After sitting in a box for more than twenty years a long forgotten video tape of a full Piazzolla concert has been found and shared this week on YouTube. There are very few videos of full concerts which makes this video of particular interest to Piazzolla fans. Today's featured video of the Quintet's performance of Adios Nonino is just one of the eight posted videos which fully capture the concert.
According to the Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, Piazzolla's Quintet made a quick tour of Mexico and Central America in the summer of 1984. Vocalist, Raúl Lavié, joined the quintet on the tour (and is featured in four of the videos). While not mentioned in Le Grand Tango, that tour evidently also included a stop in Caracas, Venezuela where today's video was made. The notes with the video suggest it was a brief visit with no time to assemble an audience, to rehearse, or to do a proper sound check (and apparently no time to tune the piano). The video was preserved on a U-Matic tape and is one of the first broadcasts in Venezuela to be recorded in stereo. The quality of the sound is quite good as is most of the video.
Many thanks to "BlackbirdRabbit" for finding and sharing the video.
If the video does not appear below, click here. Links to the other videos from the concert are provided below.
Additional concert videos: Lunfardo/Michelangelo 70, Los Pájaros Perdidos, La Bicicleta Blanca, Balada para mi Muerte, Balada para un Loco, Verano Porteño, and Mumuki.
Full audio of the concert can be downloaded here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Note added on 23 December, 2011: The poster of this video has added an additional piece of information about the arrangements behind this television performance. Hugo Carregal, an Argentine actor, singer and producer who lived in Venezuela and was very influential at RCTV convinced Piazzolla to fit the performance into a busy schedule. Were it not for Mr. Carregal's efforts, we would not be enjoying this video.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Without the Bongos
Pablo Aslan issued a very interesting album this week: Piazzolla in Brooklyn. The album takes nine tracks from a 1959 Piazzolla LP titled, Take Me Dancing, and reinterprets them in contemporary jazz format. Aslan talks about the concept behind the new recording and you hear quite a bit of the track titled Counterpoint in today's video.
The 1959 version was recorded in New York City during Piazzolla's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to establish a musical career in that city. He recorded six LP's during that period. In five of those, Piazzolla was a band leader and instrumentalist playing other people's music. Take Me Dancing is the only LP of the six in which he was able to play a significant amount of his own music, which he termed Jazz-Tango. That album contains eight tracks composed by Piazzolla and four standards. The music is, for the most part, forgettable - the textures are bland, the tempos metronomic and the bongos are irritating. For many years the music on the LP was available to only a few who were lucky enough to find a copy of it in a dustbin but I note that today, you can download the full contents of the LP.
But Aslan heard something else in the music. As he says in the video, "There is a lot of great music in there, if you can get past the bongos." Aslan, himself a bassist, assembled a quintet: Gustavo Bergalli on trumpet, Nicolas Enrich on bandoneón, Abel Rogantini on piano, and Daniel “Pipi” Piazzolla on drums. He, Enrich and Rogantini transcribed seven of the pieces that Piazzolla had composed, two of the standards and added a tenth piece, La Calle 92 (La Calle translates as "the street" and one of Piazzolla's addresses in NYC was 202 West 92nd Street) which was composed in 1961. All of the musicians are seasoned jazz musicians who also know tango. They recorded the music in Buenos Aires over a period of days. The pattern for each track is roughly the same: they open with essentially a direct reading of the score and after the full thread of the original has been spun they begin to improvise around Piazzolla's music - frequently playing above and around the original themes. They make good music - a clear improvement over 1959. If you are a jazz fan you will enjoy the music. If you are a jazz fan who enjoys Piazzolla, you will love the music. If you are looking for a nuevo tango recording - this one is not for you.
In addition to the interesting comments and snippets of the recording session, you will hear a significant portion of the work Counterpoint (also known as Contratiempo) starting at 3:25 in today's video. You can compare what you hear to Piazzolla's 1959 recording in this video. You may recognize the fugue that opens the piece - Piazzolla recycled it into Fuga y misterio in the operita, Maria de Buenos Aires.
The concept for the album is creative and the execution respects the music that Piazzolla composed. The improvisation is excellent and left me wanting to hear these five musicians take on some of Piazzolla's more successful music rather than his more obscure music.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
The 1959 version was recorded in New York City during Piazzolla's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to establish a musical career in that city. He recorded six LP's during that period. In five of those, Piazzolla was a band leader and instrumentalist playing other people's music. Take Me Dancing is the only LP of the six in which he was able to play a significant amount of his own music, which he termed Jazz-Tango. That album contains eight tracks composed by Piazzolla and four standards. The music is, for the most part, forgettable - the textures are bland, the tempos metronomic and the bongos are irritating. For many years the music on the LP was available to only a few who were lucky enough to find a copy of it in a dustbin but I note that today, you can download the full contents of the LP.
But Aslan heard something else in the music. As he says in the video, "There is a lot of great music in there, if you can get past the bongos." Aslan, himself a bassist, assembled a quintet: Gustavo Bergalli on trumpet, Nicolas Enrich on bandoneón, Abel Rogantini on piano, and Daniel “Pipi” Piazzolla on drums. He, Enrich and Rogantini transcribed seven of the pieces that Piazzolla had composed, two of the standards and added a tenth piece, La Calle 92 (La Calle translates as "the street" and one of Piazzolla's addresses in NYC was 202 West 92nd Street) which was composed in 1961. All of the musicians are seasoned jazz musicians who also know tango. They recorded the music in Buenos Aires over a period of days. The pattern for each track is roughly the same: they open with essentially a direct reading of the score and after the full thread of the original has been spun they begin to improvise around Piazzolla's music - frequently playing above and around the original themes. They make good music - a clear improvement over 1959. If you are a jazz fan you will enjoy the music. If you are a jazz fan who enjoys Piazzolla, you will love the music. If you are looking for a nuevo tango recording - this one is not for you.
In addition to the interesting comments and snippets of the recording session, you will hear a significant portion of the work Counterpoint (also known as Contratiempo) starting at 3:25 in today's video. You can compare what you hear to Piazzolla's 1959 recording in this video. You may recognize the fugue that opens the piece - Piazzolla recycled it into Fuga y misterio in the operita, Maria de Buenos Aires.
The concept for the album is creative and the execution respects the music that Piazzolla composed. The improvisation is excellent and left me wanting to hear these five musicians take on some of Piazzolla's more successful music rather than his more obscure music.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Invierno Porteño - Pitango Quartet
Who you gonna call? If you have a ghost problem, you call Ghostbusters. If you want an arrangement of a Piazzolla tune, you call Norberto Vogel. That is who the Pitango Quartet called when offered the opportunity to perform with the Netanya Kibbutz Orchestra. The very successful result of that call can be sampled in today's video of Invierno Porteño.
The Pitango Quartet is one of the leading tango ensemble in Israel. The group, formed by classically trained musicians, has been in existence since 2003 and provides tango "shows" as well as performing as a chamber group and with symphony orchestras as in today's video. Their repertoire covers the full range of tango music which they present with respect and authenticity. Members of the group are Amijai Shalev on bandoneón, Hadar Cohen on violin, Shachar Ziv on piano and Rinat Avisar on contrabass. I believe that all but the violinist are part of the original 2003 quartet. Pitango has recorded two CD's of tango music but they are difficult to find outside of Israel. You can find and purchase a limited selection of their music at their myspace website.
Invierno Porteño was the final of the four seasons composed by Piazzolla and the only one in which he purposefully inserted an hommage to Vivaldi. While originally composed for a quintet it is frequently played in orchestral arrangements, the most famous being those of José Bragato and Leonid Desyatnikov. The former is a bit formal but authentic; the latter is a delight to the ear but takes many liberties with the score. Mr. Vogel's is quite different and in many respects better than the others. It opens with beautifully written bandoneón solo - a perfect overture to the piece which captures both the Vivaldi and the tango essence embedded in the work. Mr. Vogel is a skilled bandoneónist himself and that skill shows in the this opening gem. The piece then moves alternatively but seamlessly between sections scored for full orchestra and for the quartet. The audience receives the full impact of an orchestral work but also has the opportunity to hear portions of the work in something closer to the original format. You will find Pitango and the Netanya Kibbutz Orchestra performing the other three seasons at the CarouselArtists YouTube Channel.
So, who are you gonna call? Mr. Vogel is an "arranger for hire" with a specialty in tango music. If you want a special arrangement of a Piazzolla work for your ensemble, give him a call at (011) 5197-6461 in Buenos Aires (or an email here).
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
The Pitango Quartet is one of the leading tango ensemble in Israel. The group, formed by classically trained musicians, has been in existence since 2003 and provides tango "shows" as well as performing as a chamber group and with symphony orchestras as in today's video. Their repertoire covers the full range of tango music which they present with respect and authenticity. Members of the group are Amijai Shalev on bandoneón, Hadar Cohen on violin, Shachar Ziv on piano and Rinat Avisar on contrabass. I believe that all but the violinist are part of the original 2003 quartet. Pitango has recorded two CD's of tango music but they are difficult to find outside of Israel. You can find and purchase a limited selection of their music at their myspace website.
Invierno Porteño was the final of the four seasons composed by Piazzolla and the only one in which he purposefully inserted an hommage to Vivaldi. While originally composed for a quintet it is frequently played in orchestral arrangements, the most famous being those of José Bragato and Leonid Desyatnikov. The former is a bit formal but authentic; the latter is a delight to the ear but takes many liberties with the score. Mr. Vogel's is quite different and in many respects better than the others. It opens with beautifully written bandoneón solo - a perfect overture to the piece which captures both the Vivaldi and the tango essence embedded in the work. Mr. Vogel is a skilled bandoneónist himself and that skill shows in the this opening gem. The piece then moves alternatively but seamlessly between sections scored for full orchestra and for the quartet. The audience receives the full impact of an orchestral work but also has the opportunity to hear portions of the work in something closer to the original format. You will find Pitango and the Netanya Kibbutz Orchestra performing the other three seasons at the CarouselArtists YouTube Channel.
So, who are you gonna call? Mr. Vogel is an "arranger for hire" with a specialty in tango music. If you want a special arrangement of a Piazzolla work for your ensemble, give him a call at (011) 5197-6461 in Buenos Aires (or an email here).
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Campo, Camino y Amor - Episodio Trio
It is an unlikely song writing pair: Astor Piazzolla and Atahualpa Yupanqui. But José Pons and his wife provided the opportunity for the two to work together and create the piece, Campo, camino y amor in their Paris home in 1974. The canción is rarely performed but a performance of it by the Episodio Trio is featured in today's video.
Héctor Roberto Chavero Aramburo was born in 1908 - his father a descendant of the indigenous people of Argentina, his mother from the Basque country of Europe. As a performer, he took the stage name Atahualpa Yupanqui to honor the names of two great Inca kings. Until his death in 1992, he was the most famous folk musician in Argentina and shared his music and the music of the country people of Argentina with the world. He challenged the political system of Argentina and spent time in exile and in prison as a result. While his music bears little relationship to that of Piazzolla, during their lifetimes they shared a common bond of rejection within their shared homeland. And, today they share a common veneration. That these two almost legendary figures created together the canción, Campo, camino y amor, is almost as remarkable as the fact that the canción remains an almost undiscovered gem today.
The story of their meeting in Paris at the home of Argentine architect, José Pons, himself an exile from Argentina, is well documented as a result of the publication of a small book, Astor Atahualpa: Los Caminos de la Identidad (the full text is at that link), written by Piazzolla's daughter, Diana, and Atahualpa's son, Roberto Chavero, with a third author,Fuentes Rey, describing the origin of today's featured song, Campo, camino y amor. The story of this canción as extracted in this blog is roughly this: Piazzolla and Atahualpa were both performing in Paris. They met as dinner guests at the Pons home and Atahualpa told the story of how his parents met. All present thought the story would make a good canción. Atahualpa agreed to write a poem about it and Piazzolla agreed to put the poem to music. Unlike many such ideas hatched over wine and good food, it actually happened that way. Hopefully, Piazzolla had a chance to introduce the canción to the Pons family but I find no evidence that he did. In December of 1974 at Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires, the work was performed by Amelita Baltar, Piazzolla's vocalist, companion and presumed fellow guest at the Pons dinner. Ms. Baltar later recorded the work on the CD, Referencias. The only other recording of the work I find is by María Estela Monti on the CD, Solo Piazzolla.
