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# Two Guitars, Grand Repertoire: Bluvenduo Reimagine the Piano Masterpieces
- URL: https://serenademagazine.com/two-guitars-grand-repertoire-bluvenduo-reimagine-the-piano-masterpieces/
- Published: 2026-10-03T12:33:45.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-03T12:33:45.000Z
- Description: Prizewinning guitar duo Bluvenduo bring Schubert, Franck, Rachmaninov and Schumann into vivid new focus, balancing fidelity with reinvention in transcriptions that test the guitar’s limits and reveal an intimate, richly coloured voice all their own.
- Author: Nikhil Sardana
- Tags: Interviews

For many guitar duos, the established repertoire offers only a starting point. Bluvenduo, formed by Canadian guitarist Sebastian Robles and Chinese guitarist Zhanxiang Shi during their studies with Judicaël Perroy in San Francisco, have built their partnership around the belief that two guitars can embrace some of the most ambitious music in the piano repertoire. Their new album, [*Transcriptions for Two Guitars*](https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.579184), presents their own arrangements of works by Schubert, Franck, Rachmaninov and Schumann, several of them appearing on disc in this format for the first time.

The programme moves from the effortless songfulness of Schubert’s A major Sonata, D. 664, to the elegance of Franck’s *Prélude, fugue et variation*, the dramatic breadth of three Rachmaninov Preludes, and the miniature worlds of Schumann’s *Kinderszenen*. The latter receives its world premiere recording for two guitars. Rather than treating transcription as a matter of simply dividing piano parts between two instruments, Robles and Shi aim to preserve the musical function, character and voice-leading of the originals, while exploiting the guitar’s distinctive colours, intimacy and responsiveness.

Winners of [First Prize](https://www.guitarfoundation.org/news/704507/2025-IEC-Results.htm) at the 2025 Guitar Foundation of America International Ensemble Competition, Bluvenduo discuss their creative partnership, the art of transcription, and their ambition to bring the classical guitar to wider audiences.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/81/43/8143ec94-5168-45b1-a5e8-d3ad406ee496/content/images/2026/10/1.png)

**Nikhil Sardana: Your album brings Schubert, Franck, Rachmaninov and Schumann into the world of two guitars. What first drew you to this particular programme?**

**Sebastian Robles:** I think it all began with the Rachmaninov Preludes. Josh and I have always been great admirers of Rachmaninov, and in our first years as a duo in San Francisco, studying with Judicaël Perroy, we were looking for music that was ambitious, compelling and beautiful to play. We made the transcriptions of the three Rachmaninov Preludes first, and they may even have helped define us as a duo early on, because guitarists are not used to hearing Rachmaninov on their instrument.

Judicaël was enormously encouraging and helped us refine the transcriptions from the outset. That gave us the confidence to continue arranging. The next work was the Franck, although we did not initially choose it ourselves. We were invited to perform it at a festival celebrating the composer, and decided to make our own arrangement. Other versions exist, but we wanted something more extensive, preserving more of the voice-leading and creating a richer ensemble texture. We always try to share the melodies, rather than having one player permanently carry the melody while the other accompanies.

The Franck was followed by the Schubert, while the Schumann was the final addition to the programme. Those were more Josh’s choices, and I am very grateful for his direction, as his knowledge of that repertoire is more extensive than mine.

**Zhanxiang Shi:** For me, the Schubert and Schumann came from a desire to take a further step in what we were doing as a duo. After arranging the three Rachmaninov Preludes and the Franck, we became more ambitious about exploring larger-scale repertoire. Those earlier arrangements had shown us how much was possible on two guitars, but we wanted to see whether we could take on something more substantial and push the limits of what a guitar duo could do.

I was also strongly influenced by SoloDuo. One of its members, Matteo Mela, is now one of my guitar teachers, and their recording of Beethoven sonatas arranged for two guitars made a great impression on me. Hearing repertoire of that scale work so convincingly on two guitars opened up many possibilities in my mind. It made me feel that the guitar duo did not have to remain within the repertoire traditionally associated with the instrument. We could approach major works from the piano repertoire and find our own way of making them speak.

