Acknowledgments E l M o t i v o El Choclo; El Marne; and all the phonies go mad with joy; Nocturna; Trois tangos en marge; Tengo miedo; and el jefe were recorded at P a b l o o r t i z | a nssi Karttunen The Banff Center, Canada, February 21-22, 2011. Recording engineer: Cain McCormack Recording producer: Hazel Burns Nostalgias; El Marne; Sateen tango; En Cada Verso; El Motivo revisited; Sä et kyyneltä nää; Loca Bohemia; and Tango Desirée were recorded at Kulosaari Church, Helsinki, Finland on August 8, 2012. Recording engineer: Matti Heinonen (Pro Audile) Editing: Anssi Karttunen All works by Pablo Ortiz are published by Argofelipix. Arrangements by Pablo Ortiz and Anssi Karttunen are available direct from the arrangers. Cover Image: Helsinki 1973 © Pentti Sammallahti Artist photos: Zebra Trio: © Kaija Saariaho, cellists: © Hanno Karttunen www.albanyrecords.com TROY1421 albany records u.s. 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207 tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 Z e b r a T r i o albany records u.k. box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd a n s s i K a r tt unen Timo-Vei kk o V a l V e J u s s i s e p p ä n e n tel: 01539 824008 © 2013 albany records made in the usa ddd c e l l o s waRning: cOpyrighT subsisTs in all Recordings issued undeR This label. El Motivo There are two versions of Eduardo Arolas’s El Marne on this CD. In the first one, for It all started in 2000 in Davis, California, when Pablo Ortiz played me a recording of String Trio, I was inspired by a recording by Ciriaco Ortiz and a little also by Horacio improvisations by Aníbal Troilo and Astor Piazzolla on Volver and El Motivo. I found Salgán. Pablo Ortiz’s version is for three cellos, which he decided should be turned into the freedom, expression and dialogue of the two bandoneonists absolutely wonderful. It a fast Milonga. And all the phonies go mad with joy by Pablo Ortiz started from an idea seemed to me that most of the time this kind of freedom escapes us classical musicians. for a string trio where the viola would be the soloist. It has a particularly nostalgic atmo- We started fantasizing whether one could bring something of that freedom to our sphere partly thanks to the colors created by the importance of the viola part. The title world. Could one possibly write music in a way that would leave space for this kind pays homage to J. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. of freedom while still giving enough information on what the composer has in mind? Pablo started writing pieces for cello, multiple cellos and cello with other string Julián Plaza’s Nocturna in my version for string trio was based on a memory of a instruments. Each of them approaches this question from a slightly different angle. He recording that I once heard of it, without ever even finding out whose it was. That also started playing around with the concept of original composition versus transcription, performance gave the piece a distant feel of a Fellini film with Nino Rota’s music. or music inspired by other music. It is often hard to tell in these pieces whether the It is the one piece on the CD that really cannot be called sad. composer is an interpreter, or the interpreter a composer. After a few years of watching how Pablo worked with this material I could no Pablo Ortiz’s Trois Tangos en marge brings together three pieces. The first, corn alone longer keep my fingers away from transcribing pieces myself. I tend to use as a starting just won’t do is a reaction to El Choclo, which can be translated as the ear of corn. point some very personal interpretation by old tango masters, studying their particular Suomi la milonga does something almost impossible, it takes the despair out of a style in performing the classic tangos, both from Argentina and Finland. In basing Finnish tango melody and turns it into a Milonga. edelleen laitakaupungilla (still in the each of my transcriptions on a particular style and then elaborating, or improvising on suburbs) gets its inspiration from the tango El Arrabal (a suburb) and Aki Kaurismäki’s it I imagined myself continuing Pablo’s study in freedom and the shifting line between film, Laitakaupungin Valot (The lights of the suburbs). invention and re-invention. José Aguilar’s Tengo Miedo is recorded here in my version for violin and cello, inspired El Choclo by Angel Villoldo is an example of how complicated the story behind some by the unique freedom of the version sung by Alberto Vila. of these pieces is: we discussed making a solo cello version of this famous tango. Pablo wrote an introduction for solo cello; meanwhile I had made a