And who are the Episodio Trio that perform the work in today's video? I don't know. There is no information accompanying the video and I can find no helpful reference to the group on the web. Hopefully someone reading this blog will recognize them and tell us a little more about them in the comment section below. Their performance, which is the only presentation of Campo, camino y amor on YouTube, is excellent - they deserve recognition.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Héctor Roberto Chavero Aramburo was born in 1908 - his father a descendant of the indigenous people of Argentina, his mother from the Basque country of Europe. As a performer, he took the stage name Atahualpa Yupanqui to honor the names of two great Inca kings. Until his death in 1992, he was the most famous folk musician in Argentina and shared his music and the music of the country people of Argentina with the world. He challenged the political system of Argentina and spent time in exile and in prison as a result. While his music bears little relationship to that of Piazzolla, during their lifetimes they shared a common bond of rejection within their shared homeland. And, today they share a common veneration. That these two almost legendary figures created together the canción, Campo, camino y amor, is almost as remarkable as the fact that the canción remains an almost undiscovered gem today.
The story of their meeting in Paris at the home of Argentine architect, José Pons, himself an exile from Argentina, is well documented as a result of the publication of a small book, Astor Atahualpa: Los Caminos de la Identidad (the full text is at that link), written by Piazzolla's daughter, Diana, and Atahualpa's son, Roberto Chavero, with a third author,Fuentes Rey, describing the origin of today's featured song, Campo, camino y amor. The story of this canción as extracted in this blog is roughly this: Piazzolla and Atahualpa were both performing in Paris. They met as dinner guests at the Pons home and Atahualpa told the story of how his parents met. All present thought the story would make a good canción. Atahualpa agreed to write a poem about it and Piazzolla agreed to put the poem to music. Unlike many such ideas hatched over wine and good food, it actually happened that way. Hopefully, Piazzolla had a chance to introduce the canción to the Pons family but I find no evidence that he did. In December of 1974 at Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires, the work was performed by Amelita Baltar, Piazzolla's vocalist, companion and presumed fellow guest at the Pons dinner. Ms. Baltar later recorded the work on the CD, Referencias. The only other recording of the work I find is by María Estela Monti on the CD, Solo Piazzolla.
And who are the Episodio Trio that perform the work in today's video? I don't know. There is no information accompanying the video and I can find no helpful reference to the group on the web. Hopefully someone reading this blog will recognize them and tell us a little more about them in the comment section below. Their performance, which is the only presentation of Campo, camino y amor on YouTube, is excellent - they deserve recognition.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
500 Motivaciones
Piazzolla "plugged in" in the mid-70's with several versions of an Octeto Electronico. Influenced by Chick Corea's sound and with the encouragement of his son, Daniel, who was among the pioneers playing the electronic synthesizer, he gathered seven musicians, including Daniel, and "electrified" his nuevo tango sound. You can see a 1975 example of that group here.
In 1976, influenced not by Corea but by the young musicians who were bringing a rock sound to tango, he very significantly changed the sound of the music to bring the aggressive sound of rock into his neuevo tango. The young rockers applauded the move but the Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, indicates that Piazzolla was not so sure it was the right sound for him. The piece, 500 motivaciones, may be the best example of that sound. The work was featured in a famous concert in December, 1976 at Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, the Piazzolla discography contains no recording of 500 motivaciones. But, rumors have long persisted that a recording was made at Teatro Gran Rex and this week, a recording of 500 motivaciones made directly from the mix board at the Gran Rex made its way to the web. You can hear that recording, at least as I write this you can here it, at this link. There are many Piazzolla fans who have waited for years to hear this recording.
The sound is a bit rough, in the sense that the music does not sound as well rehearsed as usual - perhaps that is part of aiming for a looser rock sound. There are places where it seems that the flutist just can't quite keep up with the group (note that the Luis Ferreyra had replaced the Octeto's original flutist, Arturo Schneider, at this time) but it is a relentlessly driving work that still clearly comes from the pen of Piazzolla. The Octeto was disbanded shortly after the Gran Rex concert only to be reassembled with an almost totally different set of musicians (only Astor and Daniel were in both groups) for a series of performances at the Olympia Theater in France which have been captured on a French LP, Olympia 77. 500 motivaciones was featured at those concerts and was well received. But things never really gelled with this second version of the Octeto and Piazzolla disbanded it and abandoned the "electrified" sound for the rest of his career.
To my knowledge there is only one commercial recording of the work and it is a quite good one by the Ensamble Nuevo Tango. In 1986, Piazzolla gave that group his original manuscript for 500 motivaciones so their performance, other than instrumentation, is quite authentic. Fortunately, they have provided a video of their performance which can be viewed below. The rough, rock edges have been removed and it is well rehearsed but it is still a relentlessly driving work. To me, their version sounds more like Piazzolla than Piazzolla's own Octeto Electronico version.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
In 1976, influenced not by Corea but by the young musicians who were bringing a rock sound to tango, he very significantly changed the sound of the music to bring the aggressive sound of rock into his neuevo tango. The young rockers applauded the move but the Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, indicates that Piazzolla was not so sure it was the right sound for him. The piece, 500 motivaciones, may be the best example of that sound. The work was featured in a famous concert in December, 1976 at Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, the Piazzolla discography contains no recording of 500 motivaciones. But, rumors have long persisted that a recording was made at Teatro Gran Rex and this week, a recording of 500 motivaciones made directly from the mix board at the Gran Rex made its way to the web. You can hear that recording, at least as I write this you can here it, at this link. There are many Piazzolla fans who have waited for years to hear this recording.
The sound is a bit rough, in the sense that the music does not sound as well rehearsed as usual - perhaps that is part of aiming for a looser rock sound. There are places where it seems that the flutist just can't quite keep up with the group (note that the Luis Ferreyra had replaced the Octeto's original flutist, Arturo Schneider, at this time) but it is a relentlessly driving work that still clearly comes from the pen of Piazzolla. The Octeto was disbanded shortly after the Gran Rex concert only to be reassembled with an almost totally different set of musicians (only Astor and Daniel were in both groups) for a series of performances at the Olympia Theater in France which have been captured on a French LP, Olympia 77. 500 motivaciones was featured at those concerts and was well received. But things never really gelled with this second version of the Octeto and Piazzolla disbanded it and abandoned the "electrified" sound for the rest of his career.
To my knowledge there is only one commercial recording of the work and it is a quite good one by the Ensamble Nuevo Tango. In 1986, Piazzolla gave that group his original manuscript for 500 motivaciones so their performance, other than instrumentation, is quite authentic. Fortunately, they have provided a video of their performance which can be viewed below. The rough, rock edges have been removed and it is well rehearsed but it is still a relentlessly driving work. To me, their version sounds more like Piazzolla than Piazzolla's own Octeto Electronico version.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Boulouris 5
Many musicians play all the notes, only a few make beautiful music. Boulouris 5 makes beautiful music (and they don't miss any notes, either). This Lausanne, Switzerland based quintet is on my short list of groups I would like to see in concert. Their interpretations are unique and extraordinarily musical. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that they are Piazzolla specialists. They have issued four albums - three of which are virtually devoted to the music of Piazzolla. Part of their success is due to the fact that they understand and have mastered all of Piazzolla's musical gestures and can execute them not just with precision but with feeling. I could not decide which of two recently posted videos was best so have featured them both: La Muerte del Angel and Contrabajissimo. The videos are from a live performance at Vevey. The music from that performance is available for download from Amazon.com or iTunes.
The composition of the group is not what you would expect for Piazzolla specialists: Stéphanie Joseph on violin, Jean-Samuel Racine on clarinet, Anne Gillot on bass clarinet, Ignacio Lamas on guitar, and Jocelyne Rudasigwa on contrabass. Racine and Lamas do their arrangements. While I would be content to just listen to their Piazzolla, they do need to make a living and seem to be understandably reluctant to leave the Suisse Romande so they have packaged their talents into a series of eight musical spectacles which can attract much larger audiences. The most recent such spectacle, Newman Waits Here, covers the work of Tom Waits and Randy Newman. You can see examples of their vocal, mime and comedy talents in the fifteen videos posted on JeansamRacine's YouTubeChannel.
I prefer just the music and the two videos below illustrate why. If they do not appear below, click here and then here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
The composition of the group is not what you would expect for Piazzolla specialists: Stéphanie Joseph on violin, Jean-Samuel Racine on clarinet, Anne Gillot on bass clarinet, Ignacio Lamas on guitar, and Jocelyne Rudasigwa on contrabass. Racine and Lamas do their arrangements. While I would be content to just listen to their Piazzolla, they do need to make a living and seem to be understandably reluctant to leave the Suisse Romande so they have packaged their talents into a series of eight musical spectacles which can attract much larger audiences. The most recent such spectacle, Newman Waits Here, covers the work of Tom Waits and Randy Newman. You can see examples of their vocal, mime and comedy talents in the fifteen videos posted on JeansamRacine's YouTubeChannel.
I prefer just the music and the two videos below illustrate why. If they do not appear below, click here and then here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Royal Command Whiskey
I don't know if it was a labor of love or a simple opportunity to pick up a spot of quick and easy cash, but in 1979 Piazzolla made the television commercial for a local whiskey called Royal Command that is our featured video today.
According to the Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, the video was made shortly after his fifty-eighth birthday. The book provides this translation of his message: "The world is moving away from its roots. People are moving away from their origins. Everyone is searching for something."
So far as I know it is the only commercial ever made starring Piazzolla although his music has been and is still being used in a variety of unlikely television commercials.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
According to the Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, the video was made shortly after his fifty-eighth birthday. The book provides this translation of his message: "The world is moving away from its roots. People are moving away from their origins. Everyone is searching for something."
So far as I know it is the only commercial ever made starring Piazzolla although his music has been and is still being used in a variety of unlikely television commercials.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Le Grand Tango - Swing Sling Brass
I would not think it easy to rearrange a work composed for cello and piano to a work played on two trombones, three trumpets, a french horn and a tuba but the Swedish trombonist and musical wizard, Lars Karlin, has done just that. Proof awaits in today's video of Swing Sling Brass playing Le Grand Tango.
Le Grand Tango is serious music. It was composed specifically for famed cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich - you can read background on the work and hear him play it here. On the surface, Swing Sling Brass are not serious musicians. They are entertainers and are more known for their on-stage hi-jinks, many of which you can enjoy in this video, than they are for concert grade music. However, as today's video shows they are very talented musicians and fully capable of addressing complex and technically challenging music. There are rough edges in the performance but the excitement and energy that are embedded in the score are delivered better in this performance than in just about any other I have heard.
There are other arrangements of Le Grand Tango. There is a good woodwind quintet arrangement and many musicians have moved the cello part to other instruments such as violin, viola. bassoon and even flute. The arrangements are safe and careful. Lars Karlin has exploded the work and reconstructed it for brass. Performances of the original often interpret it as a cello solo accompanied by piano - it is not that. It is a duet. The piano part is important and plays a role equal to that of the cello. Karlin has recognized this and captured both voices in a very sculptural manner. The trombone usually takes the main cello line - but not always. Trumpets usually cover the treble of the piano - but not always. The overall structure is true to the original with the exception of a trombone cadenza at approximately 6'40" into the video. Since there is no live video, I can't be sure, but I think the cadenza is played by Geir Anfinsen while the rest of the septet vamps behind the solo. In a little less than a minute, the group returns to the score. It is an interesting break - no harm was done. I am in awe of the quality of the arrangement. Libertango is a staple for brass ensembles but there is so much more Piazzolla which would be stunning on brass. I can hardly wait to hear what Mr. Karlin does with the rest of the Piazzolla catalog and I hope that Swing Sling Brass brings his arrangements to us sooner rather than later.
I encourage you to visit the Swing Sling Brass Music page. There is wonderful music there and you can appreciate their musical skills without the smiles interfering with your hearing. The performance of Le Grand Tango on that page is, I believe, different than the one in the video and is a little more polished but with no loss of excitement.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Le Grand Tango is serious music. It was composed specifically for famed cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich - you can read background on the work and hear him play it here. On the surface, Swing Sling Brass are not serious musicians. They are entertainers and are more known for their on-stage hi-jinks, many of which you can enjoy in this video, than they are for concert grade music. However, as today's video shows they are very talented musicians and fully capable of addressing complex and technically challenging music. There are rough edges in the performance but the excitement and energy that are embedded in the score are delivered better in this performance than in just about any other I have heard.
