Raphaël Feuillâtre & Eduardo Eguëz

Raphaël Feuillâtre, guitar. Eduardo Eguëz, vihuela, lute & guitar. MILÁN, ORTIZ, SANZ, ALBÉNIZ, TARREGA, PIAZZOLLA... Pavanes, Jácaras, Canarios, Fandango, Folias, Tarantelas, Milangas and Tangos... The guitar has traversed centuries while reinventing itself constantly.

By turns intimate and contemplative, then virtuoso and festive, it plays across borders between aristocratic salons and popular circles. Historically, it extends the tradition of older instruments like the vihuela, which was born in the 16th century in the Iberian peninsula.

A close relative of the lute that triumphed everywhere else in Europe, this inspired a refined repertoire by composers like Alonso Mudarra or Luis de Milán. When Baroque guitar gradually established itself at the end of the century, it opened to popular practices.

The work of Gaspar Sanz offers a vast panorama of the era's styles and reveals deep cultural mixing, nourished notably by influences from the New World (as also attested by the Codex Saldivar, manuscript discovered in Mexico).

It was in the 19th and 20th centuries, however, that the guitar reached one of its most accomplished expressions, particularly in Spain where Albéniz, Falla, Rodrigo and Granados gave it a voice that was both nostalgic and sunny.

Two virtuosos and poets of plucked strings gather here to celebrate the star instrument of the Iberian world.