In 1985, Piazzolla composed a double concerto for bandoneón, guitar and orchestra. It was premiered at the 5th International Guitar Festival in Liège, Belgium with Cacho Tirao playing guitar, Piazzolla the bandoneón and Leo Brouwer conducting the Liège Philharmonic. That performance has been preserved on the CD, Hommage a Liège. Sometime within the next twelve months the performance was repeated with Alvaro Pierri on the guitar, Piazzolla on the bandoneón and Pinchas Steinberg leading the Kölner Rundfunk-Orchester. That performance was captured on video and is available on the DVD, The Next Tango.
Today's video has quite a different feel than the distinctly classical mood of those two performances. Two of my favorite interpreters of Piazzolla, Al Di Meola and Mario Parmisano, bring a jazz-tinged version which puts a entirely different and entirely satisfying perspective onto the music. It is an arranged version and purists may note the absence of certain portions of the original (approximately eight minutes of the original have been dropped) but the music sings in their hands. Di Meola, in places, covers the original exactly but more often adds swing and well chosen runs within and between the phrases. Parmisano does an amazing job of covering the bandoneón and the orchestral parts on a pair of midi keyboards. This is an excellent addition to the jazz catalog of Piazzolla works. While Parmisano and Di Meola have recorded a version of this on the CD, The Grand Passion, the version in this video has an elegant simplicity which is missing in the one found on the CD. You can find a video similar to the version from that CD here.
Since embedding has been disabled for this video, you must click here to see the video.
If you wish to see the Piazzolla original, click here for part one and here for part two.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
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