Piquant Piazzolla Pairings: Guitar-Violin and Guitar-Flute
Astor Piazzolla's compositions duck in and out of a twilight between pop and romantic classical music. Pop listeners find it too classical-sounding, and classical listeners are put off by the repetitions and idiomatic, sometimes predictable, melodies and chord progressions. But there are exotic and playful elements attributable to the Tango flavoring and the composer's bandoneon-influenced ornamentation.
Those exotic elements may be what accounts for the crossover appeal that can seduce both pop and classical music fans.
Two sets of otherwise unrelated performances are paired here that highlight Piazzolla's unique appeal: Histoire du Tango: Piazzolla - Music for Violin and Guitar and Piazzolla: Histoire du Tango. The first features Argentine guitarist Maria Isabel Siewers playing with countryman-violinist Rafael Gintoli. Begin the adventure with "Histoire du Tango 1: Bordel 1900," which features plenty of movement in both the violin and guitar lines. It's an easy, playful listen bound to put a smile on all but the most severely depressed listeners. Give the easy Gintoli glissandi much of the credit for the playful element, but Piazzolla has penned a low-hanging fruit that won't require a classical music ear to pluck.
On the other hand, there's plenty of mildly dissonant play in tracks such as the "Histoire du Tango 4: Concert d'aujourd'hui." I'm not expecting that to break into the top playlists on Lala or Rhapsody anytime soon.
The second album features Cecile Daroux on flute and guitarist Pablo Marquez. While both albums feature performances by solo instruments, the most arresting of these is the solo flute work by Cecile Daroux in the "Six Tango Etudes." Extremely well-recorded with just the right spatial balance, the Etudes are a contemplative, sometimes plaintive take on familiar Piazzolla themes that emerge, disappear, then reappear. The concluding "Avec anxiete" etude adopts this straightforward structure while hinting both at Debussy and Jethro Tull.
This review would be remiss if it did not point out at least one track with bandoneon accompaniment. The haunting "Oblivion" on the flute album satisfies that understandable craving.
Put your Tango toes into these classical-pop, pop-classical waters. They'll be pleasantly wiggling in a pop stew, but with the occasional underwater electric shocks needed to remand you to the 20th century.
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