22 CATALUÑA LLIVIA... DISTANT PRESENCE After Alberto Ginastera’s Argentina, Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Brazil and Manuel de Falla’s Spain, you are transporting us to the Pyrenees, and to other lands bathed in light. Where does this fascination with this sun-drenched repertoire come from ? Wilhem Latchoumia: I adore colourful music! Having French Caribbean roots, I am naturally more sensitive to anything sunlit and radiant. But the inspiration behind my various albums is above all anchored in the notion of folklore. All my programmes are structured around composers who have appropriated a popular heritage and magnified it through their own musical language. Heitor Villa-Lobos drew on the choro tradition as well as on African music, which is also part of Brazil’s cultural heritage; Manuel de Falla organised flamenco competitions… Their approaches are akin to those of a Béla Bartók or a Richard Wagner, to whom I have also devoted a recording, even if, in the latter’s case, the references belong more to the realm of mythology and cosmogony. It is fascinating to see the extent to which these great creators were able to draw on their roots in order to reinvent them. The same is true of Federico Mompou, Déodat de Séverac and Isaac Albéniz, whom I have chosen to draw closer together here.
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