THIBAUT GARCIA / ANTOINE MORINIÈRE

Many fables surround the Goldberg Variations. Published in 1741, the work was supposedly commissioned from Bach to fill the nights of the insomniac Count von Keyserling, whose harpsichordist was called Goldberg… The anecdote is of course apocryphal but gives the measure of a work that unfolds in thirty variations arranged in two great panels and springing from the famous opening Aria. The Goldberg Variations thus form a synthesis of all the dances and compositional techniques the composer had used up to that point: gigues, sarabandes, inventions, fugues, toccatas, canons, all built on the same harmonic bass. The final return of the opening Aria in all its purity is enriched by the fabulous metamorphoses heard before it.
After Glenn Gould’s legendary recording, Thibaut Garcia (“Révélation Instrumentale” of the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2019) and Antoine Morinière have conceived a version for two guitars while preserving the illusion of a single performer. Crafted from the wood of the same tree, their two instruments promise a profound new reading of this universal masterpiece.