There are other arrangements of Le Grand Tango. There is a good woodwind quintet arrangement and many musicians have moved the cello part to other instruments such as violin, viola. bassoon and even flute. The arrangements are safe and careful. Lars Karlin has exploded the work and reconstructed it for brass. Performances of the original often interpret it as a cello solo accompanied by piano - it is not that. It is a duet. The piano part is important and plays a role equal to that of the cello. Karlin has recognized this and captured both voices in a very sculptural manner. The trombone usually takes the main cello line - but not always. Trumpets usually cover the treble of the piano - but not always. The overall structure is true to the original with the exception of a trombone cadenza at approximately 6'40" into the video. Since there is no live video, I can't be sure, but I think the cadenza is played by Geir Anfinsen while the rest of the septet vamps behind the solo. In a little less than a minute, the group returns to the score. It is an interesting break - no harm was done. I am in awe of the quality of the arrangement. Libertango is a staple for brass ensembles but there is so much more Piazzolla which would be stunning on brass. I can hardly wait to hear what Mr. Karlin does with the rest of the Piazzolla catalog and I hope that Swing Sling Brass brings his arrangements to us sooner rather than later.
I encourage you to visit the Swing Sling Brass Music page. There is wonderful music there and you can appreciate their musical skills without the smiles interfering with your hearing. The performance of Le Grand Tango on that page is, I believe, different than the one in the video and is a little more polished but with no loss of excitement.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Retrato de Milton - Novjaro Quintet
It is difficult to imagine a connection between the shores of the Rio Plata, birthplace of the tango and of Astor Piazzolla, and the shores of a remote archipelago on the southern coast of Finland; but, for a day in July of this year, the Novjaro Quintet provided that connection with a concert of twelve Piazzolla compositions at the city hall of Hanko, Finland. Today's featured video of a performance of Retrato de Milton is from that concert.
Finnish tango is very interesting and has its own blog. But while Finnish tango may belong to the same genus as Argentine tango, it is a different species and the music of Piazzolla plays almost no part in Finnish tango. In the ten years of the existence of the Finnish tango blog, there is only one reference to Piazzolla. So it is surprising to find not one but two active quintets devoted to the music of Piazzolla in Finland, and perhaps there are even more yet to be discovered on YouTube. One of the most accurate reproducers of the Piazzolla quintet sound in the world is the Finnish group, Tanguedia. Today's featured group, Novjaro Quintet, does not have the authentic Piazzolla timbre of Tanguedia (an electric guitar and more use of the bandoneón would change that), but they provide a detailed, nuanced and musically compelling interpretation of Piazzolla.
Novjaro began in 1997, when students at the Sibelius Academy met to play Piazzolla together. In the year 2000, they won the Piazzolla Award in Castelfidardo, Italy. Violinist, Noa Nakai, and contrabass player, Julius Pyrhönen, are the only current members who were part of the original Novjaro. All the current members are superb musicians but Nakai's violin work in the featured video and in the video of Mumuki must be singled out and recognized as sublime. His sound is very close to that of Antonio Agri, violinist in Piazzolla's first quintet.
You can find all twelve performances from the July, Hanko concert on the Novjaro YouTube Channel. I chose to feature Retrato de Milton for two reasons: one, it is rarely heard and, two, it is the only one of the twelve to use bandoneón rather than accordion. I applaud Veli Kujala for his use of bandoneón in spite of his obvious lack of comfort on the instrument - I hope he will continue to work and play it more in the future. In 1969, Piazzolla composed Retrato de mi mismo which translates roughly as "Portrait of myself." In 1972, he met a young Brazilian musician and composer, Milton Nascimento, who so impressed him that when he rewrote Retrato de mi mismo into a more complex form, he retitled it as Retrato de Milton. There is perhaps a symbolic significance of Piazzolla recognizing himself in the young composer, Milton Nascimento, and converting his self-portrait into a portrait of Milton. Piazzolla recorded the work only once, in a July, 1973,live concert at the Teatro Odeón in Buenos Aires which can be heard on the readily available CD, Muerte del Angel.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
Note added 12 October, 2011: Noa Nakai was kind enough to provide me a list of additional Piazzolla bands in Finland. They include Otra Vez, In Time Quintet, Quinteto Fuego, Tango for Four and Tangueros Polares. It is not clear how many of these are still active bands.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Finnish tango is very interesting and has its own blog. But while Finnish tango may belong to the same genus as Argentine tango, it is a different species and the music of Piazzolla plays almost no part in Finnish tango. In the ten years of the existence of the Finnish tango blog, there is only one reference to Piazzolla. So it is surprising to find not one but two active quintets devoted to the music of Piazzolla in Finland, and perhaps there are even more yet to be discovered on YouTube. One of the most accurate reproducers of the Piazzolla quintet sound in the world is the Finnish group, Tanguedia. Today's featured group, Novjaro Quintet, does not have the authentic Piazzolla timbre of Tanguedia (an electric guitar and more use of the bandoneón would change that), but they provide a detailed, nuanced and musically compelling interpretation of Piazzolla.
Novjaro began in 1997, when students at the Sibelius Academy met to play Piazzolla together. In the year 2000, they won the Piazzolla Award in Castelfidardo, Italy. Violinist, Noa Nakai, and contrabass player, Julius Pyrhönen, are the only current members who were part of the original Novjaro. All the current members are superb musicians but Nakai's violin work in the featured video and in the video of Mumuki must be singled out and recognized as sublime. His sound is very close to that of Antonio Agri, violinist in Piazzolla's first quintet.
You can find all twelve performances from the July, Hanko concert on the Novjaro YouTube Channel. I chose to feature Retrato de Milton for two reasons: one, it is rarely heard and, two, it is the only one of the twelve to use bandoneón rather than accordion. I applaud Veli Kujala for his use of bandoneón in spite of his obvious lack of comfort on the instrument - I hope he will continue to work and play it more in the future. In 1969, Piazzolla composed Retrato de mi mismo which translates roughly as "Portrait of myself." In 1972, he met a young Brazilian musician and composer, Milton Nascimento, who so impressed him that when he rewrote Retrato de mi mismo into a more complex form, he retitled it as Retrato de Milton. There is perhaps a symbolic significance of Piazzolla recognizing himself in the young composer, Milton Nascimento, and converting his self-portrait into a portrait of Milton. Piazzolla recorded the work only once, in a July, 1973,live concert at the Teatro Odeón in Buenos Aires which can be heard on the readily available CD, Muerte del Angel.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
Note added 12 October, 2011: Noa Nakai was kind enough to provide me a list of additional Piazzolla bands in Finland. They include Otra Vez, In Time Quintet, Quinteto Fuego, Tango for Four and Tangueros Polares. It is not clear how many of these are still active bands.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Escualo - Duo Kutrowatz
It is difficult to decide whether the star of this video is Piazzolla's composition, Escualo, the arranger, Kyoko Yamamoto, or the performers, Duo Kutrowatz. The three certainly work together well.
Escualo (the title translates to Shark) was composed in 1979 and is one of the most rhythmically challenging of Piazzolla's works and one of my favorites - this is the ninth time the work has been featured in this blog. In a two year survey of the most frequently performed Piazzolla compositions, it was number 17. I think the challenge of the work keeps its performance frequency down. Piazzolla recorded the work four times. My favorite was captured live on October 13, 1983 in Lugano, Switzerland and can be heard on the readily available CD, Adios Nonino. A later but very similar performance by the quintet can be seen in this video.
It is a great challenge to capture the essence of that quintet performance in a work for two pianos but Kyoko Yamamoto has done an excellent job of just that. Ms. Yamamoto is a classically trained pianist from Kobe College but her fame has not come from her work as a pianist but rather as an arranger of the works of Piazzolla for piano - both solo and duo piano. You can find many pianists playing her arrangements on YouTube. The Yonezawa Piazzolla score list references 31 pieces Ms. Yamamoto has arranged and I believe there are even more which have not yet been made commercially available. Many young musicians receive their first exposure to the music of Piazzolla through her arrangements. She is an important person in the Piazzolla world.
Ms. Yamamoto has been fortunate to have attracted the attention of such superb pianists as Eduard and Johannes Kutrowatz. The Kutrowatz brothers were trained at Josef Haydn Conservatory in Eisenstadt and at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. They have performed professionally as a duo since 1986 and have an uncanny rapport at the piano. They have toured the world and made a name for themselves particulary with the works of Liszt. Their attention to Piazzolla is relatively recent but they have clearly been captured by his music. Their latest recording, Tango Nuevo, is devoted entirely to the works of Astor Piazzolla as arranged by Ms. Yamamoto. Escualo is included on that recording. You can find a video of their performance of Michelangelo '70, also on that recording, here. Escualo is rhythmically challenging and it a credit to the Kutrowatz brothers that they are in perfect synchronization throughout the performance. I think their performance does capture the compositional creativity of the work but it moves forward with Teutonic certainty rather than with the Latin swing that Piazzolla's quintet brought to the work. That swing may be impossible to capture on two pianos, it is largely due to accent pattern - which is different for each instrument in the quintet - and the subtle moving of those accents before and behind the beat. I am curious what a pair of truly canyengue pianists like Pablo Ziegler and Mario Parmisano would do with Ms. Yamamoto's arrangement of Escualo. Could they make it swing?
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Escualo (the title translates to Shark) was composed in 1979 and is one of the most rhythmically challenging of Piazzolla's works and one of my favorites - this is the ninth time the work has been featured in this blog. In a two year survey of the most frequently performed Piazzolla compositions, it was number 17. I think the challenge of the work keeps its performance frequency down. Piazzolla recorded the work four times. My favorite was captured live on October 13, 1983 in Lugano, Switzerland and can be heard on the readily available CD, Adios Nonino. A later but very similar performance by the quintet can be seen in this video.
It is a great challenge to capture the essence of that quintet performance in a work for two pianos but Kyoko Yamamoto has done an excellent job of just that. Ms. Yamamoto is a classically trained pianist from Kobe College but her fame has not come from her work as a pianist but rather as an arranger of the works of Piazzolla for piano - both solo and duo piano. You can find many pianists playing her arrangements on YouTube. The Yonezawa Piazzolla score list references 31 pieces Ms. Yamamoto has arranged and I believe there are even more which have not yet been made commercially available. Many young musicians receive their first exposure to the music of Piazzolla through her arrangements. She is an important person in the Piazzolla world.
Ms. Yamamoto has been fortunate to have attracted the attention of such superb pianists as Eduard and Johannes Kutrowatz. The Kutrowatz brothers were trained at Josef Haydn Conservatory in Eisenstadt and at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. They have performed professionally as a duo since 1986 and have an uncanny rapport at the piano. They have toured the world and made a name for themselves particulary with the works of Liszt. Their attention to Piazzolla is relatively recent but they have clearly been captured by his music. Their latest recording, Tango Nuevo, is devoted entirely to the works of Astor Piazzolla as arranged by Ms. Yamamoto. Escualo is included on that recording. You can find a video of their performance of Michelangelo '70, also on that recording, here. Escualo is rhythmically challenging and it a credit to the Kutrowatz brothers that they are in perfect synchronization throughout the performance. I think their performance does capture the compositional creativity of the work but it moves forward with Teutonic certainty rather than with the Latin swing that Piazzolla's quintet brought to the work. That swing may be impossible to capture on two pianos, it is largely due to accent pattern - which is different for each instrument in the quintet - and the subtle moving of those accents before and behind the beat. I am curious what a pair of truly canyengue pianists like Pablo Ziegler and Mario Parmisano would do with Ms. Yamamoto's arrangement of Escualo. Could they make it swing?
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Libertango - Hiba Tawaji
Unless you count ba-dum-ba-da-pee-dum as a lyric, there is only one recognized set of lyrics to Libertango and those were written by Grace Jones and are known as I've seen that face before. Today's video, unfortunately not a live performance, provides some new lyrics written by Ghadi Rahbani and sung by Hiba Tawaji. The arrangement is by Ghadi's brother, Oussama Rahbani. The lyrics are in Arabic but the video provides an English translation.
