M and Thibault Cauvin, two guitars that listen to each other

This kind of thing was bound to end in a dead end. A very good classical guitarist, Thibault Cauvin, with international awards, seeks to broaden his repertoire, which usually tends towards Vivaldi or Leo Brouwer. He tries his hand at film music revisited on six strings, or themes devoted to cities (two “Cities” albums), that sort of thing. For one song, in 2018, he met Matthieu “M” Chedid, always open to musical adventures parallel to his talent as a singer and formidable pop guitarist.

The flow passes, and now the two men are publishing this month the excellent “L’heure Miroir”, a collection of sixteen titles adapted as duets for the classical guitar of one and the electric guitar of the other. There are hits by M (“Je dis amour”, “Qui de nous deux”, “En tête à tête”, etc.), Christophe (“Les mots bleus”), Aznavour or Satie, a “ mirror hour” which is vaguely reminiscent of Rodrigo y Gabriela (“13:31”), Lennon, a few unreleased tracks.

The whole thing sounds like a wonderful concentrate of virtuoso gentleness, of poetic complicity, of a desire for music that escapes genre stereotypes. We are in the reciprocal and rare listening, very precise scores, the electricity of M responding magnificently to the acoustic lightness of Cauvin. There is joy, there is melancholy, two guitars coming from worlds at odds with each other and which suddenly converge, turn around, tame each other and fly away, without the slightest desire for confrontation: a real success, which we look forward to discovering in concert, in a few days in Montreux.

Christophe Passerborn in Fribourg, has worked at Le Matin Dimanche since 2014, after having worked in particular at Le Nouveau Quotidien and L’Illustré. More informations

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