ÁSTOR PIAZZOLLA Tango! Isabelle van Keulen Ensemble 1 ÁSTOR PIAZZOLLA Tango! Isabelle van Keulen Ensemble Isabelle van Keulen violin Christian Gerber bandonéon Ulrike Payer piano Rüdiger Ludwig double bass ÁSTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) Deconstruction of a folk music – Ástor Piazzolla moved with his Ástor Piazzolla and his Tango Nuevo Italian parents to New York. [1] Escualo 3:58 His father opened a barber [2] Verano Porteño 6:22 Ástor Piazzolla was seen as „a nutter shop in Greenwich Village and [3] Invierno Porteño 6:48 with strange ideas and pointless fought against his homesickness [4] Tristezas de un Doble A 8:58 modernisms“ at the beginning of his by listening to tango recordings, [5] Michelangelo ‘70 3:05 career in his home country Argentina, day and night. Ástor’s musical [6] Contrabajísimo 11:51 hated by traditionalists and purists, talent was recognized and he [7] Oblivion 4:01 who saw the universe of tango on a received piano lessons and in the [8] Libertango 3:58 slippery slope by the manner in which same time bandonéon lessons, [9] Tangata 8:23 he combined elements and ways more for his father than himself: [10] Tanti anni prima 5:12 of performing techniques used by Ástor’s passion at the time was [11] Concierto para Quinteto 9:33 jazz and modernists, fusing musical really jazz – and Johann Sebastian directions that appeared from the Bach, not tango. „My father listens total time 72:11 outside to be opposite, and by doing to tango all the time and is thinking so creating a new style of Tango, not back to Buenos Aires, his family, really meant to dance along with, but his friends – his melancholy, his designed for a carefully listening upset is Tango, always Tango“. audience. Piazzolla’s Tango Nuevo however never looses the romantic In 1936 however, after his family side, nor the passion, drama, eroticism had returned to Buenos Aires, and intensity of the traditional tango. Piazzolla had a crucial experience after attending a tango concert by Three years after his birth in 1921 in Elvino Vardaro and his ensemble, the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina, inflaming his passion for the new 4 5 way of performing tango. Following After having received a scholarship same time: „ Your tango is new, and it from the original dancing stage this experience he now perfected Piazzolla eventually set off to Paris to is from the heart.“ to the concert halls, where a lot of and intensified his own bandonéon study with Nadia Boulanger, who was concentration was needed from the playing and in 1939 he became a in fact the teacher of composers like In 1955 Ástor Piazzolla returned listeners. It even came to a point member of Anibal Troilo’s orchestra, Aaron Copland and Philip Glass. to Argentina and founded the where Piazzolla and his family could also as arranger and composer. He longed to perfect his composition Octeto Buenos Aires, two hardly go onto the streets because of In 1940 Piazzolla took composition technique, ignoring his tango roots; bandonéons, two violins, a double open animosity. In spite of all this he lessons with Alberto Ginastera „In fact I was ashamed to say that I bass, a cello, a piano and an electric worked incredibly hard, composed, (1916-1983), one of the most used to be a tango musician, that guitar. With this ensemble the new performed, arranged with great influentual Latin American com- I played in brothels and cabarets. genre was born: Tango Nuevo. productivity: In the course of his life posers of the 20th century. To be a tango musician was a dirty The traditional tango was totally he wrote over 300 Tango’s, music for word in those days. It was the taken apart, put onto new, exciting nearly 50 films and made around 40 He composed orchestra- and underworld.“ Boulanger noticed harmonies and rhythms and all in all recordings, cooperated with visual chambermusic, neglecting the influences by Ravel, Bartók, became transformed into this new artists, authors and worked together bandonéon, and, in spite of still Strawinsky and Hindemith in ‚language’, without loosing the typical with Pina Bausch’s Dance Theater. practicing, he hardly made any Piazzolla’s compositions. But his accents, rythms, and above all the public appearances in that time. music lacked an individual style, strong melancholic expressive line. Between 1976 and 1983 Piazzolla He wanted to be noticed as a his soul. At some point she asked lived in Italy, returning to Argentina composer of importance, a fact him to perform a tango at the piano, In 1960 Piazzolla founded another on a regular base. Especially the he believed he could not achieve and after hearing this she cried out: group, Quinteto Tango Nuevo, years 1978-1988 he was enormously through playing bandonéon. „You idiot! Don’t you notice that this existing of violin, guitar, piano, productive; with the second Quinteto The genre tango was mostly played is the one and only Piazzolla? double bass and bandonéon. (Pablo Ziegler – piano, Fernando in brothels and cabarets and had You can throw all the other stuff away!