The lyrics are striking but it is the musicians involved which make the video noteworthy. The Rahbani family, although largely unrecognized in the West, is one of the most important and successful musical families in the world. The father of Ghadi and Oussama was Mansour Rahbani who along with his brother, Assi, revolutionized the world of Arab music with their theater work - perhaps more appropriately labeled as opera work. They were poets and musicians who did not shy from illustrating the socio-political problems of their Lebanese homeland. Both Assi and Mansour had sons who continued in the musical world with Oussama perhaps becoming the most famous of the second generation Rahbani's. He introduced the remarkable singer, Hiba Tawaji, to the world. Together, they have recently issued an album titled La Bidayi Wala Nihayi which contains the version of Libertango featured today. Ms. Tawaji's voice transcends the usual cultural barriers which seem to increasingly separate the Arab world from the West and I expect we will hear more from her in the future.
Ghadi Rahbani has taken the title of Libertango quite literally and provided lyrics of liberty which like most good poetry can be understood at several levels. Perhaps the lyrics refer to past chapters of Argentine history, perhaps to chapters being written today in Arab history. Haneen, who posted the video from Benghazi, Libya, may indeed be part of that history.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
The lyrics are striking but it is the musicians involved which make the video noteworthy. The Rahbani family, although largely unrecognized in the West, is one of the most important and successful musical families in the world. The father of Ghadi and Oussama was Mansour Rahbani who along with his brother, Assi, revolutionized the world of Arab music with their theater work - perhaps more appropriately labeled as opera work. They were poets and musicians who did not shy from illustrating the socio-political problems of their Lebanese homeland. Both Assi and Mansour had sons who continued in the musical world with Oussama perhaps becoming the most famous of the second generation Rahbani's. He introduced the remarkable singer, Hiba Tawaji, to the world. Together, they have recently issued an album titled La Bidayi Wala Nihayi which contains the version of Libertango featured today. Ms. Tawaji's voice transcends the usual cultural barriers which seem to increasingly separate the Arab world from the West and I expect we will hear more from her in the future.
Ghadi Rahbani has taken the title of Libertango quite literally and provided lyrics of liberty which like most good poetry can be understood at several levels. Perhaps the lyrics refer to past chapters of Argentine history, perhaps to chapters being written today in Arab history. Haneen, who posted the video from Benghazi, Libya, may indeed be part of that history.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Libertango - Bagpipe Version
We shall wait a bit longer for the Dixieland jazz version and the Cajun version of Libertango but the long wait for a bagpipe version has been ended with today's video of a performance by Galician piper, Daniel Bellón, with the group BellónMaceiras Quinteto.
If you are expecting Highland Pipes in the video you will be disappointed but bagpipes were in Spain long before they were in Scotland. The earliest drawings which contain bagpipes come, in fact, from the thirteenth century Galician Cantigas de Santa Maria. In Galicia, the pipes are know as gaita and Bellón is one of the young masters of the instrument. The folk fusion music of the BellónMaceiras Quinteto reflects much of the Galician folk music sound which shares Celtic roots with Brittany and Wales although Libertango is not the best choice for finding Celtic roots. If you want to hear more, I suggest you download a copy of their CD, FolkFusion, which does not contain Libertango but does contain some more representative samples of their work.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
Note added 8 October, 2011: There is a second bagpipe version of Libertango created through the magic of multi-tracking by Bulgarian piper, Evtim Ruskov. You will find it here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
If you are expecting Highland Pipes in the video you will be disappointed but bagpipes were in Spain long before they were in Scotland. The earliest drawings which contain bagpipes come, in fact, from the thirteenth century Galician Cantigas de Santa Maria. In Galicia, the pipes are know as gaita and Bellón is one of the young masters of the instrument. The folk fusion music of the BellónMaceiras Quinteto reflects much of the Galician folk music sound which shares Celtic roots with Brittany and Wales although Libertango is not the best choice for finding Celtic roots. If you want to hear more, I suggest you download a copy of their CD, FolkFusion, which does not contain Libertango but does contain some more representative samples of their work.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
Note added 8 October, 2011: There is a second bagpipe version of Libertango created through the magic of multi-tracking by Bulgarian piper, Evtim Ruskov. You will find it here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Libertango - Dame Evelyn Glennie
Eric Sammut created an arrangement of Libertango for marimba that almost every advanced student of that instrument plays at some point in their studies. It is so pervasive that I was quite surprised to hear an alternative arrangement - and a spectacularly good arrangement at that. The arrangement and performance is by Dame Evelyn Glennie and it is the featured video for the day.
The initial part of the arrangement suggests a familiarity with the Sammut version - the same weighted triplet form replaces the straight eighth notes of the ground - but it quickly moves on in directions never contemplated by Sammut. The syncopation in the latter parts of the first section catches the ear with its unexpectedness but it is the elegiac beauty of the middle section of her arrangement which is the highlight for me. Throughout, Dame Glennie plays with a wider and more variable volume (loudness) than most percussionists and the result is a heightened sense of musicality.
Remarkable as the music is, those who know the work of Dame Glennie know that the musician is even more remarkable. She became profoundly deaf at the age of twelve but went on to graduate with honors from the Royal Academy of Music in London and to successfully pursue a career as a percussion soloist appearing on stages around the world. In 2007, she was awarded Dame Commander of the British Empire, for her service to music and, in part, for her work toward extending education opportunities for physically limited students. Many find the talk she gave at a TED conference in 2007 to be a source of inspiration. I have included a video of that talk below today's musical video and encourage you to watch it.
I wondered how unusual it is to be a deaf musician. Ask a music lover to name a deaf musician and they will say "Beethoven." Ask Wikipedia and you will get a list of eighteen people (including Beethoven but not including Mozart who, inexplicably, is on the list). But when I checked each of those eighteen, it turns out that all but one had either lost hearing after a successful career as a musician or were "only" partially deaf. Guitarist Charles Mokotoff and Dame Glennie appear to be extremely unique in that they built careers as musicians while profoundly or severely deaf.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
The initial part of the arrangement suggests a familiarity with the Sammut version - the same weighted triplet form replaces the straight eighth notes of the ground - but it quickly moves on in directions never contemplated by Sammut. The syncopation in the latter parts of the first section catches the ear with its unexpectedness but it is the elegiac beauty of the middle section of her arrangement which is the highlight for me. Throughout, Dame Glennie plays with a wider and more variable volume (loudness) than most percussionists and the result is a heightened sense of musicality.
Remarkable as the music is, those who know the work of Dame Glennie know that the musician is even more remarkable. She became profoundly deaf at the age of twelve but went on to graduate with honors from the Royal Academy of Music in London and to successfully pursue a career as a percussion soloist appearing on stages around the world. In 2007, she was awarded Dame Commander of the British Empire, for her service to music and, in part, for her work toward extending education opportunities for physically limited students. Many find the talk she gave at a TED conference in 2007 to be a source of inspiration. I have included a video of that talk below today's musical video and encourage you to watch it.
I wondered how unusual it is to be a deaf musician. Ask a music lover to name a deaf musician and they will say "Beethoven." Ask Wikipedia and you will get a list of eighteen people (including Beethoven but not including Mozart who, inexplicably, is on the list). But when I checked each of those eighteen, it turns out that all but one had either lost hearing after a successful career as a musician or were "only" partially deaf. Guitarist Charles Mokotoff and Dame Glennie appear to be extremely unique in that they built careers as musicians while profoundly or severely deaf.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Una Nostalgia Pura - Magdalena León
What is the story behind Una nostalgia pura? Did Piazzolla really compose it or is at forgery? You won't find it on any list of Piazzolla compositions. I am hoping that Magdalena León who sings Una nostalgia pura in today's featured video knows the answer and will share it with us. All internet references to the song refer to Ms. León singing it - it is apparently exclusively hers.
My guess is that it is authentic. The lyricist is reported to be Eladia Blazquez, a good friend of Piazzolla and a very talented tango artist. The Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, reports that Ms. Blazquez was a frequent guest to the Piazzolla household, that she played impromptu piano/bandoneón duets with Piazzolla, played scrabble with Piazzolla and even went shark fishing with Piazzolla. She provided lyrics, approved by Piazzolla, for the instrumental works Adios Nonino and Invierno Porteno and collaborated with Piazzolla to create Siempre se vuelve a Buenos Aires. That same book reports that Piazzolla recruited Ms. Blazquez and Horacio Ferrer to provide lyrics for some hastily composed songs for a 1982 concert with Roberto "El Polaco" Goyeneche. Those songs were never used (you can hear the songs that were used on this recording) and I speculate that Una nostalgia pura was originally composed for Goyeneche to sing at that concert and went unsung until Ms. León somehow found the work.
Ms. León was born in Spain but moved to Buenos Aires at age twelve. She established a career as a singer of latin music, not just tango, and notably once sang with the Buenos Aires 8. She is perhaps better known today as a vocal coach, a music educator and author of the book, El Arte de Respirar. She remains a wonderful singer, as this video attests, and you can find Una nostalgia pura and seventeen other canciones on her CD, Entre Amigos - En Vivo.
I don't think Una nostalgia pura has the enduring qualities to become a significant Piazzolla work but I am grateful that Ms. León has rescued it from obscurity.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
Note added 11 September, 2011: Ms. León responded to my request for more infomation about Una nostalgia pura with the following message as translated to me by her artistic manager, Daniele Morganti:
The song is from Eladia Blazquez and A. Piazzolla, and it's one of the last they composed together. It is not a famous song, and - so far I know - I am the only person who has recorded it. This song has a huge vocal range and that's the reason that makes it so difficult to perform "Una Nostalgia pura." Piazzolla never wrote easy music, but always beautiful.
I decided to perform this song while I was recording my album Magdagrafias. Eladia herself invited me to have a look at some of her songs, between them I found "Honrar la vida" and "Una nostalgia pura". I decided to record them in the same album, but the label Warner Music - which I worked with in those years - chose not to put "Una nostalgia pura" in that album - due to the high number of songs already there.
So, finally, "Una Nostalgia pura" was put in the next album, with the arrangement of the Maestro Roberto Lopez, my music director.
My thinking is that "Una Nostalgia Pura" is a sort of continuum of the thought exposed by Eladia Blazquez in the earlier song "Honrar la vida". She was a Galician and was very talented, a wonderful person who always bet on life.
Ms. León's comments about the vocal range demanded by the song suggest that I was wrong in my speculation about the song being written for Goyeneche. Goyeneche's vocal range had become limited at that stage of his career and Piazzolla would not have composed such a demanding song for him.
My thanks to Ms. León and to Daniele Morganti for providing this important additional information.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
My guess is that it is authentic. The lyricist is reported to be Eladia Blazquez, a good friend of Piazzolla and a very talented tango artist. The Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, reports that Ms. Blazquez was a frequent guest to the Piazzolla household, that she played impromptu piano/bandoneón duets with Piazzolla, played scrabble with Piazzolla and even went shark fishing with Piazzolla. She provided lyrics, approved by Piazzolla, for the instrumental works Adios Nonino and Invierno Porteno and collaborated with Piazzolla to create Siempre se vuelve a Buenos Aires. That same book reports that Piazzolla recruited Ms. Blazquez and Horacio Ferrer to provide lyrics for some hastily composed songs for a 1982 concert with Roberto "El Polaco" Goyeneche. Those songs were never used (you can hear the songs that were used on this recording) and I speculate that Una nostalgia pura was originally composed for Goyeneche to sing at that concert and went unsung until Ms. León somehow found the work.
Ms. León was born in Spain but moved to Buenos Aires at age twelve. She established a career as a singer of latin music, not just tango, and notably once sang with the Buenos Aires 8. She is perhaps better known today as a vocal coach, a music educator and author of the book, El Arte de Respirar. She remains a wonderful singer, as this video attests, and you can find Una nostalgia pura and seventeen other canciones on her CD, Entre Amigos - En Vivo.
