The Devich Trio
brings together a Hungarian pianist
- daughter of violinist Sandor Devich,
who played with the Bartok Quartet
for some twenty five years - a South
African violinist and a cellist
from Holland. They have been playing
as an ensemble since 2003. Their
first two CDs, issued as The
Czech Legacy I and II,
made up of works by Dvořák,
Novak, Suk and Smetana, CDs which
were critically well received. Here
on their third CD they turn their
attention to the rather different
territory of the nuevo tango. They
play works by Piazzolla in trio
arrangements by José Bragato, Piazzolla’s ‘Le Grand Tango’ (for cello and
piano), and Bragato’s ‘Milontan’ (originally written for
the cellist Christine Walevska).
In the CD booklet
Hannah Devich explains how, having
come across Bragato’s trio arrangement
of ‘Primavera Porteña’ -
originally scored by Piazzolla for
bandonéon, violin, piano
and guitar - the trio began to use
it as an encore. Out of that grew
a desire – encouraged by their classical
coach, the violinist Istvan Parkanyi
– to record an entire CD of such
material.
The choice was
a sensible one and has produced
a thoroughly enjoyable CD. The Devich
Trio play the music with great discipline
and passion, and with an obvious
sense of shared pleasure. Piazzolla’s
‘Four Seasons’ works very well indeed
in this trio arrangement. This particular
set of compositions by Piazzolla
- not originally conceived as a
set, ‘Verano porteño being
originally written as a free-standing
piece, the other three only added
later as an afterthought – has none
of the pictorial dimensions of the
Vivaldi set to which its title so
obviously alludes. Vivaldi may give
us the birdsong and bagpipes of
spring, the harvest dances and huntsmen
of autumn; Piazzolla’s music represents
an emotional and somatic landscape
not an outer one. All his seasons
are urban, set, it seems, in stiflingly
hot interiors, all governed by intense
sensuality and, paradoxically by
a kind of classicism which contains
and orders potentially violent emotions.
The results are complex music, sublimated
tangos as it were, and the Devich
Trio plays them with a gratifying
responsiveness to both the classicism
and the sensuality.
‘Oblivion’ has
a quiet melancholy that compels
attention and in ‘Le Grand Tango’
Jaspar Havelaar is excellent, standing
up to comparison with some of the
best of his distinguished predecessors;
indeed Havelaar’s playing throughout
the CD is richly expressive. I’m
not sure that ‘Revolucionario’ works
quite so well in this arrangement;
for all the efforts of the trio
there’s a certain relative deficiency
in sheer impact. ‘La Muerta del
Ángel’, the third of four
pieces which Piazzolla wrote for
Alberto Rodriguez Nuñoz’
1962 play Tango del Ángel,
in which the protective angel is
killed in a knife fight; again one
is aware of a certain loss of instrumental
colour and passion, for all the
skill of José Bragato’s arrangement
(and the fierceness of Sarah Oates’
violin playing).
Bragato is one
of the most famous of tango cellists;
his expertise in idiom and instrument
is evident in his ‘Milontán’,
written in 1983, a piece which fuses
the European classical tradition
and the heritage of tango with wit,
passion and intelligence. It gets
a fine performance here from Devich
and Havelaar, rich in the tension
and relaxation which, alike, are
at the heart of the tango, full
of incisive rhythms and languorous
cello lines. A delight.
For anyone who
enjoys the nuevo tango, especially
those with a leaning towards the
classical end of the spectrum, this
is a CD likely to give plenty of
pleasure.
Glyn Pursglove