Richard Galliano Sextet

A musical journey from Bach to Piazzolla.

Although it appeared more than a century after his death, Bach would have been fascinated with the accordion. Like the organ, it is well equipped for natural stereo, polyphony and registration. If the accordion is a kind of portative organ, it’s certainly more expressive: «The accordion, like the bandoneon, can easily be substituted for string, wind or keyboard instruments.» That’s why Richard Galliano has decided not to confine himself to pieces for organ. On the contrary, for this album he has chosen works for cello, for oboe, for violin, for keyboard and for flute. «But first and foremost, I try to forget that I’m playing the accordion... I’m thinking in terms of ‘pure music’», he insists....

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A musical journey from Bach to Piazzolla.

Although it appeared more than a century after his death, Bach would have been fascinated with the accordion. Like the organ, it is well equipped for natural stereo, polyphony and registration. If the accordion is a kind of portative organ, it’s certainly more expressive: «The accordion, like the bandoneon, can easily be substituted for string, wind or keyboard instruments.» That’s why Richard Galliano has decided not to confine himself to pieces for organ. On the contrary, for this album he has chosen works for cello, for oboe, for violin, for keyboard and for flute. «But first and foremost, I try to forget that I’m playing the accordion... I’m thinking in terms of ‘pure music’», he insists.

He’s also recalling what his friend Astor Piazzolla did in his symphonic works, liberating the bandoneon from its bass and chordal-accompaniment function, in which the instrument’s sound would have got lost in the orchestral mass. «In the prelude from the Cello Suite, I use only the left hand’s keyboard to play the cello part. At first I tried to harmonize it, to play it as on an organ, with the right hand at the octave... Ultimately, each time I tried to touch anything in Bach’s music, I realized that what he had written was perfect».

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