I don't think Una nostalgia pura has the enduring qualities to become a significant Piazzolla work but I am grateful that Ms. León has rescued it from obscurity.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
Note added 11 September, 2011: Ms. León responded to my request for more infomation about Una nostalgia pura with the following message as translated to me by her artistic manager, Daniele Morganti:
The song is from Eladia Blazquez and A. Piazzolla, and it's one of the last they composed together. It is not a famous song, and - so far I know - I am the only person who has recorded it. This song has a huge vocal range and that's the reason that makes it so difficult to perform "Una Nostalgia pura." Piazzolla never wrote easy music, but always beautiful.
I decided to perform this song while I was recording my album Magdagrafias. Eladia herself invited me to have a look at some of her songs, between them I found "Honrar la vida" and "Una nostalgia pura". I decided to record them in the same album, but the label Warner Music - which I worked with in those years - chose not to put "Una nostalgia pura" in that album - due to the high number of songs already there.
So, finally, "Una Nostalgia pura" was put in the next album, with the arrangement of the Maestro Roberto Lopez, my music director.
My thinking is that "Una Nostalgia Pura" is a sort of continuum of the thought exposed by Eladia Blazquez in the earlier song "Honrar la vida". She was a Galician and was very talented, a wonderful person who always bet on life.
Ms. León's comments about the vocal range demanded by the song suggest that I was wrong in my speculation about the song being written for Goyeneche. Goyeneche's vocal range had become limited at that stage of his career and Piazzolla would not have composed such a demanding song for him.
My thanks to Ms. León and to Daniele Morganti for providing this important additional information.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Kicho - DeContraBando
Piazzolla's career is neatly book-ended by two bassists: Kicho Díaz and Héctor Console. He composed works to showcase the skills of both and today's featured video showcases the work titled Kicho in a minimalist performance by the duo DeContraBando comprised of Diego Zecharies on contrabass and Alejandro Szabo on bandoneón.
Enrique "Kicho" Díaz was probably there the night Piazzolla joined Anibal Troilo's band in December, 1939. He certainly was a member of Troilo's band during most of the five years that Piazzolla played with Troilo. When Piazzolla formed his first quintet in 1960, Kicho left Troilo's band to join Piazzolla. While other members of the quintet changed, Kicho was the only bassist the group ever had and he appears on every recording made by the first quintet from 1960 to 1973. He was the preeminent tango bassist of his time. The work, Kicho, came relatively late in the history of the first quintet and was recorded only once, on the 1970 live recording, Piazzolla en el Regina.
Kicho was composed for quintet and it is not possible for the bandoneón/contrabass duo of Szabo and Zecharies to capture all of the nuances of the piece but Szabo has done an excellent job of capturing the essence of the missing three members of the quintet. On the bass, Zecharies' phrasing and intonation is superb and he brings more musicality to Kicho than Kicho did himself in the live recording at the Regina. Zecharies was born in Uruguay and currently lives in Spain. He is a classical contrabassist but no stranger to Piazzolla's music. With Hugo and Juan Lucas Aisemberg, he recorded TRioPlatense: Vayamos al Diablo. His YouTube performances of Le Grand Tango and Contrabajeando (also composed for Kicho Diaz) are excellent. Szabo, the bandoneónist, was born in Buenos Aires but currently also lives in Spain. The breadth of his skills are perhaps better seen in this DeContraBando demo video. Szabo has also done some excellent work as a duo with guitarist, Gabriel Silvera.
To return to the book-end image, just as Kicho was there for the first part of Piazzolla's career, Héctor Console was there for the last. He joined Piazzolla in 1979 with the second quintet and was there for Piazzolla's final ensemble recording, Live at the BBC, in 1989. The two bassists covered the most important twenty years of Piazzolla's performance career and together, appear on almost 80% of those Piazzolla recordings which included a contrabass player. There were remarkably few bassists in Piazzolla's recording career. According to Mitsumasa Saito's excellent discography, the other bassists include Valentin Andreotta (from Piazzolla's orquesta tipica), Hamlett Greco and Juan Vasallo (from the octet), Chet Amsterdam and George Duvivier (from NYC studio recordings), Giuseppe Prestopino (from studio recordings with Gerry Mulligan), Andy Gonzalez (from Pablo Zinger's Tango Apasionado ensemble) and Angel Ridolfi (who subbed for Console with the Sextet for the Lausanne concert recording).
Diego Zecharies would have been a worthy addition to that list.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
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Enrique "Kicho" Díaz was probably there the night Piazzolla joined Anibal Troilo's band in December, 1939. He certainly was a member of Troilo's band during most of the five years that Piazzolla played with Troilo. When Piazzolla formed his first quintet in 1960, Kicho left Troilo's band to join Piazzolla. While other members of the quintet changed, Kicho was the only bassist the group ever had and he appears on every recording made by the first quintet from 1960 to 1973. He was the preeminent tango bassist of his time. The work, Kicho, came relatively late in the history of the first quintet and was recorded only once, on the 1970 live recording, Piazzolla en el Regina.
Kicho was composed for quintet and it is not possible for the bandoneón/contrabass duo of Szabo and Zecharies to capture all of the nuances of the piece but Szabo has done an excellent job of capturing the essence of the missing three members of the quintet. On the bass, Zecharies' phrasing and intonation is superb and he brings more musicality to Kicho than Kicho did himself in the live recording at the Regina. Zecharies was born in Uruguay and currently lives in Spain. He is a classical contrabassist but no stranger to Piazzolla's music. With Hugo and Juan Lucas Aisemberg, he recorded TRioPlatense: Vayamos al Diablo. His YouTube performances of Le Grand Tango and Contrabajeando (also composed for Kicho Diaz) are excellent. Szabo, the bandoneónist, was born in Buenos Aires but currently also lives in Spain. The breadth of his skills are perhaps better seen in this DeContraBando demo video. Szabo has also done some excellent work as a duo with guitarist, Gabriel Silvera.
To return to the book-end image, just as Kicho was there for the first part of Piazzolla's career, Héctor Console was there for the last. He joined Piazzolla in 1979 with the second quintet and was there for Piazzolla's final ensemble recording, Live at the BBC, in 1989. The two bassists covered the most important twenty years of Piazzolla's performance career and together, appear on almost 80% of those Piazzolla recordings which included a contrabass player. There were remarkably few bassists in Piazzolla's recording career. According to Mitsumasa Saito's excellent discography, the other bassists include Valentin Andreotta (from Piazzolla's orquesta tipica), Hamlett Greco and Juan Vasallo (from the octet), Chet Amsterdam and George Duvivier (from NYC studio recordings), Giuseppe Prestopino (from studio recordings with Gerry Mulligan), Andy Gonzalez (from Pablo Zinger's Tango Apasionado ensemble) and Angel Ridolfi (who subbed for Console with the Sextet for the Lausanne concert recording).
Diego Zecharies would have been a worthy addition to that list.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Revolucionario - A Piazzolla Original
I missed this video when it first appeared on YouTube in April of this year but alert blog reader, Gabriel Caprav, noticed that I missed it and brought it to my attention today. It is an important video - perhaps the earliest video of Piazzolla's first quintet and they are playing what must have been at the time, one of the more controversial of Piazzolla's works: Revolucionario.
The video appears to be from Argentine television and Gabriel speculates it is footage from one of the Quintet's appearances on Tato Bores' show in the mid- to late 1960's. That would correspond roughly with the studio recording of the work in 1967 on the rare Polydor 10092, 33 rpm record which you can hear here. Members of the quintet on that recording were Piazzolla on bandoneón, Osvaldo Manzi on piano, Antonio Agri on violin, Kicho Díaz on contrabass and Oscar López Ruiz on guitar. I believe the musicians in the video are the same although I am not sure that is López Ruiz on guitar. Perhaps a more knowledgeable reader can confirm identities. The piece was recorded a second time by the First Quintet in the live performance recording, Piazzolla en el Regina.
For an Argentine tango fan of the period, Revolucionario, must have been difficult to comprehend and the title suggests that was, perhaps, the intent. It is contrapuntal and modal and it is easier to find Stravinsky than De Caro in the work. Interestingly, Piazzolla apparently never featured the work with his second quintet - perhaps because its ties to tango were too tenuous.
My thanks to Gabriel for bringing this video to my attention. In return, may I suggest you give some of your attention to one of Gabriel's creations - you may recognize the music.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
The video appears to be from Argentine television and Gabriel speculates it is footage from one of the Quintet's appearances on Tato Bores' show in the mid- to late 1960's. That would correspond roughly with the studio recording of the work in 1967 on the rare Polydor 10092, 33 rpm record which you can hear here. Members of the quintet on that recording were Piazzolla on bandoneón, Osvaldo Manzi on piano, Antonio Agri on violin, Kicho Díaz on contrabass and Oscar López Ruiz on guitar. I believe the musicians in the video are the same although I am not sure that is López Ruiz on guitar. Perhaps a more knowledgeable reader can confirm identities. The piece was recorded a second time by the First Quintet in the live performance recording, Piazzolla en el Regina.
For an Argentine tango fan of the period, Revolucionario, must have been difficult to comprehend and the title suggests that was, perhaps, the intent. It is contrapuntal and modal and it is easier to find Stravinsky than De Caro in the work. Interestingly, Piazzolla apparently never featured the work with his second quintet - perhaps because its ties to tango were too tenuous.
My thanks to Gabriel for bringing this video to my attention. In return, may I suggest you give some of your attention to one of Gabriel's creations - you may recognize the music.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Invierno Porteño - Nuevo Tango Quintet TM
It is only 63.4 km from Sânnicolau Mare to Timișoara. Sânnicolau Mare is the birthplace of Béla Bartók, whose portrait hung above Piazzolla's bed and who was in many ways a guiding musical presence for Piazzolla. Timișoara is the birthplace of the Nuevo Tango Quintet TM, a remarkable new, Romanian tango ensemble for which Piazzolla is clearly a guiding musical presence. Rarely have I heard a new quintet capture the spirit of Piazzolla's music as well as the Nuevo Tango Quintet TM and that they can do so without so much as a visit to Buenos Aires or a bandoneón player suggests some mystical Bartókian connection has been formed between this quintet and Piazzolla's music. As an example of their work, today's video highlights their performance of Invierno Porteño. I could have chosen any of the other eight Piazzolla works which have been posted on Alin Stoianovici's YouTube channel - they are all well performed.
Piazzolla chose the musicians for his quintets from the classical world, from the jazz world and from the world of the popular tango music of Buenos Aires. The important thing was not their training but rather that they could feel and "swing," in a canyengue sense, the music. Similarly the musicians of the Nuevo Tango Quintet come from varied backgrounds. Pianist, Roxana-Yvonne Coşereanu, and violinist, Sascha Bota, are from the classical world. Guitarist, Ionuţ Dorobanţu, and contrabassist, Johnny Bota, are from the jazz world. And accordionist, Alin Stoianovici, comes from the pop music world having played previously with such groups as Anca Pop and Neurotica. The group came together for a onetime Anivertango performance in celebration of the 90th anniversary of Piazzolla's birth. That concert was held on March 9, 2011 at the Operei Romane din Timisoara and the featured video comes from that concert. Considering that the musicians have quite possibly never even heard the word, canyengue, they are well on their way to capturing it.
It is clear that these musicians have listened carefully to Piazzolla and are working from something close to original quintet scores. They are striving for authenticity in their sound. And, in their tempo, dynamics and phrasing they have succeeded remarkably well; but, they have work remaining to do. Most of the work needs to be done by Stoianovici who either strays from the score or needs to do some transcription work to improve the score and get closer to the Piazzolla original. A particularly egregious example of straying can be found at 5'30" into the video where Stoianovici plays a very un-Piazzolla-like chromatic run. It doesn't sound bad, but it is not Piazzolla. Purists will also note that the accordion is no substitute for a bandoneón but realists will point out that finding a bandoneónist in Timișoara is about as likely as finding a Cobza player in Buenos Aires. While still quite new as an ensemble, this group has the potential to become one of the best Piazzolla-style quintets in Europe. Let's hope they stay together long enough to record and tour and maybe Alin Stoianovici will even take up the bandoneón in the future.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Piazzolla chose the musicians for his quintets from the classical world, from the jazz world and from the world of the popular tango music of Buenos Aires. The important thing was not their training but rather that they could feel and "swing," in a canyengue sense, the music. Similarly the musicians of the Nuevo Tango Quintet come from varied backgrounds. Pianist, Roxana-Yvonne Coşereanu, and violinist, Sascha Bota, are from the classical world. Guitarist, Ionuţ Dorobanţu, and contrabassist, Johnny Bota, are from the jazz world. And accordionist, Alin Stoianovici, comes from the pop music world having played previously with such groups as Anca Pop and Neurotica. The group came together for a onetime Anivertango performance in celebration of the 90th anniversary of Piazzolla's birth. That concert was held on March 9, 2011 at the Operei Romane din Timisoara and the featured video comes from that concert. Considering that the musicians have quite possibly never even heard the word, canyengue, they are well on their way to capturing it.
