2023-12-05 07:05:00
The concerto opens with a wild race of the strings that one would readily imagine supporting a scene filmed by Alfred Hitchcock. On this orchestral layer heavy with suspense, the accordion makes its entrance. Throughout the score, he blends into the heart of the instrumental mass then stands out, before singing with the oboe, babbling with the piccolo or dreaming in the company of the xylophone.
Composed by Fabien Waksman at the request of Félicien Brut, The Island of Time, concerto for accordion and orchestra, is inspired by the Egyptian works of the Louvre Museum, whose glass pyramid is one of the accordionist’s favorite Parisian emblems. The 36-year-old virtuoso “born in the countryside but in love with the capital” imagined an evening in the form of a sound stroll through the streets of Paris.
Recorded at the Théâtre du Châtelet on December 12, 2022, this promenade concert, now broadcast on France 4, offers the listener the opportunity to discover many faces of an instrument associated with popular balls and the friendly accents of the musette.
An expanded repertoire
Admired for its virtuosity suitable for leading couples into whirling waltzes, the piano with straps has not always been popular with “serious” musicians. However, when he knocked on the door of jazz, traditional music and then classical music, he was able to seduce with the breadth of his registers, the breadth or delicacy of his tone and, even more, the appetite of those who master its secrets to enrich their repertoire.
Solo, accompanied by the Republican Guard Orchestra under the direction of François Boulanger, or in tender dialogue with the voice of the mezzo-soprano Ambroisine Bré, the brilliance of the trumpet of Lucienne Renaudin Vary or, surprise guest, the The accordion of “master” Richard Galliano, Félicien Brut is a true chameleon. Here is Vincent Scotto’s hit for Joséphine Baker, I have two loves, but also a transcription of a Prelude by Chopin or the Complaint of the Butte written by Georges van Parys with words by Jean Renoir… And, in addition to the concerto by Fabien Waksman, other contemporary pieces in which Thibault Perrine and Karol Beffa explore and magnify the breath of the accordion.
Podcasts to extend the experience
Each musical sequence is preceded by a (a little too) short presentation. Like an appetizer inviting you to find Félicien Brut in the series of four podcasts that he concocted for France Musique. Like the chapters of a work in which the accordion, affectionately nicknamed the “box”, is the hero. Familiar, good friend, a little despised and confined to his suburban world, before he knew how to earn his stripes of respectability, without denying his popular roots.
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