The sheer number of Piazzolla-themed recordings suggests a
historical significance that goes far beyond anything his legacy really
merits, at least as far as art music is concerned. The reference site
www.piazzolla.org has
details of around 350 discs, as well as an ominous list self-explanatorily
titled '200 Versions of 'Adiós Nonino''.
Naxos set in motion their own Piazzolla eulogium more than a decade
ago with his 'Complete Music for Flute and Guitar' (
review). Well performed yet hardly compelling, this disc set the
tone for most of Naxos's Piazzolla output since, although the next one along
was a considerable step down: the tediousness of arrangements and dodgy
vocals led one reviewer to call already for a "moratorium on discs of
Piazzolla arrangements" (
review). Shabby audio and nondescript playing marred the next
volume, of uncalled-for piano transcriptions (
review). Piazzolla in orchestral form, both by origin
and by arrangement (
review), offered a much better bet - the
Sinfonia Buenos
Aires and
Las Cuatro Estanciones Porteñas featured here
are two of Piazzolla's best works by any measure.
The recent 'Tangos for Violin, Brass and Percussion Quintet' may
sound more promising than any album lazily titled 'Histoire du Tango' or
'Oblivion', but in fact Naxos hit rock bottom with this collection of pulp
arrangements. To add insult to insult, the version of
Cuatro Estanciones
Porteñas heard here weaves in bits of Vivaldi's original
Quattro Stagioni. Though there will always be an audience for this
kind of thing (see
review) - just as there is for Piazzolla's
electric-guitar-based quintet - this was a disc of crossover gewgaw, a waste
of money for anyone but the most undemanding of listeners. On a 2012 album,
Greek trombonist Achilles Liarkmakopoulos's arrangements of Piazzolla
standards proved to be much more dignified, if not exactly required
listening (
review).
Yet after all the tribulations, it should not be forgotten that
Piazzolla studied under Nadia Boulanger and Alberto Ginastera, and for all
the later embracing of pop values, there is considerable technique and
originality underpinning some of his music. His
Cuatro Estanciones
Porteñas, for example, were originally scored by him for piano
trio - the Villa-Lobos Trio made a fine recording of it recently (see
review). In a similar vein, Tomas Cotik's arrangements for
violin and piano on the present disc offer a much clearer glimpse of what
Piazzolla might have achieved if he had concentrated on art rather than
glamour.
Buenos Aires-born Cotik, with no little help from pianist Tao Lin
and one or two other high-calibre arrangers, turns the class up and the
sleaze down. As he writes in his long, detailed notes, "it is difficult
[...] to believe that not one of [the pieces] was originally composed for
violin and piano." Indeed, some items, like the
Fuga y Misterio or
Sofia Gubaidulina's macho-cum-sensual, and highly virtuosic, version of
Le Grand Tango, would add exotic colour and substance to any
violinist's recital. The difference between Cotik's account of
Tanti Anni
Prima (or
Ave Maria, as it was later known) and that heard on
'Tangos for Violin, Brass and Percussion Quintet', is massive. Even if the
gap in audio quality were not as great as it is, Cotik manages to bring out
Piazzolla's lyrical power, where Donato De Sena's arrangement merely
emphasises surface tackiness. Cotik even breathes life into the knacker's
own
Oblivion and
Libertango.
Cotik hears in Piazzolla's music "aggression and madness, the
honking, the chaos, the drunkenness, dizziness and the energy of the
megalopolis of Buenos Aires. [...] smoky atmospheres and veiled feelings,
vegetative states of mind, wistfulness, nostalgic love … like an old
person's sorrowful reminiscences of a younger love …" As fanciful as
some of these ideas seem, there is no question that this disc is, by some
distance, Naxos's best Piazzolla recording, one which probably gives the
music connoisseur a good fifty percent of all the Piazzolla he or she needs
to know.
Byzantion
Contact at artmusicreviews.co.uk