It is clear that these musicians have listened carefully to Piazzolla and are working from something close to original quintet scores. They are striving for authenticity in their sound. And, in their tempo, dynamics and phrasing they have succeeded remarkably well; but, they have work remaining to do. Most of the work needs to be done by Stoianovici who either strays from the score or needs to do some transcription work to improve the score and get closer to the Piazzolla original. A particularly egregious example of straying can be found at 5'30" into the video where Stoianovici plays a very un-Piazzolla-like chromatic run. It doesn't sound bad, but it is not Piazzolla. Purists will also note that the accordion is no substitute for a bandoneón but realists will point out that finding a bandoneónist in Timișoara is about as likely as finding a Cobza player in Buenos Aires. While still quite new as an ensemble, this group has the potential to become one of the best Piazzolla-style quintets in Europe. Let's hope they stay together long enough to record and tour and maybe Alin Stoianovici will even take up the bandoneón in the future.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Adios Nonino - Conjunto 9
A rare treat today - a new (to YouTube, anyway) video of a 1972, original Piazzolla performance of Adios Nonino. The performance is by Piazzolla's Conjunto 9, also know as the Nonet, playing at the Teatro Colon. The arrangement of the piece is one of Piazzolla's most interesting - starting with a violin solo by Antonio Agri backed by the quiet guitar of Oscar López Ruiz, then a cello solo by José Bragato (backed by Lopez-Ruiz), then a lengthy and wonderful solo by López Ruiz. Finally at roughly the four minute mark, drummer José Corriale loudly announces his presence and Piazzolla's bandoneón is finally heard. The next three minutes are full of Sturm und Drang as Piazzolla takes full advantage of the complex musical capability of nine part music. Then at a little over seven minutes, calm returns with a beautiful bandoneón solo - Piazzolla at his very best. I believe it is this solo which inspired the arrangement of Adio Nonino that Carel Kraayenhof made famous at the wedding of Prince Willem Alexander and Maxima Zorreguieta. The solo is followed by a moving duet with Bragato and a fittingly full conclusion. In my view, this video is a treasure. The quiet, beautiful parts more than make up for the bombast which Piazzolla, himself, seems to suggest are "too much" in the interview.
The video is actually a video within a video. Piazzolla is viewing the 1972 video as part of an interview by "Pinky" in what is probably an early 1980's television broadcast. "Pinky" is well known in Argentina but the rest of us will be interested to know that "Pinky" is actually Lidia Elsa Satragno. Once known as Ms. Television because of her ubiquitous presence on television in roles ranging from actress, to news anchor, to variety show host. She reportedly has spent 34,000 hours in front of TV cameras - enough to put her in the Guiness book of records. Later she entered politics and was elected a member of the Cámara de Diputados, the lower house of the Argentine Congress, where she continues to serve today as the oldest member of that body. Interestingly, Ms. Satragno was married to Raúl Lavié during the period in which he was a vocalist for Piazzolla. Further, it has been reported that Ms. Satragno has an original score of Adios Nonino framed and hung on the wall of her house. "Pinky" is not just an interviewer in the video - she was a friend and is an admirer of Piazzolla.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
The video is actually a video within a video. Piazzolla is viewing the 1972 video as part of an interview by "Pinky" in what is probably an early 1980's television broadcast. "Pinky" is well known in Argentina but the rest of us will be interested to know that "Pinky" is actually Lidia Elsa Satragno. Once known as Ms. Television because of her ubiquitous presence on television in roles ranging from actress, to news anchor, to variety show host. She reportedly has spent 34,000 hours in front of TV cameras - enough to put her in the Guiness book of records. Later she entered politics and was elected a member of the Cámara de Diputados, the lower house of the Argentine Congress, where she continues to serve today as the oldest member of that body. Interestingly, Ms. Satragno was married to Raúl Lavié during the period in which he was a vocalist for Piazzolla. Further, it has been reported that Ms. Satragno has an original score of Adios Nonino framed and hung on the wall of her house. "Pinky" is not just an interviewer in the video - she was a friend and is an admirer of Piazzolla.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Tanti Anni Prima - Jing Zhao & Yasuji Ohagi
Among the handful of Piazzolla compositions which most would agree qualify for the descriptor, "beautiful," must be included Tanti Anni prima, which is featured in today's video. The performers in the video, Jing Zhao, on cello, and Yasuji Ohagi, on guitar, contribute to the beauty with the perfection of their playing.
Jing Zhao was born in China and received her early music training there before moving on to Japan and Europe for further training by Ryosuke Hori, Rostropovich and Yo-Yo Ma. Such artists reserve their teaching time for only the very best and Ms. Zhao obviously qualifies. Listen to the complex dynamics within almost every note she plays and you will understand part of what makes her such a great cellist. Yasuji Ohaji is less well known than Ms. Zhao but he is a worthy partner in this performance. His articulation is clean and his feel for the music perfectly matches that of Ms. Zhao. There is nothing which could be done to improve this performance.
The video is from a rare, and now now discontinued DVD titled, Le Dix Cordes Live, and I believe the audio may be found on an equally rare CD of the same title. The video has appeared before on YouTube and has been removed so this is another video you should watch now while it is available.
The piece, Tanti Anni prima, is from Piazzolla's score for the movie Enrico IV. You can see the piece in the context of the movie at 4'40" into this video and read more about the story behind the music and it's twin, Ave Maria, in this earlier Piazzolla on Video blog. I am guessing this is their own arrangement - I find no other cello/guitar versions of the piece.
It is no accident that I have uploaded this blog of calm and beauty at the same time I uploaded the blog of chaos and cacophony of F & F Project's interpretation of Libertango. It helps to keep things in balance, don't you think?
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Jing Zhao was born in China and received her early music training there before moving on to Japan and Europe for further training by Ryosuke Hori, Rostropovich and Yo-Yo Ma. Such artists reserve their teaching time for only the very best and Ms. Zhao obviously qualifies. Listen to the complex dynamics within almost every note she plays and you will understand part of what makes her such a great cellist. Yasuji Ohaji is less well known than Ms. Zhao but he is a worthy partner in this performance. His articulation is clean and his feel for the music perfectly matches that of Ms. Zhao. There is nothing which could be done to improve this performance.
The video is from a rare, and now now discontinued DVD titled, Le Dix Cordes Live, and I believe the audio may be found on an equally rare CD of the same title. The video has appeared before on YouTube and has been removed so this is another video you should watch now while it is available.
The piece, Tanti Anni prima, is from Piazzolla's score for the movie Enrico IV. You can see the piece in the context of the movie at 4'40" into this video and read more about the story behind the music and it's twin, Ave Maria, in this earlier Piazzolla on Video blog. I am guessing this is their own arrangement - I find no other cello/guitar versions of the piece.
It is no accident that I have uploaded this blog of calm and beauty at the same time I uploaded the blog of chaos and cacophony of F & F Project's interpretation of Libertango. It helps to keep things in balance, don't you think?
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Libertango - F & F Project
The title in today's video says it is Libertango, Piazzolla's most often played melody but to my ears it sounds like Oh! Susana, Stephen Foster's most often played melody or maybe Felix Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture. It could be anything, really. When you deconstruct music as far as F & F Project do, everything descends to a primordial, atomic level where discernment of simple things like melody and rhythm are simply not possible. Their deconstructed, "experimental version" of Libertango is surprisingly similar to the "Stoner Version" of Libertango which I claimed in a blog earlier this year to be the worst Piazzolla I had ever heard. (Interestingly, I have had more comments on that blog than on any I have written).
F & F Project is Hector Fiore and Omar Farías. Farias provides percussion. Fiore, a flute player by training, plays a Yamaha wind MIDI controller in this video and, I believe, does the computer work and arranging of their works. In the world of electronic music, these gentlemen are relative stars who have performed around the world and whose creations are played by other electronica musicians.
F & F first performed Libertango as part of their work, Popurrí, in 2001. A later version was used as a dance score in a 2009 YouTube Video. I have not heard the 2001 version but the 2009 version still retained the essence of Libertango which was successfully eliminated in today's video.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
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F & F Project is Hector Fiore and Omar Farías. Farias provides percussion. Fiore, a flute player by training, plays a Yamaha wind MIDI controller in this video and, I believe, does the computer work and arranging of their works. In the world of electronic music, these gentlemen are relative stars who have performed around the world and whose creations are played by other electronica musicians.
F & F first performed Libertango as part of their work, Popurrí, in 2001. A later version was used as a dance score in a 2009 YouTube Video. I have not heard the 2001 version but the 2009 version still retained the essence of Libertango which was successfully eliminated in today's video.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Milonga del Ángel - Rosewood, Fire and Steel
I don't know how today's video of Milonga del ángel ends. Call me squeamish but the swords got so long, I had to stop watching.
Every month through 2009 and 2010, I picked the most bizarre Piazzolla video of the month. If I were still carrying out that practice, today's video by the duo, Rosewood, Fire and Steel, would no doubt win for July, 2011. It is not the music that is bizarre - Phil Weaver plays a tasteful version of Milonga del ángel. It is the young lady, Patricia Forrest, swallowing steel swords of ever increasing lethality.
I assume she survived to film the next part of their act - swallowing (surprise!) fire while Mr. Weaver plays Classical gas.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
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Every month through 2009 and 2010, I picked the most bizarre Piazzolla video of the month. If I were still carrying out that practice, today's video by the duo, Rosewood, Fire and Steel, would no doubt win for July, 2011. It is not the music that is bizarre - Phil Weaver plays a tasteful version of Milonga del ángel. It is the young lady, Patricia Forrest, swallowing steel swords of ever increasing lethality.
I assume she survived to film the next part of their act - swallowing (surprise!) fire while Mr. Weaver plays Classical gas.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Libertango - Pablo Ziegler Quartet
Birdland, the legendary New York City jazz club, was born on Broadway in 1949 and supposedly named after its first headline performer, Charlie "Bird" Parker. Rock-and-roll killed Birdland in 1965, but like the phoenix, it reappeared in a new uptown location in 1986 and in 1996, it returned to Broadway where it has been headlining the best jazz has to offer ever since. Today's video captures one of today's best, Pablo Ziegler and his quartet, in a performance of Libertango last week on July 15 at Birdland. Birdland has the usual "no video" rule but some fan ignored the rule until he was caught and the video was ended before the song was ended. I suggest you watch the video now before the true owners of the performance have it removed from YouTube.
Pablo Ziegler is no stranger to readers of this blog. He was the pianist in Piazzolla's second quintet. He is a fine composer on his own part but has continued to perform much of Piazzolla's work in his own heavily jazz tinged style. This blog has recently covered Ziegler in performances with Branford Marsalis and with Regina Carter but in both of those performances, Ziegler accepted some compromise in his style to accommodate his headliner sidemen. There is no need for that in today's video - we get pure Ziegler and his quartet. Members of the quartet are not identified in the video but I believe they are Hector Del Curto on bandoneón, Pedro Giraudo on contrabass and Jisoo Ok on cello. Libertango has become so widely played (and abused) that I know some Piazzolla fans refuse to listen to it anymore but this one deserves your time.
Ziegler did have a guest star that evening: Argentine vocalist, Sandra Luna. You can view a bit of Ms. Luna's performance in this bootleg video from the same concert.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Pablo Ziegler is no stranger to readers of this blog. He was the pianist in Piazzolla's second quintet. He is a fine composer on his own part but has continued to perform much of Piazzolla's work in his own heavily jazz tinged style. This blog has recently covered Ziegler in performances with Branford Marsalis and with Regina Carter but in both of those performances, Ziegler accepted some compromise in his style to accommodate his headliner sidemen. There is no need for that in today's video - we get pure Ziegler and his quartet. Members of the quartet are not identified in the video but I believe they are Hector Del Curto on bandoneón, Pedro Giraudo on contrabass and Jisoo Ok on cello. Libertango has become so widely played (and abused) that I know some Piazzolla fans refuse to listen to it anymore but this one deserves your time.
