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Argentine Classical Composers and the Tango: Volumes 1 and 2

El Tango I
1) El Negro Schicoba (Jose Maria PALAZUELOS - 1840-1893)
2) Bartolo (Francisco HARGREAVES - 1849-1900)
3) Pare El Tranguay, Mayoral (Carlos Lopez BUCHARDO - 1881-1948)
4) Don Pepe (Ernesto DRANGOSCH - 1882-1925)
5) Coquito (Carlos Lopez BUCHARDO - 1882-1925)
6) Flor De Pasion (Enrique CASELLA - 1891-1948)
7) El Perseguido (Ernesto DRANGOSCH - 1882-1925)
8) Aire De Tango (Ernesto DRANGOSCH - 1882-1925)
9) Tenga Mano (Manuel Gomez CARRILLO - 1883-1968)
10) Asistencia (Athos PALMA - 1891-1951)
11) Mas Nunca Olvidare (Arnaldo D ESPOSITO - 1907-1945)
12) Tango (Constantino GAITO - 1878-1945)
13) Preludio En Forma De Tango (Juan F. GIACOBBE)
14) Junto Al Parana (J. C. PAZ - 1902-1971)
15) Tango Que Le Hiciste Mal (Jorge Arandia NAVARRO - b.1929)
16) Tango (Gilardo GILARDI - 1889-1963)
17) Encuentro (Salvador RANIERI - b.1930)
18) Tanguango (Juan Carlos ZORZI - 1935-1999)
19) Tango (Gisela Garcia GILERA (b.1973)
20) Entonces (Irma URTEAGA - b.1929)
21) Cristales Rotos (Norma LADO - b.1934).
22) Invencion Tanguera (Jorge PITARI - b.1943)
Estela Telerman (piano)
rec. 2002-2003
PRETAL PRCD 133 [64:34]

El Tango II - 1879-2007
1) La Rubia (Francisco HARGREAVES 1849-1900) - Estela Telerman
2) Es Quejido (Andres GAOS 1874-1959) - Estela Telerman
3)-5) Tres Tangos (Julio SAGRERAS 1879-1942) - Walter Ujaldon
6) Tango N 1 (Jacobo FICHER 1896-1978) - Guillermo Carro
7) Tango Argentino De Concierto (Emilio Angel NAPOLITANO 1907-1989) - Estela Telerman
8)-10) Prosas Sentimentales De Canto Pobre (Juan F. GIACOBBE - 1907-1990) - Dora Castro / Omar Aranda Lamadrid
11)-12) Dos Tangos (Washington CASTRO 1909-2004) - Guillermo Carro / Mariana Levitin
13) Horacio Lavalle (Carlos GUASTAVINO 1912-2000) - Guillermo Carro
14) Volveran Las Oscuras Golondrinas (Valdo SCIAMMARELLA b. 1924) - Estela Telerman / Jose Luis Sarre
15) Mi Buenos Aires (Celina Kohan De SCHER b. 1931) - Estela Telerman
16) Tango Op. 48 (Horacio Lopez De La ROSA 1933-1986) - Guillermo Carro
17) Tango N 1 (Manuel JUAREZ b. 1937) - Estela Telerman
18)-20) A Don Benito (Julio Garcia CANEPA b. 1940) - Estela Telerman
21) Imagitango (Fernando MAGLIA b. 1954) - Marcela Sfriso / Walter Ujaldon
22) Nomade (Juan Maria SOLARE b. 1966) - Guillermo Carro
23) Estelango (Juan Manuel ABRAS b. 1975) - Estela Telerman / Guillermo Carro
24) Forest Ella (Christian BALDINI b. 1978) - Estela Telerman / Guillermo Carro
Dora Castro (piano); Omar Aranda Lamadrid (orator); Mariana Levitin (cello); Jose Luis Sarre (tenor); Marcela Sfriso (guitar); Walter Ujaldon (guitar); Estela Telerman (piano); Guillermo Carro (piano)
rec. October 2007
PRETAL PRCD 138 [79:55]

In 2008 Estela Telerman performed Argentinean piano music in New York and Washington DC - where she was a member of Jury for the Washington International Piano Competition. With the benefit of evident sympathy and great insight into the repertoire she presents more than two hours of the Tango by serious Argentinean composers.

To the first disc where a number of the many of the tangos sound commercial. Nothing untoward in that. How many of these were written to turn a pretty penny. Then again what do we expect composers to do: starve. The piano stools of Europe were for decades stuffed with the lightly or ill-considered offerings of the great as well as the mediocre.

Some of these tangos are redolent of Gottschalk. Drangosch’s 1908 Don Pepe tango sounds a little like a Joplin rag. The Buchardo Coquito is a winsome piece. Drangosch’s Aire de Tango from the operetta La Gruta de los milagros is stiff-necked yet rather 1960s romantic. Giacobbe 's Preludio en forme de tango dates from the mid-1940s and is in a strangely filtered sophisticated harmonic language. Gilardi's 1958 Tango has the hammered sound of a pianola roll. Ranieri's Encuentro is a song for soprano and piano here sung by Silvina Martino. It is rather dissonant and black-storm cloudy. A similar dissonance echoes stonily around Urteaga's Entonces. Norma Lado's haltingly Cristales Rotos (Broken Glasses) is inventively fractured yet dissonant yet in touch with the tradition. From the same year comes Jorge Pitari's Invencion Tanguera No. 3 which marries tango with J.S. Bach's patterning and with the serious-browed martellato of the pianola.

In the second and later CD Telerman shares the microphone with many other musicians. The Hargeaves La Rubia is workmanlike but plain. The Gaos evinces a little more originality. He was a Galician immigrant. The Sagreras pieces are for the guitar are three honeyed and lovingly turned tangos with the middle of the three being very Iberian indeed. Returning to the piano we hear the thorny and awkward yet fresh music of Russian-born Ficher. Giacobbe wrote many works for bandoneon and these are warmly orated by Omar Aranda Lamadrid. Across these tangos Lamadrid recalls three people who were major figures in his life. Washington Castro employs a cello in Dos Tangos. These are very intense and not shackled to the tango tradition; rather taking it as a launching point. Guastavino is now being recorded by others. His Horacio Lavalle stays within the bounds of an essentially conservative language though there is a light dusting of dissonance here too. Telerman is joined by the quavery tenor of Jose Luis Sarre for the passionate Volveran las oscuras golondrinas. We go back to the guitar for the dark skies of Fernando Maglia's Imagitango with its whiplash asides over a gloomy ostinato. Audacity dissonantly racks the tango representations of Abras and Baldini.

Everything here is lovingly turned by Telerman.

These two discs are only available separately and you may have to work hard to track them down.

Rob Barnett