Tango: Body and Soul
Enrique FRANCINI (1916-1978)
La vi llegar (arr. W. Thomas-Mifune) [3:35]
Julio de CARO (1899-1980)
Guardia vieja (1926, arr. W. Thomas-Mifune) [3:41]
Eduardo ALONSO-CRESPO (b. 1956)
Piano Trio, op. 30 (2013) [12:20]
Juan Maria SOLARE (b. 1966)
Tengo un tango (2004) [5:16]
Luis Jorge GONZÁLEZ (b. 1936)
Montaje de la esperanza [12:20]
Astor PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992)
Cuatro estaciones porteñas (1965-70, arr. J Bragato) [25:09]
Trio Cordilleras
rec. 2014, Hamilton Hall, University of Denver, USA
MERIDIAN CDE84634 [63:03]
On the surface, this is an intriguing mix of the well-known – the Piazzolla Cuatro Estaciones in their piano trio guise – and the little known or unknown – the rest.
The first two pieces are arrangements of popular tangos from Buenos Aires in the pre-WW2 period. The notes don’t indicate the background of the arranger or when they were made, but they come across as very mediocre salon music, with only the rhythms to occasionally remind you of their dance origins. Certainly the passion and sensuality that is the hallmark of the tango, as I understand it, is completely absent, and sadly that remains the case through the whole CD.
The Alonso-Crespo trio was commissioned by Trio Cordilleras, and it has pretensions as serious classical music, informed by tango rhythms. It begins well enough, with a mysterious atmosphere hinting at dark passions, but rather runs out of steam in the middle. Solare’s I Have a Tango has a lovely melancholy lyricism to it, but again none of the wild passions usually ascribed to the dance. The last of the “unknown” works, at least to me, Montage of Hope by González is perhaps the most interesting, though perversely, it hides its tango roots most strongly.
That leads us to the final work, or more accurately, the final four, as Piazzolla of course did not compose them as a group. I have loved all four, especially in their piano trio arrangement, since hearing the performance by Jan Vogler and his colleagues on a Sony disc almost 10 years ago (review). It allows me to judge the playing of the Colorado-based Trio Cordilleras since it isn’t really sensible to make a final decision based on performances of music you have never heard. However, the impression I got in the first few pieces – the absence of passion and sensuality – is confirmed by a very pedestrian and passionless reading of the Four Seasons. Timings aren’t always a reliable guide to performances, but I feel that the fact that this version is more than 2½ minutes longer than the Vogler version speaks volumes.
Curiously, the booklet and back cover spell Piazzolla’s given name with an acute A – Ástor. It made me
worry that I’d been spelling it wrongly all this time, but nowhere, including the Piazzolla website (and some original concert programmes available there), could I find another source spelling it this way. The notes themselves are brief but adequate; the recording quality places the piano very forward.
I’m not sure why this has suddenly appeared on the MWI “available for review” list, since it was originally released in 2015.
Nevertheless, I don’t see any compelling reasons for its purchase.
David Barker
