Recordings: Thierry Tisserand

I came into contact with the music of the French guitarist/composer Thierry Tisserand through a Russian download site. There I found a PDF of the first part of Comme des Chansons, a collection of small pieces in increasing difficulty. They turned out to be very fun to play.

Google and Youtube showed me that he is very popular and has published a lot, but biographical details are rare. Tisserand was a good student at the conservatory in Lille, northern France, and developed himself in classical as well as light music and jazz. As a guitar teacher he has published a considerable collection of music for all levels and a large number of ensembles with guitar.

Recordings

Comme des Chansons, freely translated that is Like with Songs. The foreword to the book contains technical clues showing that the pieces are for educational purposes. However, the title is an encouragement, they are not etudes, but songs, music to keep you entertained. With a whole palette of styles and forms in the light muse genre. Roland Dyens’ short foreword to this book is certainly encouraging.

The pieces are quite short, so I got a strong memory of Stepan Rak’s Minutova Sola. That was a fun project and you can find the recordings of these pieces elsewhere in this section.

After trying some pieces, I understood the enthusiasm of the Youtube players well and decided to get started myself. With my recording device on standby. The result is this series of recordings. A striking feat of all these pieces is a certain amount of melancholy. My guitar teacher called that typically French. Well, the land of Musette et Melancolie.

During the recordings, again it became clear that technical simplicity is no guarantee for a well-played piece. Also, with these pieces it took me time and repeated attempts to play the music in a presentable and enjoyable manner. Well, at a given moment you draw a line in the number of attempts, so all pieces are an optimum of this time. Once again, it became clear that recording puts an extra pressure, which mercilessly shows the passages that you have not yet mastered. As a consequence, my satisfaction that it recording did succeed is likewise.

For recording, I used the following publications:

  • Comme des Chansons 1, Lemoine 27710, ISMN 979-0230977104.
  • Comme des Chansons 2, Lemoine 27711, ISMN 979-0230977111.

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