Ziegler did have a guest star that evening: Argentine vocalist, Sandra Luna. You can view a bit of Ms. Luna's performance in this bootleg video from the same concert.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Retrato De Mi Mismo
Q: What do Astor Piazzolla, Alfredo Gobbi and Milton Nascimento have in common?
A: Each was the subject of a musical portrait (retrato) created by Astor Piazzolla.
Retrato de mi mismo (which translates as Portrait of myself) is by far the rarest of the three retratos composed by Piazzolla. There are only two versions on YouTube and virtually no available recordings of the work. I have chosen to feature both of the available videos today.
The first video is an interesting and well done video montage which uses the recording made by Piazzolla's first quintet in 1967, as a sound track. Joining Piazzolla in that quintet are Jaime Gosis on piano, Antonio Agri on violin, Kicho Díaz on contrabass and Oscar López Ruiz on electric guitar. That 1967 recording is to be found on the very rare LP titled Astor Piazzolla - Egle Martin which is now only available on the Japanese reissue Piazzolla Para Coleccionistas. This video provides you an opportunity to hear a very rare Piazzolla recording.
The second video is the only live performance video of the work available on YouTube. The performers are Marcelo González on violin, Vera Pavlova on piano and Omar Massa on bandoneón. If the score to Retrato de mi mismo were readily available, many groups would no doubt play it. The arrangement is the work of Ms. Pavlova, and I suspect she is also the one who went to enormous effort to transcribe the work by listening to the original. A superb job was done on the transcription - the original comes through strongly and authentically. Pavlova and González are well known for their authentic covers of Piazzolla's works in the group Quinteto Nuestro Tiempo and they have extended the authentic sound to this trio. The bandoneónist, Omar Massa, is not the usual bandoneónist for Quinteto Nuestro Tiempo but is a well known free lance bandoneónist. His recent work includes an appearance with Plácido Domingo which was captured in this delightful video. I express my appreciation to the musicians in this video. They have provided an important gift to the Piazzolla community by resurrecting this work. I hope they will record it and share the score with others in the future.
If this was truly a musical self-portrait capturing the way Piazzolla imagined himself in the mid-1960's, my interpretation would be that it was time of melancholy, steady toil at difficult tasks and eventual triumph. Others will no doubt read the emotion of the music differently - comments relating your interpretation are welcomed below.
If the videos do not appear below, click here for the original Piazzola version and click here for the live performance version.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
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A: Each was the subject of a musical portrait (retrato) created by Astor Piazzolla.
Retrato de mi mismo (which translates as Portrait of myself) is by far the rarest of the three retratos composed by Piazzolla. There are only two versions on YouTube and virtually no available recordings of the work. I have chosen to feature both of the available videos today.
The first video is an interesting and well done video montage which uses the recording made by Piazzolla's first quintet in 1967, as a sound track. Joining Piazzolla in that quintet are Jaime Gosis on piano, Antonio Agri on violin, Kicho Díaz on contrabass and Oscar López Ruiz on electric guitar. That 1967 recording is to be found on the very rare LP titled Astor Piazzolla - Egle Martin which is now only available on the Japanese reissue Piazzolla Para Coleccionistas. This video provides you an opportunity to hear a very rare Piazzolla recording.
The second video is the only live performance video of the work available on YouTube. The performers are Marcelo González on violin, Vera Pavlova on piano and Omar Massa on bandoneón. If the score to Retrato de mi mismo were readily available, many groups would no doubt play it. The arrangement is the work of Ms. Pavlova, and I suspect she is also the one who went to enormous effort to transcribe the work by listening to the original. A superb job was done on the transcription - the original comes through strongly and authentically. Pavlova and González are well known for their authentic covers of Piazzolla's works in the group Quinteto Nuestro Tiempo and they have extended the authentic sound to this trio. The bandoneónist, Omar Massa, is not the usual bandoneónist for Quinteto Nuestro Tiempo but is a well known free lance bandoneónist. His recent work includes an appearance with Plácido Domingo which was captured in this delightful video. I express my appreciation to the musicians in this video. They have provided an important gift to the Piazzolla community by resurrecting this work. I hope they will record it and share the score with others in the future.
If this was truly a musical self-portrait capturing the way Piazzolla imagined himself in the mid-1960's, my interpretation would be that it was time of melancholy, steady toil at difficult tasks and eventual triumph. Others will no doubt read the emotion of the music differently - comments relating your interpretation are welcomed below.
If the videos do not appear below, click here for the original Piazzola version and click here for the live performance version.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Bandoneón - Michael Zisman
The recent blog which featured Zita from Suite Troileana provides a good excuse to turn the calendar back to January, 2008 when today's video of Michal Zisman playing Bandoneón, the first movement of Suite Troileana, was first posted on YouTube.
The video is one of a set of 8 videos from a concert of solo bandoneón music performed by Zisman at the Theater Rex in Wuppertal, Germany as part of a tango festival held there. I believe the set of videos represents the finest collection of bandoneón music on YouTube and, in fact, is better than any recording of which I am aware. If you enjoy bandoneón music, you must watch all of these videos. You will find them on guidogayk's YouTube Channel. Today's video represents the only Piazzolla composition of the eight but there are two classic tangos played in arrangements created by Piazzolla: Juan Carlos Cobian's La casita de mis viejos and Joaquin Mora's Margarita Gautier. You can hear Piazzolla play these bandoneón solos on the CD, Concierto para quinteto. Arguably, Zisman does a better job on them than Piazzolla - there is more feeling in his performance.
Michael Zisman is a resident of Bern, Switzerland but Argentina is, literally, his fatherland. His father, Daniel Zisman, a well known classical violinist, was born there but as an adult split his time between Buenos Aires and Berne, Switzerland where he was the conductor of the Berne Symphony Orchestra. I don't know in which country Michael was born but he studied bandoneón with Nestor Marconi in Buenos Aires and at age 11 appeared on stage as a bandoneónist with Leopoldo Federico - both legends in the tango world. The elder Zisman is also a fine tango musician and is the founder of 676 Tango Ensemble which includes Michael on bandoneón. The young Zisman has recorded extensively - you will find his music for download at iTunes or Amazon.com. Zisman is a master technician on the bandoneón - fleet of finger and in total control of the bellows - but it is the nuanced emotion that he brings to the music which makes him one of today's best bandoneónists.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
The video is one of a set of 8 videos from a concert of solo bandoneón music performed by Zisman at the Theater Rex in Wuppertal, Germany as part of a tango festival held there. I believe the set of videos represents the finest collection of bandoneón music on YouTube and, in fact, is better than any recording of which I am aware. If you enjoy bandoneón music, you must watch all of these videos. You will find them on guidogayk's YouTube Channel. Today's video represents the only Piazzolla composition of the eight but there are two classic tangos played in arrangements created by Piazzolla: Juan Carlos Cobian's La casita de mis viejos and Joaquin Mora's Margarita Gautier. You can hear Piazzolla play these bandoneón solos on the CD, Concierto para quinteto. Arguably, Zisman does a better job on them than Piazzolla - there is more feeling in his performance.
Michael Zisman is a resident of Bern, Switzerland but Argentina is, literally, his fatherland. His father, Daniel Zisman, a well known classical violinist, was born there but as an adult split his time between Buenos Aires and Berne, Switzerland where he was the conductor of the Berne Symphony Orchestra. I don't know in which country Michael was born but he studied bandoneón with Nestor Marconi in Buenos Aires and at age 11 appeared on stage as a bandoneónist with Leopoldo Federico - both legends in the tango world. The elder Zisman is also a fine tango musician and is the founder of 676 Tango Ensemble which includes Michael on bandoneón. The young Zisman has recorded extensively - you will find his music for download at iTunes or Amazon.com. Zisman is a master technician on the bandoneón - fleet of finger and in total control of the bellows - but it is the nuanced emotion that he brings to the music which makes him one of today's best bandoneónists.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Zita - Sung-ho, Gatto, Argerich and Song
It is not well known that Niccolò Paganini, one of the most famous violin virtuosi of his day, was also a guitarist. He, in fact, composed for both instruments. So it makes some sense for Lorenzo Gatto and Denis Sung-ho Janssens, virtuosi on violin and guitar, respectively, to collect a couple of friends and put together a concert titled Travelling Paganini. But why should such a concert include Piazzolla's Zita as captured in today's featured video? The answer is to be found in the story of Denis Sung-ho Janssens.
Sung-ho was born in Korea and raised in Belgium. It is in that country that he studied guitar with Odair Assad at the Conservatoire royal de Mons and with Sérgio Assad at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles. His teachers, the Assad brothers, were the guitarists for whom Piazzolla composed Tango Suite. They are renowned for the performances and arrangements of Piazzolla's music. The Assad's recording, Sérgio & Odair Assad Play Piazzolla, is a classic. They no doubt sparked Sung-ho's interest in Piazzola and Sung-ho, no doubt encouraged the incorporation of Piazzolla in the Travelling Paganini concert.
Lorenzo Gatto also studied at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, probably meeting Sung-ho there. I first became aware of their joint interest in Piazzolla in a video of the two performing Concert d'aujoud'hui at break-neck speed which was featured in this blog (unfortunately, the video has been removed from YouTube). For the Travelling Paganini concert, the pair added Song Young Hoon on cello and Lyda Chen Argerich on viola. Interestingly, Mr. Song performed Piazzolla's Le Grand Tango in his Carnegie Hall debut in 2005 so he too has Piazzolla interests. Ms. Argerich is the daughter of famed Argentine pianist, Martha Argerich, so an interest in Piazzolla might also be expected there. They are remarkable young musicians and we are fortunate that, for whatever reason, they have chosen to apply their talents to the music of Piazzolla.
Skilled as they are, it was not their musicianship that attracted me to the video; rather, it was the arrangement of Zita which, unfortunately, is not credited but I am told that the arranger is Korean. Zita is one of four movements in Suite Troileana which Piazzolla composed in 1975 to honor his friend, mentor and former boss, Anibal Troilo. The four movements are related to the four loves of Troilo's life: Zita (his wife), Bandoneon, Whiskey and Escolaso (gambling). The four represent some of the best music composed by Piazzolla in the 1970's. You can hear Piazzolla's performance of Zita here and hear what may be the inspiration for today's video in this performance by the Assad brothers and Yo-Yo Ma. The guitar work in today's video sounds very derivative of the work of the Assad's until those wonderful "bent" Asian notes at 1'25" into the video. But the bowed string work in this video is much more important - the arranger has done a superb job in converting the music into string trio format. Suite Troileana has always had classical potential but this is the first time that potential has been fully met. Let's hope the unknown arranger will undertake the other three movements of the work and if the four young musicians should perform those for YouTube, let's hope the camera is moved in a little closer.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
If you enjoyed this, give their Paganini video a look also.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Sung-ho was born in Korea and raised in Belgium. It is in that country that he studied guitar with Odair Assad at the Conservatoire royal de Mons and with Sérgio Assad at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles. His teachers, the Assad brothers, were the guitarists for whom Piazzolla composed Tango Suite. They are renowned for the performances and arrangements of Piazzolla's music. The Assad's recording, Sérgio & Odair Assad Play Piazzolla, is a classic. They no doubt sparked Sung-ho's interest in Piazzola and Sung-ho, no doubt encouraged the incorporation of Piazzolla in the Travelling Paganini concert.
Lorenzo Gatto also studied at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, probably meeting Sung-ho there. I first became aware of their joint interest in Piazzolla in a video of the two performing Concert d'aujoud'hui at break-neck speed which was featured in this blog (unfortunately, the video has been removed from YouTube). For the Travelling Paganini concert, the pair added Song Young Hoon on cello and Lyda Chen Argerich on viola. Interestingly, Mr. Song performed Piazzolla's Le Grand Tango in his Carnegie Hall debut in 2005 so he too has Piazzolla interests. Ms. Argerich is the daughter of famed Argentine pianist, Martha Argerich, so an interest in Piazzolla might also be expected there. They are remarkable young musicians and we are fortunate that, for whatever reason, they have chosen to apply their talents to the music of Piazzolla.
