Agustín Barrios: El Bohemio

Agustín Barrios was born in Paraguay in 1885, and went on to become one of the greatest classical guitarists of all time. He is a hero of the young French guitarist Thibaut Garcia, who devotes much of his album El Bohemio to Barrios’ compositions. These include the three-movement La Catedral, whose delicate “Preludio saudade” Garcia plays with an intoxicating limpidity. The rapid tremolo notes of the opening work, Un sueño en la floresta, are delectably smooth in articulation, while the Danza paraguaya No. 1 references the strong influence of Paraguayan folk music in Barrios’ pieces. Barrios also transcribed for guitar the music of other composers, and Garcia’s beguilingly poetic accounts of Chopin’s Prelude No. 20 and Robert Schumann’s “Träumerei” plumb deep into the Romantic roots of Barrios’ artistic nature.