Piazzolla

Astor Piazzolla’s Nuevo tango transcends categories and represents an amalgam of international influences. All the arrangements in this album are of instrumental works that Piazzolla composed for his Quinteto Nuevo Tango. Most prominent is the Vivaldi-inspired Las cuatro estaciones porteñas (‘The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires’) reimagined in concerto style for solo violin and string orchestra by Leonid Desyatnikov. The seven other companion pieces, arranged by Ken Selden, use printed sources for structure but incorporate improvisations transcribed from original recordings made by Piazzolla and his band. On this, his third Piazzolla album for Naxos, internationally recognised violinist Tomás Cotik pays homage to his birth city of Buenos Aires.

From the moment Karen Gomyo first heard Astor Piazzolla on disc, at the age of fourteen, she was spellbound: ‘I had never heard such a combination of sensuality, fierceness, playfulness, sadness and nostalgia.’ As a violinist she found the role of the violin in Piazzolla’s music especially inspiring, and soon started playing it herself – first in various group combinations, and eventually together with Piazzolla’s longtime pianist Pablo Ziegler and his Tango Quartet. For the present disc she has chosen to record strings-only versions of three works originally for tango quintet (Seasons), guitar and flute (Histoire), and solo flute (Études).

Accordionist Théo Ould describes this new album as “my most personal — I had never allowed myself to feature the music of Astor Piazzolla. I wanted to raise the accordion above the clichés to concentrate on more classical repertoire”. Théo’s vocation became evident, however, when he heard Piazzolla’s Libertango at the age of 6. Now, 20 years later, this Frenchman from Marseille tackles this music with fervour and exaltation through tailor-made arrangements performed alongside the Quatuor Bilitis and the double bass player Blanche Stromboni, as well as mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti, who appears in a beautiful and heart-warming rendition of Balada para un loco, Piazzolla’s setting of a poem by Horacio Ferrer. Théo Ould is passionate about this music, inviting us to share in his enthusiasm by joining in Ferrer’s Balada: "Climb up into my madman’s tenderness, Put a wig of larks on your head, Fly with me now! Come! Fly! Come!"

From the violinist and Piazzolla fanatic Gidon Kremer comes this album of works by Piazzolla, along with one song in tribute to the legend. He covers a decent range of Piazzolla's work, moving equally well between slower milongas and faster tangos.....