“ Initially his works underwent a lot Suarez Paz – violin, Horacio Malvicino a bad reputation, especially with She inspired him to pick up the of criticism and scepticism, because – guitar and Hector Console – the Upper Class. bandonéon again, and tango at the this new tango took the tango double bass) he finally also become 6 7 tremendously successful in his Escualo, “Shark”, a title from the year bandoneon, made by Alfred Arnold probably his most arranged and home country. 1979, puts the violin in front. The (“AA”) in Carlsfeld, Germany. played pieces. jamming rythmical force combined He eventually moved back to Buenos with the elegiacal central parts Michelangelo ‘70 represents the heat Tangata, with Soledad and Fugata part Aires in 1985, seven years before immediately pulls the attention, of the identically named tango club of a Suite written for the Argentinian his death, where he was then asking for the highest technical in Buenos Aires; the following title choreographer Oscar Ariaz, but also proclaimed Citizen of Honour. demands of all players. Contrabajísimo speaks for itself: a Concierto para Quinteto are songs of long double bass cadenza is followed high complexity and strenght. They When he finally publishes „Tango Verano (“Summer”) Porteño and by a complex, thriving part, in which once more show they richness of Zero Hour“, in 1986 – he is then 65 Invierno (“Winter”) Porteño are all instruments have their solo’s in Piazzolla’s idea’s, his vituosity as a – Piazzolla has long become a living pieces from the “Estaciones turn, ending in a Grand Finale. composer, his innovation and last but legend. In August 1990 he suffered a Porteños”, the seasons of Buenos not least the heartbreaking beauty of stroke while in Paris, as a result he was Aires, based on Vivaldis Four Seasons, Libertango, written in 1974, is his Tango Nuevo - combining heart, no longer able to compose or play. composed between 1965 and 1970. probably Piazzolla’s most famous body and soul, without any borders Two years later Ástor Piazzolla died Originally they were meant to be composition - symbolically combining or limits. in Buenos Aires. single titles and not part of a suite. the two words Libertad (freedom) and Tango, implying the transformation Relatively late the genius of Ástor Tristeza de un Doble A (“The sadness from tango to Tango Nuevo. Piazzolla has been recognized in his of a Double A”) is a homage to home country. The complexity of the bandonéon - the instrument Both Oblivion and Tanti Anni Prima the compositions combined with the was invented by Heinrich Band in (“Many years ago”, also known as emotional power have impressed Germany, but became most popular Ave Maria) are titels from film music many new generations of musicians. in Argentina and became the - they were composed for the Movie Tango’s characteristical instrument. “ Enrico IV” with Claudio Cardinale The Double A stands for a “real” by Marco Bellocchio and they are 8 9 Isabelle van Keulen Ensemble conductors, and is also a passionate Schallplattenkritik’ and he is part of of 15. Two years later he continued chamber musician in many different the group Stazo Mayor with Grammy- studying with Professor Günter The Isabelle van Keulen Ensemble combinations. In September 2012 winning musician Luis Stazo. Klaus at the Hochschule für Musik started in January 2011, initiated she was appointed professor for und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt. by violinist and violist Isabelle van violin, viola and chamber music at the Ulrike Payer piano After having played in the Opera Keulen, in the series ‚Carte Blanche’ Hochschule Luzern, Switzerland. She Ulrike Payer is one of the most versatile Orchestra in Mainz and the Orchestra in Haarlem’s Concertgebouw with plays a violin by Joseph Guarnerius pianists of this time. Her repertoire is of Saarland Radio in Saarbrücken compositions by Ástor Piazzolla. del Gesù from the year 1734. going from barock through to modern Rüdiger Ludwig became Co-Principal After the enormous success of their music, from solo concerto’s to cham- double bass in the NDR Orchestra first concert many further invitations Christian Gerber bandonéon ber music and song accompaniment. Hanover, a position he has held since followed instantaniously, a.o. Den Born in 1976 Christian Gerber studied Ulrike Payer has since many years been 1995. He is often heard in chamber Haag (Nieuwe Kerk) and Amsterdam at the Hochschule ‚Hanns Eisler’ in engaged with the Argentinian Tango. music concerts with artists like (Concertgebouw), and also from Berlin and focused already very early Especially her encounter and coope- Isabelle van Keulen, Ulrike Payer and international music festivals like on Argentinian Tango and Tango ration with bandonéon player Alfredo the Leopold String Trio.