Sunday, January 30, 2011

Piazzolla Caffé & Bar

There is no Piazzolla music highlighted today but for European readers or travelers to Europe, we have a highlighted destination. The address is Rua Antonio José de Almeida nº52A in Cantanhede, Portugal. You will find there a very warm and friendly spot for food, spirits and music run by some genuine Piazzolla fans. It is called the Piazzolla Caffé & Bar, On the wall you will see a score of Adios Nonino and posters of Piazzolla. On Friday nights they have live bands but my guess is that on other nights, you might find Piazzolla music playing on their in-house sound system. You can see photos of people truly enjoying themselves at the Piazzolla Caffé here.

Cantanhede is a discovery to me. It lies in the heart of the Bairrada wine region and is only 25 kilometers from what are described as the very popular beaches of Mira and Tocha. For a town of less than 40,000 people, it seems a wonder to me that such an inviting spot as the Piazzolla Caffe exists. If you are traveling to Portugal and want to get beyond the usual tourist destinations of Lisbon and Oporto, plan a trip to Cartanhede.

And while it was not Piazzolla that led to my discovery of the Piazzolla Caffé, it was music and I have included the video below. I recognize the music as fado but do not know the name of the musician or the song, although it sounds very familiar. Perhaps a reader can help and leave a comment. The music is wonderful and it would be my dream to walk into the Piazzolla Caffé and encounter such a scene.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Verano Porteño - Anders Miolin

Fortunately for us, triskaidekaphobia is not a concern for Anders Miolin, the guitarist performing Verano Porteño in today's video, nor for Ermanno Chiavi, the luthier who built Miolin's 13 string guitar. The arrangement is no doubt Miolin's - arrangements for 13 string guitars are just as rare as such instruments - and while it is, I believe, derivative of the arrangement by Baltazar Benitez (which itself is derivative of the arrangement by Sergio Assad), advantage is taken of the additional range of the 13 string guitar through broader broken chords which open the sound of the piece. It makes for beautiful music.

As beautiful as the music is, I must admit it was the guitar that captured my attention. It is very interesting and I believe unique. There are harp guitars with 13 strings but what makes the word "harp" applicable to such instruments are the unfretted sympathetic or diapason strings which vibrate harmonically with the fretted strings as they are played and occasionally are plucked themselves to add a particular bass note. All thirteen strings on the Chiava instrument are fretted, although the lowest strings have only three fretted positions. The additional strings and frets extend the range of the guitar from the usual three plus octaves to a full five octaves. The strings may and do still vibrate sympathetically but they also may be fretted to provide a fuller range of low bass notes although any rapid fingering on those lowest strings must challenge the musician.

I think there is more opportunity for the combination of guitar, musician and Verano Porteño. I hope Mr. Miolin will listen carefully to Piazzolla's quintet version of the work and, with a clean sheet of staff paper, create an arrangement which will break the bonds of Assad/Benitez and truly show what Mr. Chiavi's instrument can do.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Libertango - SummerRain Duo

Today's video features a guitar duo in sharp contrast to the Meng/Yameng duo featured in a recent blog. Today's duo comes from South Korea and is known as SummerRain. Meng/Yameng excel in interpretation and execution. They play music that others have composed or arranged and to my knowledge do not address those tasks themselves. SummerRain, in contrast, arrange and compose in addition to performing. Meng/Yameng are clearly classical performers. SummerRain would be found in the New Age bins in an American shop although their technique suggests they are classically trained.

In today's video, SummerRain performs a medley of Carlos Gardel's Por una cabeza and Piazzolla's Libertango. This is music for listening enjoyment. Nothing is heavy or complicated, the arrangements are creative and the performance is flawless. The guitarists are Shim Hyun and Lim Seungmoon. Their biographical information is available but only in Korean and because of the way the text in their website in embedded in .gif files, it is inaccessible to the usual translation engines. As a result, I can share no information about the musicians. Their website lists two recordings and offers a number of mp3 samples. You can also find a good set of videos on the Seungmoonlim YouTube Channel. The performance of their own composition, Summer Rain, is very nice and reminiscent of the work of Brook Williams or William Ackerman although I cannot imagine either of those two guitarists performing Piazzolla's music.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

La Muerte del Ángel - Tango Ensillado

It is always refreshing to find a new group of young musicians dedicated to bringing the authentic sounds of Piazzolla to new audiences. Tango Ensillado is such a group. The group is new enough that as I write this, their website is reserved but still unpopulated. They follow the tradition of other tango groups from their home country, Norway, of directing high quality musical training through apprenticeship with masters of the genre into a tight musical organization which can truly capture the sound of a Piazzolla quintet. Tango Ensillado is still developing their skills but as you can tell from today's video performance of La muerte del ángel, this is a group to watch for the future.

