Fantaisie

ALBAN TIXIER
Luth

LABEL ENPHASES - RELEASE DATE 19/09/2025
Outhere Distribution - ENP020

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Alban Tixier, Luth
Margaux Zubeldia, Chant : plage 11
Louise Tixier, Dessus de viole : plage 21

Recorded at the Chapel of the Montfort Fathers, Saint Laurent sur Sèvre (85) 23 to 27 September 2024
Sound recording / Artistic direction / Editing: Franck Jaffrès / Unik Access
Design: Jean-François Lemporte
Cover photo ‘Faisceau’: Alban Tixier

After Suzanne un jour and his repertoire of French music, Alban Tixier invites us to follow him on a tour of Europe with his instrument, the lute, for this second album. In the same vein as the first volume, we find the same delicate interpretation, a certain efficiency and a selection of targeted works that allow a wider audience to discover and, above all, understand an instrument that few people are familiar with today.

And a fantasy, one!
Apart from an equestrian demonstration, which consists of simulating a cavalry charge while using firearms in a collective detonation, fantasy in the musical realm is synonymous with imagination but also freedom. Showing imagination also invites the risk of displeasing. Underneath its seemingly informal aspects, imagination is in fact structured, thought out and defined in its interpretation. Not to be confused with improvisation, which is all over the place, unlike fantasy. In this album, Alban Tixier offers you a small selection of fantasies drawn from the European repertoire, and listening to it, it is clear that it reveals a taste for masterful composition, something that the masters who passed these works on to us knew how to do.

Our young lutenist continues on his merry way, immersing himself a little more each day in the defence and conservation of musical and architectural heritage. Between rehearsals and performances, Alban is involved in restoring his family's old fortified residence, which is said to have belonged to Jacques du Puy du Fou in 1430. In keeping with his favourite music, our young musician finds inspiration in this old fortified house, which has seen the Hundred Years' War, the Black Death, 70 years of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants, as well as the Wars of the Vendée and other epidemics that have marked the history of his native region. The ghost of the Fief de la Maison Neuve, who appears at will, inspires the entire household, leading us to believe that the ectoplasm was probably an artist. Alban has just participated as a lutenist in the project ‘Grand Mer Océane, Sous les voiles, des apparences’ (Great Ocean Sea, Under the Sails, Appearances), alongside Sylvain Fabre, composer of the soundtrack for the motion design film featuring the Fantastic Marine Bestiary. This short film was screened at the ‘Forum de l'Aventure Maritime’ in Les Sables d'Olonne during the launch of the 10th edition of the Vendée Globe in October 2024. It was a new experience for this young artist.

Alban-tixier.com

30 September 2025 - Duo concert - Chapelle de Sion sur l'Océan (85)
Alban Tixier on lute, theorbo, Renaissance guiterne and Louise Tixier on sopragane
Early Baroque repertoire

3 to 16 October 2025 - Concerts in China
(Sichuan region - Chongqing, etc.)
Duo Alban and Louise TIXIER