Astor Piazzolla - Ma'alot Quintet - Chamber Music [MDG 345 1392-2] {2006}

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Astor Piazzolla - Ma'alot Quintet - Chamber Music [MDG 345 1392-2] {2006}

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Astor Piazzolla - Ma'alot Quintet - Chamber Music: Estaciones Portenas / Tango Ballet / Histoire Du Tango / Four for Tango
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 228 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: MDG # "Gold" 345 1392-2 | Country/Year: Germany 2006
Genre: Classical | Style: Chamber Music

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Astor Piazzolla - Ma'alot Quintet - Chamber Music [MDG 345 1392-2] {2006}

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Astor Piazzolla - Ma'alot Quintet - Chamber Music [MDG 345 1392-2] {2006}

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review by James Manheim

The explosion of interest in Astor Piazzolla's music has resulted in a wave of arrangements of his tango compositions for traditional classical ensembles. The reason performers have experienced success with these arrangements is that Piazzolla's music stands up to them unusually well. Piazzolla, even as he knocked about in the world of tango in Argentina and jazz in New York, received thorough classical training and studied with no less than Alberto Ginastera and Nadia Boulanger. And many of his works draw inspiration from classical forms and techniques. Several of the works on this album are among the favorites of classical performers; the Estaciones porteñas (Buenos Aires Seasons), for example, seem to allude to the Four Seasons concertos of Vivaldi. The 11-minute Tango Ballet (actually a score for a short film) reflects Piazzolla's close involvement with the French school in the 1950s, and the concluding Four for Tango was an adventurous work written for the Kronos Quartet at the end of his career.

Any attempt to bring Piazzolla into the classical orbit plays up these elements of his work, but this one, which arranges his music for wind quintet, perhaps reaches a theoretical extreme. The percussive element of Piazzolla's music is reduced almost to nil, and his counterpoint stands out in sharp relief, with dissonances that would have served merely as bits of spice in a performance by Piazzolla's own groups emerging into the clear and even emphasized here. Ironically, one can hear in this performance something of what shocked Argentine audiences of the 1950s about Piazzolla. He was reviled and even beaten up on one occasion, and it was precisely because of these dissonances, which sound less pungent to an audience accustomed to half a century of film music with extended harmony based in many cases on pop models.

It's a rather strange way to treat the lush, moody music of Piazzolla, but it will work quite well for those who like to hear Piazzolla in the concert hall. The Histoire du Tango, which depends on a subtle evocation of the lowlife environments in which the tango grew, is the least successful, but the larger-form Tango Ballet and Four for Tango reveal many details in this performance. The Ma'a lot Quintett (which despite the Hebrew name is German) takes an important step: having moved Piazzolla's music to its classical pole in arrangements, the ensemble pushes it a little bit back toward pop in its playing, which is brassy and direct. The musicians do an effective evocation of string quartet textures in Four for Tango, and they are fine players with a sharp sensitivity to detail. This disc is definitely not for the listener who turns to Piazzolla to find immersion in the dark mood of Buenos Aires at the zero hour, but it is recommended to those following the still-evolving understanding of this unique creative figure of the twentieth century. allmusicguide

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Astor Piazzolla - Ma'alot Quintet - Chamber Music [MDG 345 1392-2] {2006}

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