Hommage à Piazzolla

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DescriptionExcerpt

Gidon Kremer performs the work of composer, arranger, bandoneón virtuoso, and tango master Astor Piazzolla. The acclaimed violinist has assembled a group of musicians modeled after the legendary quintet Piazzolla used for his performances—violin, guitar, bass, piano and bandoneón. Kremer's passionate readings of the composer’s works range from haunting to romantic to rigorous to melancholy.

 

Description

In his liner notes accompanying the recording, composer John Adams says of Astor Piazzolla, “It is a rare musical mind that can elevate a single small musical form like the tango into an expressive vehicle of such depth and range. The impression we take away from experiencing these tangos is of a complete and indigenous native voice, one whose roots were as innately Buenos Aireian as Tchaikovsky’s were Muscovite.”

One of the most original artists of his generation, violinist Gidon Kremer performs the work of composer, arranger, bandoneón virtuoso and tango master Piazzolla, displaying a new dimension in both his playing and repertoire for Hommage á Piazzolla. Kremer (who collaborated with Adams on the Nonesuch release of Adams’ Violin Concerto) has assembled a group of musicians modeled after the legendary quintet Piazzolla used for his performances--violin, guitar, bass, piano and bandoneón. Diapason said of his performance with these musicians earlier this year in Paris, “Gidon Kremer remains the most unsurpassed inventor of his instrument. He is a tremendous musician at the service of the most beautiful tangos in the world. The Nonesuch recording will immortalize this encounter.”

After World War II, inspired by American jazz and concert music, Piazzolla revolutionized the Argentinean tango. “For me,” he once said, “tango was always for the ear rather than the feet.” His “Nuevo Tango,” with its intense melancholy, harmonic and rhythmic innovations, enraged traditionalists but became immensely influential among musicians and music fans around the globe.

Adams continues in his liner notes: “These harmonic sequences have a sense of inevitability in the way they pull inexorably toward the cadence, and it is the core of Piazzolla’s art to arrange--or to postpone--these arrivals in the most wrenchingly bittersweet of ways. It is as much as saying that you have finally arrived home, but home is no longer the same. Your house has been razed, and strangers now live in the neighborhood where you once played as a child.”

On Hommage á Piazzolla, Kremer is highly successful at conjuring that emotional tug-of-war in his interpretations of Piazzolla’s music. His passionate readings of the composer’s works range from haunting to romantic to rigorous to melancholy. One of the world’s best-known classical violinists, Kremer ventures into this musical style for the first time.

 

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced and engineered by Peter Laenger, Tritonus Musikproduktion, Stuttgart
Recorded July 1995 at Castle, Lockenhaus, and January 1996 at Studio Guillaume Tell, Paris
Assistant Engineer: Marcus Heiland

All compositions by Astor Piazzolla, except track 10 by Jerzy Peterburshsky. Arrangements: track 2 by Gustavo Beytelmann, track 3 by José Bragato, track 4 by Svjatoslav Lips, tracks 5-8 by the performers, track 9 by Carel Kraayenhof, track 10 by Leonid Desyatnikov, track 11 by Sofia Gubaidulina, Gidon Kremer, Vadim Sakharov

Design by Barbara deWilde
Cover photograph by Isabel Muñoz

Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz

Nonesuch Selection Number

79407

Number of Discs in Set
1disc
ns_album_artistid
66
ns_album_id
194
ns_album_releasedate
ns_genre_1
0
ns_genre_2
0
Album Status
Artist Name
Gidon Kremer
Astor Piazzolla
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
Gidon Kremer, violin (1-11)
Vadim Sakharov, piano (1, 3, 6-11)
Alois Posch, double bass (1-3, 6-10)
Michel Portal, clarinet (2, 9)
Per Arne Glorvigen, bandoneón (2, 3, 5-10)
Friedrich Lips, bajan (4)
Svjatoslav Lips, piano (4)
Vladimir Tonkha, violoncello (4)
Mark Pekarsky, percussion (4)
Paul Meyer, clarinet (6)
Elisabeth Chojnacka, harpsichord (8)

Cover Art
UPC/Price
Label
CD+MP3
UPC
075597940725BUN
Label
MP3
Price
9.00
UPC
603497198061
  • 79407

