Thursday, September 3, 2009

August Review of Piazzolla Videos

There were 486 videos of Piazzolla’s music posted on YouTube in the month of August, 2009. 373 (77%) of the videos were performance videos featuring live performances. The others were videos which used Piazzolla’s music as a sound track for photo or video montages. I highlighted my journey through these many videos in this blog.

Forty percent of the performance videos were in the classical mode, 29% in Nuevo tango, 17% in pop and 14% in jazz.

Here are the most frequently performed pieces this month (Libertango was the most frequently played – 26% of the total; the others follow in order):

1. Libertango
2. Oblivion
3. Adios Nonino
4. Verano Porteño
5. Histoire du Tango - Bordel 1900
6. Invierno Porteño
7. La muerte del ángel
8. Otoño Porteño
9. Milonga del ángel
10. Primavera Porteña

The top three on this list seem to be fairly stable month-to-month but the bottom seven change every month.

The performance videos came from 44 different countries. Italy posted the most videos: 65. The top ten posting countries are listed in order here:

1. Italy
2. Argentina
3. Spain
4. USA
5. Japan
6. France
7. Brazil
8. Netherlands
9. Poland
10. Russia

There were six video originals by Piazzolla. One had been previously posted on YouTube but five of them were new. Those five were all from a performance with Gary Burton at the Ravenna Jazz Festival in 1986. There were other videos from that Gary Burton series posted in the month of July.

Quality of performance varied from excellent to bizarre. I chose the Devich Trio’s performance of Oblivion as the best of the month. The choice for most bizarre this month was a video which uses Libertango as the sound track to a series of skateboard mishaps.

I have put a table with links to all 486 videos as well as some more information on the videos on the August link in my Piazzolla on Video website.

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