transcription for string trio Pablo Ortiz’s el jefe is a version for viola and cello of a piece, which was originally written and had to then transcribe Pablo’s introduction for string trio as well. My transcription for two cellos. The challenge for the players in this piece is to switch between following is based on a wonderfully dry and straight recording by Roberto Firpo, with a nod to each other loosely and being strictly together. Austria and another to Finland. Juan Carlos Cobián’s Nostalgias is another of the great tango classics of which Pablo Ortiz made an improvisatory version for solo cello. Everyone knows that Argentina is the home of tango, but few know how old and The final piece on this CD takes us to a surprising tango country, Austria. The important the tango tradition is in Finland. These two kinds of tangos give quite dif- Austrian composers, Eddie Cassen and Charly Niessen wrote in 1955 a Tango ferent shades to the nostalgia and sadness they both are about. The two Finnish tangos Cappriccioso called Tango Desirée. This piece became immensely popular in Finland that I have transcribed for three cellos are by the greatest Finnish tango composers and has been championed by all the famous Finnish tango singers. —Anssi Karttunen Olavi Virta and unto Mononen. My version of Unto Mononen’s Sateen Tango (Rain tango) is influenced by the sounds Pablo Ortiz teaches Composition at the university of California, Davis. Major com- of raindrops, and the feeling of getting lost on a dark and rainy autumn night. missioners include the Koussevitzky Foundation to write Raya en el mar for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players; Fideicomiso para la cultura Mexico-uS to Pablo Ortiz’s En Cada Verso is one of Pablo’s many fantasies for solo cello. The score write children’s songs; the Gerbode Foundation to compose Oscuro for Chanticleer; gives very little indication of how the piece should be performed, but after playing it the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Terezin Foundation. In 2008 through countless times the music tells each player exactly how it wants to be played. he received an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. There can never twice be quite the same interpretation, playing it is like being part of an oral tradition. The inspiration for this original piece comes from the first measure of Zebra Trio members Ernst Kovacic, violin, Steven Dann, viola and Anssi Karttunen, cello the tango Malena canta el tango. have each enjoyed close working relationships with major composers of our time and they wish to share their passion for contemporary music by combining new and unknown works Pablo Ortiz’s El motivo revisited takes Juan Carlos Cobián’s tango and turns it into a with the pillars of the repertoire. Since their first concerts in Canada and their European debut wild fantasy for three cellos. This is finally Pablo’s answer to my original question from in Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofia, they have premiered new trios written for them by Pablo Ortiz, the year 2000, whether it was possible for classical musicians to give the impression of Kaija Saariaho, Friedrich Cerha, Rolf Wallin and Miroslav Srnka. They have released the endlessness of the improvisation of Troilo and Piazzolla. CDs of works by Cerha on Kairos, Brahms on Toccata Classics and Saariaho on Ondine. Olavi Virta’s Sä et kyyneltä nää (You won’t see me cry) made me want to study the extremes of the registers and colors available on three cellos. In Loca Bohemia Pablo Ortiz takes Francisco de Caro’s tango and lets it slip into a Finnish folk song Sä kasvoit neito kaunoinen, a song that many Finns sing to their : Ansi Karttunen, Karttunen, : Ansi mothers on Mother’s day. The result is a surrealistic dream. right to left Ernst Kovacic, Steven Dann Steven Kovacic, Ernst Anssi Karttunen, a cellist of considerable versatility has given more than 130 world premieres, plays the classical concertos and chamber music. He is also an avid transcriber; Brahms, Schumann and Chausson for chamber ensembles, tangos and pieces of his contemporaries for cello and cello ensembles. Kaija Saariaho, Magnus Lindberg and Tan Dun are some of the composers with whom he has worked over a long period of time. Timo-Veikko Valve shares his time between the solo cellist position with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, solo concerts and chamber music. He studied in Helsinki with Heikki Rautasalo and Marko Ylönen and in Sweden with Torleif Thedéen. Several composers have written for him, most recently he premiered the concertos of Olli Koskelin and Eero Hämeenniemi.