Here's a different quintet voice. Piazzolla's traditional quintet consisted of bandoneon, violin, electric guitar, piano and contrabass. PortoTango addresses the same music with a quintet of violin, cello, two guitars and piano. It's is quite a different sound but one which still touches on authenticity with the advantage of two distinct choirs - smooth strings (violin and cello) and percussive strings (the two guitars) with piano providing a unifying base. The musicians in Portotango include David Wyn Lloyd, violin; Jaroslav Mikus, cello; José Parra, piano; and Óscar Flecha and Jorge Silva, guitars. While not in either of the posted videos, PortoTango also includes vocalist Manuel Vidal.
PortoTango have posted videos of La muerte del ángel and Otoño Porteño. I have chosen to feature La muerte del ángel although the Otoño Porteño takes better advantage of the two choir possibility. The former just sounds better to my ear - some liberties are taken with the melody as presented by the violin in the latter which, while not unpleasant or inappropriate, just don't sound right to me.
PortoTango have two CD's listed on their website and these two songs provide representatives from both. You can buy their most recent CD, Sin esquinas, here. The discography on their website also provides a number of mp3 song samples and a second website provides some additional mp3 samples.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
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