I believe members of the group are Andreas Rokseth on bandoneón, Rannveig Ryeng on violin, Christian Skår Winther on guitar, Håkon Magnar Skogstad on piano and Ole Herman Schøyen Sjölin on contrabass. All but Winther are veterans of the well known Norwegian orquesta tipica Tangueros del Norte. Winther is a strong electric guitarist - just the person they need to form an authentic quintet. The piece they are playing, La muerte del ángel, was composed as incidental music for the 1962 play, Tango del ángel, by Alberto Rodriguez Muñoz and is one of Piazzolla's most frequently recorded pieces.

Groups like Tango Ensillado tend to come together and then disappear a year or two later. I hope this group stays around longer than that - they could become one of the best.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



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Monday, January 24, 2011

Libertango - Stoner Version

Caution - today's video may be painful to musicians. In the past two years I have sampled over 14,000 Piazzolla videos on YouTube. Today's video featuring a performance of Libertango by the duo, Trash, is the worst I have ever seen. I must admit I have not watched the entire video but did watch long enough to confirm that there is a trace of the Libertango tune submerged in that steady stream of stoner sound.

We know very little about the musicians other than that they are prize winners - note the trophies on the top of the cabinet - and that the guitar is "tuned" in open C.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



Note added 25 January, 2011: This blog has clearly tapped some unexpected well of interest. It is one the most viewed, most commented upon blogs I have ever posted. I received a little more information in a private note from one of the musicians. The guitarist is Karl Lazaro and the drummer is Matias Bandini. They describe themselves as more poets than musicians. You will find their poetry under the links associated with their names in the previous sentence. Karl further suggests viewing of a second Piazzolla related video which includes his poetry reading. I recall this video well from the first time I saw it. The juxtaposition of audio and video is strikingly creative. You can watch it here.

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Friday, January 21, 2011

Tango Suite - Wang Yameng & Su Meng

Repetition in pursuit of perfection is no vice. Therefore, today's video will repeat the performers and piece featured in this blog on 9 September, 2009. The performers are guitarists Wang Yameng and Su Meng and the piece is Tango Suite, composed in 1984 for Sérgio and Odair Assad. The Assad's recording of the work on the CD, Sérgio & Odair Assad Play Piazzolla, remains the standard against which all performances are compared.

In today's video, Wang Yemeng and Su Meng are noticeably more mature and more poised than in the 2009 video and their playing has gotten even better. They are technically perfect. I have never seen better precision in a guitar duo and they make it appear so easy - there is no straining, no suffering, no excess motion - just an amazing flow of notes. In contrast to the 2009 video, today's video features the full Tango Suite. The video is marred only by a very irritating abrupt cut-off before the end of the piece. All we needed was five seconds more music.

Both guitarists studied under the well known Chinese guitar artist, Chen Zhi. Professor Chen Zhi has been the center of the guitar world in China for many years. Both guitarists also play instruments built by Kim Hee Hong of Alma Guitars and they appear to be superb instruments albeit from an unlikely place. From what I read, there is only a years' waiting list for his instruments. For an instrument of such quality, that is not bad. If you are interested, you better get one ordered - the wait is only going to get longer.

Wang Yameng and Su Meng are clearly challenging the Assad's as the best Piazzolla guitar duo in the world. I find more passion in the Assad's performance but less precision. Passion remains the driver of Piazzolla's music so, for the moment, I will allow the Assad's to remain as standard bearers but they should be worried.

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Thursday, January 20, 2011

Five Tango Sensations - Quatuor Terpsycordes

Geneva, Switzerland based Quatuor Terpsycordes and bandoneónist, William Sabatier, have just provided what is certainly the definitive performance of Piazzolla's Five Tango Sensations on YouTube. Nothing else comes close.

Ken Hunts' liner notes for the 1989, Kronos Quartet CD, Piazzolla: Five Tango Sensations indicate that Five Tango Sensations was composed for the Kronos Quartet. That is not quite true. The correct story is to be found in the Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango. Piazzolla composed the work in 1983 and recorded it on the album, Woe, with a quartet from the Graunke Orchestra in Germany. The same recording can also be found in volume three of the collection titled Piazzollissimo. In going from Woe to Tango Sensations, all the titles were changed - Sleeping becomes Asleep, Midnight becomes Loving, Desire becomes Anxiety, Woe Pass Away becomes Despertar, and Look Out becomes Fear. There are changes in the score but most changes are subtle. And, two movements were discarded completely, Woe and Awake. The loss of Woe is significant - it is a beautiful duet between bandoneón and cello and deserves to be heard.

