Xavier Phillips

New Release

The music of Gabriel Fauré is at once unclassifiable and inexpressibly beautiful. One must yield to its seductions, savour in it the charm of the unexpected. The cello is the voice of the Fauré mélodie without the words. Its mellowness conceals passion. When Xavier Phillips and Cédric Tiberghien take possession of it, it becomes sensual, incandescent, a bouquet of refined, evergreen harmonies. The Élégie and the Berceuse will never fade, nor will the two late cello sonatas, whose surging vitality is that of a young man of more than seventy!

Concert, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
December 4, 2023

WITH CÉDRIC TIBERGHIEN

A new date in Paris for this duo, united around a project devoted to the music of Gabriel Fauré. During the concert, Xavier Phillips and Cédric Tiberghien will perform the program from their album The cello and piano works, released by La Dolce Volta.
The program includes the Sonata for cello and piano n°1 in D minor op. 109, the Sérénade op. 98, the Élégie op. 24 and the Berceuse op. 16.

Concert, Arsenal de Metz
October 20, 2023

Gabriel Fauré’s music seduces with its charm and harmonic refinements, the sonic equivalent of Art Nouveau bewitchments. This undisputed master of melody makes the cello sing like a suave, passionate voice. On his 1710 Matteo Goffriller, Xavier Phillips – who trained with Philippe Muller and later became a disciple of Mstislav Rostropovitch – joins forces with Cédric Tiberghien – a soloist and chamber musician with an eclectic repertoire – to embrace the composer’s entire oeuvre for cello and piano, from the famous Élégie and Berceuse to the two late Sonatas, full of youthful vitality.