What attracted me most to Schubert’s D. 664 was its extraordinary singing quality. There is something wonderfully natural and unforced about the way the music unfolds, warm and graceful on the surface, yet with those subtle moments of melancholy that are unmistakably Schubert. That quality felt very natural on the guitar, because the instrument can be incredibly intimate and vocal when a phrase is allowed to breathe.

Schumann’s *Kinderszenen* was the most recent addition to our programme. It appealed to me for a related reason, but in a very different way. It is more inward-looking and concentrated, with so much depending on character, timing, colour and simplicity rather than virtuoso display. With two guitars, we felt there was a special possibility to create a real dialogue between two voices: answering one another, overlapping, or exchanging roles. At times, it can feel like two people remembering the same childhood from different perspectives.

Although both works are intimate, they challenged us in different ways. In Schubert, the challenge was to preserve the long, singing line and the music’s natural flow. In Schumann, it was to give each miniature its own character while keeping the whole cycle coherent. Both works revealed a side of the guitar duo very different from the more orchestral and dramatic worlds of Rachmaninov and Franck.

**NS: Several of these arrangements are first commercial recordings. How did you decide which works could reveal something genuinely new on two guitars?**

**SR:** I do not think our goal is necessarily to reveal something new about these pieces. When we started the duo, at 17 and 18, we chose the Rachmaninov Preludes partly to show off, to prove that we puny little guitarists were capable of playing the grand repertoire. As we have grown and, we hope, matured, what attracts us more and more is simply the desire to play this music: to be the people producing such powerful, moving sonorities with our own fingertips and our own hearts.

This is music that moves us. Showing the pieces in a new light is not the principal objective. Rather, we care about the effect we have on our listeners. We are not here to serve the repertoire. We use the repertoire as a tool to convey something meaningful to an audience.

When choosing repertoire, we have two main criteria. First, it has to move us. Secondly, it has to be possible on the guitar. Given the instrument’s significant technical limitations, it can be difficult to find music that fulfils both criteria. But once we have found it, the choice happens naturally.

For us, that difficulty is actually a positive thing. Art thrives on limitation, especially when those limitations are pushed as far as possible. That is part of what we love to do.

**NS: You began working together in San Francisco in 2018\. What have you learned about each other’s musical instincts over the years?**

**SR:** On a basic level, we each have technical strengths and weaknesses. My hands are quite large and flexible, so I am comfortable with big chords and stretches. But whenever there are agile runs, we immediately try to give them to Josh, because we know they will sound much better if he plays them.

On a subtler level, I have learned to appreciate Josh’s love for the repertoire we play, especially the German and Austrian piano composers: Schubert, Schumann, and Mozart, whose music we hope to bring to fruition very soon. You have to love something to do it well, and you can hear in the way Josh sings those melodies that he truly loves this music. That is an inspiration to me.

While we were consolidating the repertoire for this album, I was going through a contemporary phase and was not listening to much Romantic music at all. Josh’s passion for this repertoire was contagious. That is part of what makes ensemble playing so valuable.

**ZS:** It is difficult to answer this question because I do not feel that we learn directly from one another in a deliberate way. Rather, we are developing our musical instincts together. We probably learn more from the pianists we listen to than from each other, especially Mitsuko Uchida. Her interpretation of Schubert’s D. 664 is our favourite, and it became an important source of inspiration for our own approach to expression.

During that process, we are continually developing our instincts together.

**SR:** I completely agree. I do not try to imitate Josh’s style of playing, and he does not try to imitate mine. Instead, we encourage one another to use our individual strengths to the fullest. The musical direction we choose is often guided by sources beyond the duo, but once we decide where we want to go, we go there together. Whatever we learn from one another happens continually and naturally, rather than intentionally.

**NS: The Schubert Sonata is so closely associated with the piano. How did you preserve its lyricism while making the arrangement feel native to the guitar duo?**

**ZS:** One of the greatest challenges in arranging the Schubert was deciding how to reorganise the voices between the two guitars. We never wanted it to sound as though one guitarist was permanently playing the melody while the other simply accompanied. Throughout the sonata, the roles constantly change. A melodic line may begin on one guitar and continue on the other; inner voices can move between us; and the harmonic material is redistributed so that both instruments contribute to the overall balance of the texture.

That was particularly important because the piano and guitar behave so differently. The piano has a much wider register and can sustain for considerably longer, while the guitar, as a plucked instrument, decays more quickly. The guitar also has a more compressed range. Sometimes unavoidable compromises have to be made: a voice may need to move by an octave because the original register is unavailable. The challenge is to make those adjustments without interrupting the direction of the phrase.

