Monday, April 12, 2010

Piazzolla ∩ Recorder

The Venn diagram representing Piazzolla Performances and People Playing Recorders has a sparsely populated intersection, but you can be assured that when a suitable new member of that population appears, you will read about it in this blog. And by recorder I don't mean those machines which replicate sound, I mean those instrument also known as a flauto dolce or flauta dulce or flute à bec or blockflöte which create sound in the hands of thousands of school children and a few professional musicians. One such professional musician, Alexandra Jomeyer, is featured in today's video playing the Piazzolla standard, Oblivion. She and pianist, Edith Bechstein, perform together as the group Piano Dolce and you are more likely to find them playing Bach than Piazzolla. However, let's hope the two extend their repertoire to include Piazzolla's Histoire du tango series which would work nicely on soprano recorder and piano.

In this video, Ms. Jomeyer has chosen the mellow tone of a tenor recorder, it appears to be a Mollenhauer Dream Recorder designed by Dutch recorder maker, Adriana Breukink. These instruments are a modern interpretation of the renaissance recorder and have a less complex and open sound than the more common baroque style recorder. It is an appropriate choice for Oblivion and the Piano Dolce duo provide an elegant and understated interpretation of the work. Ms. Jomeyer is to be congratulated for avoiding the excessive tremolo which has turned many an Oblivion performance into schmaltz.

If the video does not appear below, click here. Be patient, the music starts 50 seconds into the video.



To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.

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