| It may be that in musical retrospect, from a luxury | | | | specific to his own country, Argentina. The form, of |
| of twenty-twenty critical hindsight, that Astor | | | | course, was the tango. What is more, Astor Piazzolla |
| Piazzolla will be seen as having done in the twentieth | | | | concentrated on performance via his own ensembles |
| century for the tango what Frederick Chopin did in | | | | and he achieved considerable success, albeit local until |
| the nineteenth for the waltz. It is perhaps already an | | | | near the end of his life, over a career that spanned |
| accepted position. With the waltz, Chopin took an | | | | fifty years. But he expressed himself on the |
| established popular form and stretched its boundaries | | | | bandoneon, a squeezebox that lends itself to |
| so that what an audience might have expected to | | | | staccato, slapping attack, an instrument not peculiar |
| be a little ditty was recast to express heroism, | | | | to Argentina, but perhaps only well known to |
| sensuality, pride or even occasional doubt. The little | | | | Argentinians. He died in 1992, his Romantic heroism |
| dance tune then, in Chopin's slender hands, became | | | | national at best. |
| an elegant art form, highly expressive, utterly | | | | It was in the early 1990s that arrangements of |
| Romantic in its ability to convey human emotion. | | | | Piazzolla's music began to appear on "classical" |
| The tango represents an apparently different | | | | programmes. By the time a figure as august as Daniel |
| proposition. Already sensuous by definition, there are | | | | Barenboim recorded his Tangos Among Friends, Mi |
| elements of the romantic towards which the tango | | | | Buenos Aires Querido, in 1995, they were already |
| need not aspire. If Romanticism placed individual | | | | becoming established in the repertoire. I personally |
| emotional responses upon the pedestal of artistic | | | | have heard performances of Piazzolla's music for full |
| expression, by the time the tango aspired to truly | | | | orchestra, string orchestra, chamber orchestra, |
| international currency in the twentieth century, there | | | | various formats of chamber ensemble, piano trio, solo |
| was no longer any need to worry about an artist's | | | | piano, solo harp, flute and guitar, guitar solo, violin and |
| right to make a personal statement. | | | | piano, string quartet, string trio and, of course, |
| With the rise of serialism, neo-classicism and, later, | | | | bandoneon. But it is surely the chamber group that |
| minimalism, artistic mores were already, perhaps, | | | | best fits this music. There is always a toughness to |
| heading in the opposite direction, towards a new | | | | its apparent sensuality that tends to be overstated |
| espousal of rigour and structure. Emotion worn on | | | | by the large numbers of a full orchestra. Lack of |
| the cuffs, like concepts plucked from the back of a | | | | volume, on the other hand, tends to stress the |
| matchbox, seemed to dominate cultural activities in | | | | saccharine. |
| the latter part of the century whilst, at the same | | | | And if you want to find an exquisite match between |
| time, Althusser and Derrida, allied with the populism of | | | | the music's toughness and sensuality, its durability |
| mass culture, seemed to suggest that there were no | | | | versus its novelty, there is surely no better |
| new statements, let alone discoveries, to be made. A | | | | experience than that provided by Camerata Virtuosi, |
| spectral free-for-all ruled, where distinctions of quality | | | | a septet led by violinist Joaquin Palomares and |
| were suddenly both particularistic and individual to the | | | | featuring saxophonist Claude Delangle. Their recording |
| point of exclusion. (This, of course, is necessarily a | | | | of Piazzolla's music features Joaquin Palomares' |
| paradox for people promoting a populist pop culture, | | | | superb arrangements that capture the music's |
| since they aspire to mass consumption of a single | | | | directness and beauty while preserving its toughness. |
| artistic vision, a statement that by definition cannot | | | | A Camerata Virtuosi performance in the Auditori de la |
| be worth more than any other - even randomly | | | | Mediterrània, La Nucia in February 2008 |
| selected statement. As a result, those who tend to | | | | featured all the pieces included in their recording of |
| deny a critic's right to make value judgments must | | | | Piazzolla's music. The group performed all four of the |
| themselves assume that such judgments are | | | | Seasons as a sextet with two violins, viola, cello, bass |
| perfectly valid in the marketplace. It's a contradictory | | | | and piano. These pieces offer Joaquin Palomares a |
| position, but an essential one for purveyors of pop, | | | | perfect vehicle to display his virtuoso violin playing |
| since they must continue to describe the form as | | | | which communicates the music's line whilst at the |
| popular, despite the fact that the vast majority of its | | | | same time decorates with highly effective jazz-like |
| products prove themselves to be anything but.) | | | | riffs. The rest of the pieces were performed by a |
| Post-modernists thus hailed the soap opera alongside | | | | septet in which Claude Delangle's perfect soprano |
| Shakespeare, a logic that renders a Coca Cola | | | | saxophone bent and teased its way through lambent |
| advertisement the greatest film ever made by virtue | | | | legato lines. It was playing of the highest quality. |
| of its viewer numbers. And then there was Piazzolla, | | | | As on the recording, particularly successful were |
| an enigma par excellence. | | | | Oblivion and Milonga del Angel. Oblivion is the |
| On the one hand Astor Piazzolla is the quintessential | | | | quintessential Piazzolla, a popular sing-along for the |
| mid-twentieth century composer. Classically trained, a | | | | manic depressive perhaps, and not therefore a rarity. |
| pupil of Alberto Ginastera and Nadia Boulanger, and | | | | But the simplicity and understatement of the piece |
| inspired by the commercial and folk music of his own | | | | always works beautifully, even when played twice in |
| country, he could have slotted alongside Villa Lobos, | | | | the same concert, as in La Nucia. Milonga del Angel is |
| Ponce, or even Martinu or Copeland as a contributor | | | | a different kind of piece. Though superficially similar |
| to the century's neo-classical-folk music paradigm. But | | | | to Oblivion, it manages in its six minutes to develop |
| what he did was quite different. | | | | through its binary form, so that different movements |
| He devoted his compositional energies to recreating | | | | create different moods within the same material. A |
| and reinventing a popular idiom that was thoroughly | | | | true highlight. |