The score for the work is readily available but it is not frequently performed. While there are many string quartets with the technical skills to perform the piece there are very few bandoneónist with the skill to meet the challenge. Most quartets turn to accordionists to cover the bandoneón part - but it is not the same. The timbre is different and mechanical differences between the two instruments lead to different phrasing. Quatuor Terpsycordes is fortunate to have found William Sabatier who has the technical skills and the knowledge of Piazzolla's music to provide, not a duplicate of Piazzolla's performance, but a completely valid and thematically consistent interpretation of the work. Likewise, the musicians of Quatuor Terpsycordes which includes Girolamo Bottiglieri and Raya Raytcheva on violin, Caroline Haas on viola and François Grin on cello, are superb musicians who, in most places, match the Kronos in the intensity, although not the flair, they bring to the music. You will find biographies of the musicians here. The performance was recorded at the Montebello Festival in Bellinzona, Switzerland on 8 July, 2010.

I have embedded only the first of Tango Sensations, Asleep, below. I encourage readers to also view Loving, Anxiety, Despertar and Fear to see the work as a whole.

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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Adios Nonino - Live Piazzolla

It is just a fragment, three-and-a-half minutes from a performance that lasted eight-and-a-half minutes, but an intriguing fragment. It's from a 1985 performance of Adios Nonino by Piazzolla with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège under the baton of Léo Brouwer. The sound from that concert has long been available in a recording titled, Hommage a Liege, but this is the first evidence I have seen that video also exists of that performance.

The performance was at the 5th International Guitar Festival of Liege which was held on March 15, 1985. The festival was founded and organized by famed guitarist, Guy Lukowski. I have read that it was for that festival that Lukowski created the idea for the Histoire du tango series which Piazzolla composed for flute and guitar. I have also read that Marc Grauwals created the idea. The truth is perhaps unknowable, but certainly, Lukowski and Marc Grauwals debuted the piece at the Festival. Interestingly, there are legal questions surrounding the long available Liege recording and Lukowski's website indicates that if you want to have the guaranteed, authentic, non-pirated version you need to download if directly from his website.

This video apparently originated on the Belgian TV network RTBF but I do not know if its use on YouTube was authorized. For a very short period, a related video fragment of Piazzolla and Cacho Tirao performing the Double Concierto for Bandoneon and Guitar was also posted but it was subsequently removed.

Hopefully, Mr. Lukowski, who evidently owns this video, will eventually issue a DVD of the entire 1985 concert at Liege. He has at least one anxious buyer right here.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



Note added 20 January, 2011: The fragment of the Double concerto for bandoneon and guitar has returned to YouTube and is embedded below. The poster of the video has told me that the videos have been posted with the permission of RTBF who hold rights to the video of the full concert.

If the double concerto does not appear below, click here.



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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Libertango - The Swingle Singers

Why wait? The Swingle Singers promised their new recording and video of Libertango would be out before Christmas but that day has passed and we are still waiting. They even issued a trailer to tickle our interest but still no video. While we are waiting for the real thing, you can watch one of several versions which have been "captured" at their live shows and posted on YouTube. The best of those just appeared this week, perhaps "captured" from a Russian television broadcast, and is today's featured video.

The Swingle Singers were formed in the early '60's in France by an American, Ward Swingle. In 1963, the first album, Jazz Sebastian Bach, from the eight member a capella group won a Grammy. The group moved to England in 1973, singers came and went, but they have existed as a unit almost continuously to today. In 2001, Tobias Hug, a beatboxer joined the group and revitalized the music. The new singers who have joined the group since 2007 have further enlivened the group and they promise to once again be a force in the music world. There have been and are many imitators but once again, the Swingle Singers are the best.

Libertango has long been in their repertoire and their website suggests it is their most frequently requested song. Curiously, they have never recorded it - that is until the recent recording which will no doubt be issued any day now. While you are waiting, take a look at today's video.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



Note added on 15 January, 2011: Here is the reason to wait. The official video has now debuted and is a visual and auditory treat. It will take some time but this video should move near the top of the YouTube Piazzolla "Most Viewed List." There were more than 1,000 views the first day it was posted.

If the official video does not appear below, click here.



