root a very old-fashioned type of album: a program of encores. Even some of the music might have been heard 50 or 75 years ago in a concert by one of the leading touring virtuosos of the day: the Sibelius Valse triste, Op. 44/1, and the Leopold Godowsky arrangement of Saint-Saëns Le Cygne, for example, are such chestnuts that they’re actually a bit less often heard nowadays. But French pianist Alexandre Tharaud updates the old paradigm in several ways. First and most significantly, he adds some new material to the encores mix and integrates it effectively into the overall framework. Such works as Ignacio Cervantes’ rattling Adiós a Cuba and Federico Mompou’s El Lago not only are fresh in this setting but broaden out the mood and expressive range of the whole as the program proceeds. He also adds several Baroque keyboard pieces to the picture with entrancing effect. Finally, Tharaud has a moody and slightly capricious approach to the Romantic mainstream pieces on the bill that works well in this context. With superb sound from the entirely acoustically appropriate Salle Colonne in Paris, this is a strong release that serves the needs of the listener looking for a light album of incidental piano music.

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