Skilled as they are, it was not their musicianship that attracted me to the video; rather, it was the arrangement of Zita which, unfortunately, is not credited but I am told that the arranger is Korean. Zita is one of four movements in Suite Troileana which Piazzolla composed in 1975 to honor his friend, mentor and former boss, Anibal Troilo. The four movements are related to the four loves of Troilo's life: Zita (his wife), Bandoneon, Whiskey and Escolaso (gambling). The four represent some of the best music composed by Piazzolla in the 1970's. You can hear Piazzolla's performance of Zita here and hear what may be the inspiration for today's video in this performance by the Assad brothers and Yo-Yo Ma. The guitar work in today's video sounds very derivative of the work of the Assad's until those wonderful "bent" Asian notes at 1'25" into the video. But the bowed string work in this video is much more important - the arranger has done a superb job in converting the music into string trio format. Suite Troileana has always had classical potential but this is the first time that potential has been fully met. Let's hope the unknown arranger will undertake the other three movements of the work and if the four young musicians should perform those for YouTube, let's hope the camera is moved in a little closer.
If the video does not appear below, click here.
If you enjoyed this, give their Paganini video a look also.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Adios Nonino in Kansas City
There is much to admire about Elizabeth Suh Lane. She is a world class violinist who, inspired by the sounds of Bach in New York City, returned to her home in Kansas City, Missouri to found the Bach Aria Soloists in 1999. That group has thrived and become the center of chamber music in the city. But Ms. Lane's interests are much broader than just chamber music. Under the sponsorship of the Bach Aria Soloists she has expanded their concert series to include notable jazz artists and in February of this year, a Night of Tango with a focus on the music of Astor Piazzolla. Today's featured video of Adios Nonino comes from that concert.
Ms. Lane imported two of the best tango musicians in New York City for the evening - Gustavo Casenave on piano and Hector Del Curto on bandoneón. To her violin, she added two Kansas City musicians, Beau Bledsoe on guitar and Jeff Harshbarger on contra-bass, to form a classic Piazzolla quintet. The night included eight Piazzolla works for quintet and you can see them all on Beau Bledsoe's YouTube channel. Their sound is authentic. I believe they are playing directly from Piazzolla's quintet arrangements and they play them well. The people of Kansas City had a treat rarely available in the United States - Piazzolla's quintet music performed in an authentic manner.
Much of the credit for the success of the night must go to Del Curto and his bandoneón. Del Curto is not as flashy as some young bandoneónist but his playing is sensitive, fluid and nuanced in a manner which suggests he has put time into listening to Piazzolla's bandoneón. In addition, he surely benefits genetically from a grandfather and great-grandfather who were famous bandoneónists in Buenos Aires. He is almost certainly the best bandoneónist in the United States today and arguably one of the best in the world. But the reason I chose the video of Adios Nonino was not because of the bandoneón. It was because of the piano work of Casenave.
Gustavo Casenave was born in Uruquay, which shares claim with Buenos Aires as the birthplace of tango. His canyengue is the result of birth and nurture. He also studied jazz at Berklee College of Music and has played with some of the best tango ensembles and best jazz ensembles in the world. You can see all that background and experience come together in the piano cadenza he created to open Adios Nonino. Starting Adios Nonino with a piano cadenza is a tradition started by Piazzolla who wrote at least three such cadenzas - all of them stand on their own as piano compositions and are played on stage as such. An in-demand tango pianist like Casenave must have many chances to polish such an opening cadenza which made it very surprising to me to find this video of a concert less than six months before Kansas City where Casenave plays an equally long, equally complex cadenza and it is almost completely different. I could be wrong but I suspect that Casenave, consummate jazz artist that he is, creates the cadenza anew at every concert - no doubt preserving some of the best from concerts past but always adding something new to keep it fresh. I counted a dozen musical ideas in his cadenza and with the exception of the rocking octaves and rapidly repetitive chords that run from 3'20" to 4'25", they all worked. I do sincerely hope that the section from 4'00" to 4'25" will be viewed as an interesting but failed experiment. That moment aside, it is Casenave's cadenza which elevates this performance of Adios Nonino above most others.
While I am complaining, there is one other problem in the performance and that is the stage set-up which relegated the guitarist to a spot hidden, at least to the camera, behind Ms. Lane and her violin. Piazzolla always wrote for the guitar as a full voice in his quintet and the instrument deserves a seat in the front row. Piazzolla normally placed the guitarist to the stage right of the pianist and Ms. Lane should have done so here. The guitar is also too low in the sound mix. When I could hear him, it was apparent that Mr. Bledsoe was doing an excellent job but few could see or hear him.
This is a concert I would have thoroughly enjoyed. I encourage you to watch some of the other videos from the concert but if you can only watch one other, watch Escualo. Ms. Lane's violin work on this difficult work is superb.
If the video of Adios Nonino does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Ms. Lane imported two of the best tango musicians in New York City for the evening - Gustavo Casenave on piano and Hector Del Curto on bandoneón. To her violin, she added two Kansas City musicians, Beau Bledsoe on guitar and Jeff Harshbarger on contra-bass, to form a classic Piazzolla quintet. The night included eight Piazzolla works for quintet and you can see them all on Beau Bledsoe's YouTube channel. Their sound is authentic. I believe they are playing directly from Piazzolla's quintet arrangements and they play them well. The people of Kansas City had a treat rarely available in the United States - Piazzolla's quintet music performed in an authentic manner.
Much of the credit for the success of the night must go to Del Curto and his bandoneón. Del Curto is not as flashy as some young bandoneónist but his playing is sensitive, fluid and nuanced in a manner which suggests he has put time into listening to Piazzolla's bandoneón. In addition, he surely benefits genetically from a grandfather and great-grandfather who were famous bandoneónists in Buenos Aires. He is almost certainly the best bandoneónist in the United States today and arguably one of the best in the world. But the reason I chose the video of Adios Nonino was not because of the bandoneón. It was because of the piano work of Casenave.
Gustavo Casenave was born in Uruquay, which shares claim with Buenos Aires as the birthplace of tango. His canyengue is the result of birth and nurture. He also studied jazz at Berklee College of Music and has played with some of the best tango ensembles and best jazz ensembles in the world. You can see all that background and experience come together in the piano cadenza he created to open Adios Nonino. Starting Adios Nonino with a piano cadenza is a tradition started by Piazzolla who wrote at least three such cadenzas - all of them stand on their own as piano compositions and are played on stage as such. An in-demand tango pianist like Casenave must have many chances to polish such an opening cadenza which made it very surprising to me to find this video of a concert less than six months before Kansas City where Casenave plays an equally long, equally complex cadenza and it is almost completely different. I could be wrong but I suspect that Casenave, consummate jazz artist that he is, creates the cadenza anew at every concert - no doubt preserving some of the best from concerts past but always adding something new to keep it fresh. I counted a dozen musical ideas in his cadenza and with the exception of the rocking octaves and rapidly repetitive chords that run from 3'20" to 4'25", they all worked. I do sincerely hope that the section from 4'00" to 4'25" will be viewed as an interesting but failed experiment. That moment aside, it is Casenave's cadenza which elevates this performance of Adios Nonino above most others.
While I am complaining, there is one other problem in the performance and that is the stage set-up which relegated the guitarist to a spot hidden, at least to the camera, behind Ms. Lane and her violin. Piazzolla always wrote for the guitar as a full voice in his quintet and the instrument deserves a seat in the front row. Piazzolla normally placed the guitarist to the stage right of the pianist and Ms. Lane should have done so here. The guitar is also too low in the sound mix. When I could hear him, it was apparent that Mr. Bledsoe was doing an excellent job but few could see or hear him.
This is a concert I would have thoroughly enjoyed. I encourage you to watch some of the other videos from the concert but if you can only watch one other, watch Escualo. Ms. Lane's violin work on this difficult work is superb.
If the video of Adios Nonino does not appear below, click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Los Pàjaros Perdidos - Patty Trossèl
Maybe the title should be Los Pàjaros Perdidos - La Pat? I am not sure, the hat confuses me. The voice sounds like Patty Trossèl but the hat reminds me of La Pat. Regardless, she sings a wonderful version of Los Pàjaros Perdidos in today's featured video. Accompanying her on piano is the very able Dutch musician, Bert van den Brink.
Wikipedia says that Patty Trossèl has a range of four octaves, possibly true, but it is the bottom two octaves which gives her a rich contralto perfect for the canción of Piazzolla. Like Milva, Amelita Baltar and Roxana Fontán, she has a touch of huskiness in her delivery that hints of cabaret and late nights and experiences on the dark side of life. That matches rather well the character of La Pat, the persona adopted by Ms. Trossèl throughout her early career. It also matches rather well with the character of most of Piazzolla's canción. With a voice which is such a perfect match for Piazzolla's songs, it is surprising that it has taken nearly 30 years for her to begin including works by Piazzolla in her performances - but better now than never. She has never recorded Piazzolla and to my knowledge, only began including Piazzolla in concert appearances in 2009 when Balada para un loco became part of her stage repertoire - fortunately viewable on YouTube at 4'40" into this video. She is making up for lost time by including three Piazzolla numbers in her current show - not only Balada para un loco and today's featured Los Pàjaros Perdidos but also Che Tango Che. The current stage performance also includes a wonderful piece composed by Trossèl, Ich suche deine Sterne, and some beautifully sung works by Gabriel Fauré. You can see them all on Trossèl's YouTube Channel.
The featured work, Los Pàjaros Perdidos, was composed in 1973 and the lyrics are by Argentine poet, Mario Trejo, not by Horacio Ferrer as many assume. Trejo also provided the lyrics for one other lesser known Piazzolla canción, Violetas populares. It was first recorded by Piazzolla in 1975 on the Trova LP, Balada para un loco, with José Angel Trelles as vocalist. That album is very rare but fortunately is available in a reissue titled Piazzolla & José Angel Trelles.
I must admit that I was not a fan of La Pat when she was at the peak of her fame in the 1980's, but as today's Patty Trossèl, I am a huge fan and hope that she will soon devote some recording time to the music of Piazzolla.
If the video does not appear below, please click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
Wikipedia says that Patty Trossèl has a range of four octaves, possibly true, but it is the bottom two octaves which gives her a rich contralto perfect for the canción of Piazzolla. Like Milva, Amelita Baltar and Roxana Fontán, she has a touch of huskiness in her delivery that hints of cabaret and late nights and experiences on the dark side of life. That matches rather well the character of La Pat, the persona adopted by Ms. Trossèl throughout her early career. It also matches rather well with the character of most of Piazzolla's canción. With a voice which is such a perfect match for Piazzolla's songs, it is surprising that it has taken nearly 30 years for her to begin including works by Piazzolla in her performances - but better now than never. She has never recorded Piazzolla and to my knowledge, only began including Piazzolla in concert appearances in 2009 when Balada para un loco became part of her stage repertoire - fortunately viewable on YouTube at 4'40" into this video. She is making up for lost time by including three Piazzolla numbers in her current show - not only Balada para un loco and today's featured Los Pàjaros Perdidos but also Che Tango Che. The current stage performance also includes a wonderful piece composed by Trossèl, Ich suche deine Sterne, and some beautifully sung works by Gabriel Fauré. You can see them all on Trossèl's YouTube Channel.
The featured work, Los Pàjaros Perdidos, was composed in 1973 and the lyrics are by Argentine poet, Mario Trejo, not by Horacio Ferrer as many assume. Trejo also provided the lyrics for one other lesser known Piazzolla canción, Violetas populares. It was first recorded by Piazzolla in 1975 on the Trova LP, Balada para un loco, with José Angel Trelles as vocalist. That album is very rare but fortunately is available in a reissue titled Piazzolla & José Angel Trelles.
I must admit that I was not a fan of La Pat when she was at the peak of her fame in the 1980's, but as today's Patty Trossèl, I am a huge fan and hope that she will soon devote some recording time to the music of Piazzolla.
If the video does not appear below, please click here.
To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.
Follow Piazzolla on Video on Twitter.
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