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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Four for Tango - Siam Saxophone Quartet

In 1987, after the famous Central Park concert, Piazzolla attended a performance of the Kronos Quartet, met the quartet backstage afterward and began a relationship with the group that continued until his death. A few days after that meeting, Piazzolla had already composed a new piece for the quartet, Four for tango. The Kronos included it in their next CD, Winter was Hard, and according to the Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, they still play the piece in concert from Xerox copies of Piazzolla's original handwritten score. The piece is challenging both for the musicians and the listener and no quartet I have heard comes close to the Kronos performance.

Unexpectedly, the piece has mutated from a string quartet challenge to a saxophone quartet showpiece. That has happened thanks to a transcription/arrangement by Claude Voirpy which is available commercially from Henry Lemoine Editions. The transcription is very respectful of the original but saxophone brings quite a different feel to the piece than the strings. There are bebop moments in the saxophone version which are totally absent in the more layered string version. Although the piece was clearly composed as a contemporary string quartet piece, it works surprisingly well on saxophones.

There are a number of saxophone quartet versions of Four for tango on YouTube but this is the first that is of high enough quality to share in this blog. The Siam Saxophone Quartet is the leading professional saxophone quartet in Thailand and would be on my short list for best in the world. The musicians in the quartet are Supat Hanpatanachai, Promwut Sudtakoo, Wisuwat Pruksawanich and Anond Fuangfoo. These four young men have studied around the world and honed their skills at a variety of competitions and master classes. I don't find any recordings by them yet but you can find more of their good music on Pruksawanich's YouTube channel.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Chiquilin de Bachin - Milos Stojanovic

The performing artist is shown in the title but the star of today's video is probably Franck Angelis who did the arrangement of Chiquilin de Bachin performed here by Milos Stojanovic, a student at the Academy of Music in Skopje, Macedonia. My use of the word "arrangement" may be incorrect. Mr. Angelis titles the work, Etude sur le thème "Chiquilin de Bachin" drawing parallels to such pieces as Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and I am tempted to agree that it is more a work of variation on a theme than it is an arrangement.

Chiquilin de Bachin was composed by Piazzolla in 1968 and is one of the earlier collaborations with lyricist and poet Horacio Ferrer. It is one of the few waltzes composed by Piazzolla and celebrates a young boy who sold roses to patrons of a café, the Bachin, frequented by Piazzolla and his companions. It was first sung by Amelita Baltar and first recorded by her on a 1969 Trova lp (TS 33-741). That version is difficult to find but a second version, recorded the same year, is available on the CD, Amelita Baltar Interpreta Piazzolla y Ferrer.

The Angelis' Chiquilin de Bachin Etude moves the beautiful and simple theme from Chiquilin de Bachin through multiple variations starting with something like a Buxtehude organ prelude, then through a French café to a dark, Mahleresque rumination finishing with a Quincy Jones soundtrack for a hero escaping across the rooftops of Paris. The piece is clearly a challenge for any Bayan or accordion player and Milos Stojanovic meets that challenge. References to the work in the web are invariably linked to performances in accordion competitions. If Mr. Stojanovic is preparing for such a competition, I have no doubt he will receive first prize - his playing is superb. Stojanovic's YouTube channel suggests he is from Serbia. I can find no other information about him but with a talent like his, it is surely only a matter of time before we recognize his name as an outstanding Bayanist.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



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Sunday, January 9, 2011

December, 2010 Review of Piazzolla Videos

There were 1090 videos of Piazzolla’s music posted on YouTube in the month of December, 2010, an increase of 127% over the same month in 2009. 622 (57%) of the videos were performance videos featuring live performances. The others were videos which used Piazzolla’s music as a sound track for photo or video montages. I have highlighted my journey through these many videos in this blog.

Forty-five percent of the performance videos were in the classical mode, 13% in jazz, 17% in nuevo tango and 25% in pop.

Here are the most frequently performed pieces this month (Libertango was the most frequently played – 31% of the total; the others follow in order):

1. Libertango
2. Oblivion
3. Adios Nonino
4. Invierno Porteño
5. Verano Porteño
6. Milonga del ángel
7. Histoire du tango – Nightclub 1960
8. Otoño Porteño
9. Histoire du tango – Bordel 1900
10. Histoire du tango – Café 1930

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

The performance videos came from 60 different countries. Argentina posted the most videos: 98. The top ten posting countries are listed in order here:

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

There were six Piazzolla originals posted. Three had been previously posted but three were new to YouTube. Two of those were from the movie, Queréme así, piantao, also known as Astortango. One of those featured a symphonic performance of Adios Nonino, the other contained no Piazzolla performances but did include some Piazzolla family photos not available elsewhere. The third video was from Brazilian television and contained fragments from a quintet performance of Invierno Porteño and an Amelita Baltar performance with the quintet of Balada para un loco.