At the same time, the guitar offers possibilities of its own. We can change colour very quickly through different strings, positions and types of attack, and use vibrato to give a melodic line a particular vocal quality. This became especially important in the second movement. Rather than trying to reproduce the piano’s sonority, we sought a different kind of lyricism through colour, vibrato and the way the two guitars sustain and respond to one another. For me, that movement shows how intimate and expressive a guitar duo can be.

The third movement presents a different challenge because of its speed and energy. Here, too, we constantly exchange roles. This creates a technical balance between the two parts. We did not want the first guitar to have all the difficult or virtuosic material while the second remained in an accompanying role. Sharing the material keeps both players equally involved technically and musically, creating much more of a dialogue. It also makes the piece more enjoyable to play together.

More recently, Sebastian has begun experimenting with a seven-string guitar. The transcription was originally written for two six-string guitars, but the additional bass string now gives us a wider register and lets us reconsider some of the earlier compromises. Bass lines that previously had to be moved an octave higher can remain much closer to Schubert’s original register. Although we have been performing the piece for some time, the transcription is still evolving with us.

Ultimately, the aim was to preserve Schubert’s phrasing, the balance and direction of the voices, and above all the singing quality of the music, while allowing the guitars to use their own strengths.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/81/43/8143ec94-5168-45b1-a5e8-d3ad406ee496/content/images/2026/10/6.jpg)

Bluvenduo © Florian Colombet

**NS: Rachmaninov’s music can feel vast and orchestral. How do you create that sense of scale, colour and emotional breadth with only two guitars?**

**SR:** In terms of objective volume, speed, note density and range, guitarists will never be able to compete with pianists. But in terms of exertion, the amount of effort we put into a passage, the instrument is no longer the determining factor. The players themselves are.

If we push ourselves and the capacities of the guitar to their absolute limits while playing this repertoire, I think the audience notices and interprets it as emotional intensity. In an age when amplification makes sheer volume easy to achieve, that sense of exertion on stage should not be neglected. At the very least, it draws one’s attention.

In terms of colour contrasts, however, the guitar has an extremely wide palette, arguably wider than that of the piano. As a duo, we try to make the most of it.

**NS: Schumann’s *Kinderszenen* moves between playfulness, anxiety and reflection. Which scenes proved most surprising or challenging to translate?**

**ZS:** Different pieces in *Kinderszenen* challenged us in completely different ways. No. 3, *Hasche-Mann*, was probably the most technically demanding movement. It is full of extremely fast scales and constantly moving figures. As in the Schubert, we often redistribute material between the two guitars rather than assigning the melody permanently to one player and accompaniment to the other. That allows us to share the technical difficulty, while also creating much more interaction between the instruments.

There is one chromatic passage of which I am particularly proud. Played conventionally on one guitar, it would be awkward and technically demanding at that speed. Instead, we divided the chromatic scale between the two guitars, interlocking the notes so that together they create a single continuous line. On the page, it looks almost impossible and requires great precision between us, but once it works, it feels surprisingly natural. This kind of redistribution is something we use often in our arrangements.

*Träumerei* presented almost the opposite challenge. Its melody is probably the most immediately recognisable in the entire cycle, so we felt we had to treat it with particular care. Since the main theme returns several times, we wanted each appearance to have its own colour without disturbing its simplicity. In the final return, for example, we play the melody in harmonics. This is something very particular to the guitar, giving the theme a more distant and fragile quality. For us, it was a way of allowing the guitar to show a different side of a very familiar piece.

Perhaps the most deceptive piece is the final one, *Der Dichter Spricht*. Technically, if you look only at the notes, it is one of the simplest movements in the cycle. There are no spectacular scales or virtuoso passages; much of the piece is built from chords. But for a guitar duo, that simplicity is exactly what makes it difficult. Very often, the two guitars complete the same harmony together, so our timing has to be extremely precise. Every breath, preparatory gesture, speed of attack, and release of a chord has to be felt together.

In a way, we have to make two guitars behave like the two hands of a single player. Yet it cannot become mechanical. Both of us have to sense how each harmony creates tension, how it resolves, and where the music needs to breathe. For me, that is one of the deepest challenges in the entire cycle: not playing difficult notes, but making two people shape a simple musical thought as though it came from one mind.