Quality of performance varied from excellent to bizarre. My choice for Best of the Month is the flute/guitar duo of Marco Ferraguto and Andrea Pace playing Otoño Porteño.

The choice for most bizarre this month is a song and dance performance of Libertango which I find quite appealing but inexplicable.

I have put a table with links to all 1090 videos as well as some more information on the videos on the December, 2010 page in my Piazzolla on Video website.

If the videos don't appear below, click here for the best and here for the most bizarre.

Best Video of the Month


Most Bizarre Video of the Month


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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Michelangelo 70 - Pablo Ziegler & Regina Carter

Once again Pablo Ziegler demonstrates his ability to attract jazz stars to the Piazzolla world. Just a few weeks ago we featured Pablo Ziegler in a performance with Branford Marsalis and now in today's video we feature Ziegler and his quartet with the superstar violinist, Regina Carter, playing Michelangelo 70. The performance was captured just last month, either December 4 or 5, at the Jazz Standard club in New York.

Regina Carter, like Piazzolla, is one of those musicians who is impossible to put in a single musical box. She is trained as a classical violinist and has soloed in that role with some of the best symphonies in the world. She has excelled as a jazz musician, something rare on the violin. She has composed - you will find her works on the eponymously titled CD, Regina Carter. She has explored World Music - Latin flavored in the Danilo Perez album, Motherland, and African flavored in her latest release, Reverse Thread. She is one of the few musicians to have received a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation. She is also one of the few violinist granted the opportunity to play Paganini's famous "Cannon" violin - not just once but twice. The second time was captured in the wonderful CD, Paganini: After a Dream. That recording contains a sublime version of Oblivion played on Paganini's Cannon.

Today's video is, to my knowledge, only Regina Carter's second encounter with Piazzolla (Oblivion with the Paganini violin being the first). The quintet starts with a standard Piazzolla quintet reading of Michelangelo 70 and I am starting to think she is out of her element here - she reads the music but it doesn't sing under her bow the way it does for Fernando Suarez Paz. Two minutes into the video, the group leaves the script and Claudio Regazzi provides the best solo I have ever heard from him, Ziegler follows with a perfect piano break and then Carter brings her violin to the front. Tentatively at first, but she soon finds a groove and captures me with her creativity and musicality. The group closes a little awkwardly - Carter is a millisecond behind - but it is a most enjoyable jazz performance leaving me wanting to see what Carter would do with something like Escualo.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



Note added 6 January, 2010: After the above was written a related video was posted featuring Regina Carter playing Libertango with Ziegler's quartet. You can view it here. I know my tastes for Libertango have become jaded from having viewed so many interpretations but I find Ms. Carter's break a bit pedestrian here. Michelangelo 70 is the better of the two performances. I also conclude that Mr. Ziegler is, by far, the best jazz musician on this stage. He continues to find new riffs in music he has played thousands of times and never losses the thread of the theme. Remarkable.

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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Fracanapa - Polly Ferman & Camerata Romeu

Camerata Romeu, headquartered in Havana, Cuba, is one of the best chamber orchestras in the world and certainly the best in the specialty niche of Latin American chamber music. It is the creation of the remarkable Zenaida Romeu and has been made famous through the movie, Cuba Mia. You can learn more about the Camerata and see their performance of Libertango in this earlier blog posting. Camerata Romeu is joined in today's video performance of Fracanapa by Uruguayan pianist Polly Ferman and Italian accordionist, Antonio Peruch.

Ms. Ferman, currently a resident of New York City, is well known around the world for her piano interpretations of music not only of "serious" Latin American composers but, more recently, also of classic tango music. The latter has been captured in her latest touring show, Glamour Tango, which will at the Teatro Maipo in Buenos Aires in March and April of 2011. If you are fortunate enough to be able to attend a performance of Glamour Tango you are guaranteed to hear some superb classic tango as well as some nuevo tango from Piazzolla and Daniel Binelli. Ms. Ferman has an impressive discography but if you must limit your collection, the one to buy is Imagenes: Argentina y Uruguay, which she recorded with Binelli in 2001.

The performance in today's video was captured live in a performance at the Amadeo Roldán, the most important musical venue in Cuba. The notes attached to the video suggest the performance was in February but this review from the Havana Times suggests it was held on March 6, 2010. Perhaps there were multiple performances. That same review indicates the concert also included performances of Melodia en la menor and Aconcagua (more properly known as Concierto para bandoneón y orquesta). It would be a real treat to see those also but they have not yet made it to YouTube.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



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