**NS: Your arrangements aim to honour the originals while stretching the instrument’s possibilities. Where do you draw the line between fidelity and reinvention?**

**ZS:** For me, fidelity is more about preserving musical function than reproducing every note literally. What we try to keep intact is the harmonic structure, the voice-leading, the character of the music and the direction of the phrase. But the way those things are realised on the instrument sometimes has to change.

A gesture that is completely natural on the piano may be awkward or simply ineffective on the guitar. In those situations, copying every note exactly does not necessarily make an arrangement more faithful. We might change the register of a voice, redistribute notes between the two guitars, or alter an articulation, always asking: what is this passage trying to express, and how can we make that function convincingly on two guitars?

At the same time, we are careful not to add things simply because the guitar allows us to do so. The fact that we can create a certain effect does not mean that it belongs in Schubert, Schumann or Rachmaninov. Reinvention is necessary, but it should serve the musical idea rather than merely decorate it.

The ideal result is that a listener who knows the original immediately recognises its musical identity, while someone unfamiliar with it simply hears an arrangement that feels natural on two guitars.

**SR:** There are certain techniques available on the guitar that cannot be found in the original source material. A typical example is harmonics. We have used them in the past, but our artistic director, Florian Colombet, has encouraged us to use them more often, especially in the more recent arrangements.

In *Kinderszenen*, for example, when we showed him the first draft of our arrangement, he identified several places where harmonics could be added, including the first movement and *Träumerei*. This was one of his countless invaluable suggestions. It was simple, but it completely transformed the quality of the arrangements. That is why we work with him.

Although harmonics are an addition to the original score, they capture the delicacy of these passages in a way that we hope would please the composers. They also allow us to recreate the delicacy of the piano’s high register more accurately than ordinary stopped notes.

If we are adding, removing or changing something, our principal concern is whether the composers might have been happy with that decision. In the case of the harmonics, we cannot imagine Schumann asking us to remove them. We can only imagine him appreciating their delicacy, and so we use them with confidence.

**NS: Winning the Guitar Foundation of America International Ensemble Competition in 2025 was a major milestone. How has that recognition shaped your ambitions for Bluvenduo’s next chapter?**

**SR:** Winning a major competition is undoubtedly a huge source of confidence. I can speak for both of us because we share a similar perspective: neither of us particularly likes the idea of competitions. Personally, I did not initially want to enter the GFA. The idea of pursuing a goal which, if achieved, prevents other ensembles from attaining the same goal can seem counterproductive and absurd. We do not value our own success above that of our colleagues and friends.

There is serious work that could arguably do more for the guitar world than winning a competition: organising concerts, developing local guitar communities and, above all, rethinking how classical guitar is presented to non-guitarists. Nevertheless, we decided to do it.

It is worth saying that although Judicaël is known for having students who win competitions, he does not push any of us to enter them. He allows us to decide entirely for ourselves, because he is genuinely concerned with the flourishing of his students in a holistic sense. That looks different for each of us. At the same time, he is realistic about the state of the guitar world: competitions can be extremely helpful for one’s career. Many successful guitarists today built their careers in significant part through competition success.

Although this is changing, it also shows how much of a bubble the classical guitar world has been. If our audiences were not composed primarily of guitar students and teachers, perhaps we would not need to manufacture success through competitions. Helping to change that is one of our long-term goals: to share our art form with people who do not want to compete with us, but simply want to listen to music.

We are not alone in this. More and more brilliant guitarists recognise the need to open up our world, and it is exciting to see. One of the best recent examples is Thibault Garcia and Antoine Morinière’s *Goldberg Variations* album. In that project, they achieved something remarkable on every level: artistic quality, musical mastery and, importantly, marketing. Developing all three aspects in our own duo is our present objective, because it is the only way that non-guitarists may become interested in hearing our music.

Ultimately, the GFA result and the positive feedback we received showed us that there are people who would like to hear us play. That is what matters: responding to those listeners as generously as possible. We take it with humility, because there are many other guitarists who deserve to be known. Yet while the classical guitar world remains something of a bubble, there is much work to do so that more non-guitarists can come to appreciate the art form.