Track Listing

News & Reviews

  • Congratulations to all of the Nonesuch nominees for the 65th Grammy Awards: Molly Tuttle for Best New Artist and Best Bluegrass Album for Crooked Tree with Golden Highway; The Black Keys for Best Rock Album for Dropout Boogie and Best Rock Performance for "Wild Child"; Dan Auerbach for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical; Cécile McLorin Salvant for Best Jazz Vocal Album for Ghost Song and Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals for "Optimistic Voices / No Love Dying"; Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade's LongGone for Best Instrumental Album; Brad Mehldau's Jacob's Ladder for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album; Punch Brothers' Hell on Church Street for Best Folk Album; Caroline Shaw & Attacca Quartet's Evergreen for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance; Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder's GET ON BOARD for Best Traditional Blues Album; Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition) for Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes for Bob Mehr; and Astor Piazzolla: The American Clavé Recordings. for Best Album Notes for Fernando González. 

  • Nonesuch Records will release a three-LP/three-CD box set of albums from the great Argentine composer, bandleader, and bandoneón player Astor Piazzolla—originally released by American Clavé Records in the 1980s and reissued by Nonesuch more than two decades ago—on May 6, 2022. Astor Piazzolla: The American Clavé Recordings marks the first time this landmark trio of albums—Tango: Zero Hour, La Camorra: The Solitude of Passionate Provocation, and The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night (Tango Apasionado)—is being issued as a set, now remastered, and is the first time the albums have been available on vinyl since their initial release on American Clavé. The set’s liner notes include original and new notes by the albums’ producer and American Clavé founder Kip Hanrahan and an essay from journalist Fernando González, who translated and annotated Piazzolla’s memoirs and wrote liner notes for four of his albums.

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  • About This Album

    In his liner notes accompanying the recording, composer John Adams says of Astor Piazzolla, “It is a rare musical mind that can elevate a single small musical form like the tango into an expressive vehicle of such depth and range. The impression we take away from experiencing these tangos is of a complete and indigenous native voice, one whose roots were as innately Buenos Aireian as Tchaikovsky’s were Muscovite.”

    One of the most original artists of his generation, violinist Gidon Kremer performs the work of composer, arranger, bandoneón virtuoso and tango master Piazzolla, displaying a new dimension in both his playing and repertoire for Hommage á Piazzolla. Kremer (who collaborated with Adams on the Nonesuch release of Adams’ Violin Concerto) has assembled a group of musicians modeled after the legendary quintet Piazzolla used for his performances--violin, guitar, bass, piano and bandoneón. Diapason said of his performance with these musicians earlier this year in Paris, “Gidon Kremer remains the most unsurpassed inventor of his instrument. He is a tremendous musician at the service of the most beautiful tangos in the world. The Nonesuch recording will immortalize this encounter.”

    After World War II, inspired by American jazz and concert music, Piazzolla revolutionized the Argentinean tango. “For me,” he once said, “tango was always for the ear rather than the feet.” His “Nuevo Tango,” with its intense melancholy, harmonic and rhythmic innovations, enraged traditionalists but became immensely influential among musicians and music fans around the globe.

    Adams continues in his liner notes: “These harmonic sequences have a sense of inevitability in the way they pull inexorably toward the cadence, and it is the core of Piazzolla’s art to arrange--or to postpone--these arrivals in the most wrenchingly bittersweet of ways. It is as much as saying that you have finally arrived home, but home is no longer the same. Your house has been razed, and strangers now live in the neighborhood where you once played as a child.”

    On Hommage á Piazzolla, Kremer is highly successful at conjuring that emotional tug-of-war in his interpretations of Piazzolla’s music. His passionate readings of the composer’s works range from haunting to romantic to rigorous to melancholy. One of the world’s best-known classical violinists, Kremer ventures into this musical style for the first time.

     

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    Gidon Kremer, violin (1-11)
    Vadim Sakharov, piano (1, 3, 6-11)
    Alois Posch, double bass (1-3, 6-10)
    Michel Portal, clarinet (2, 9)
    Per Arne Glorvigen, bandoneón (2, 3, 5-10)
    Friedrich Lips, bajan (4)
    Svjatoslav Lips, piano (4)
    Vladimir Tonkha, violoncello (4)
    Mark Pekarsky, percussion (4)
    Paul Meyer, clarinet (6)
    Elisabeth Chojnacka, harpsichord (8)

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Produced and engineered by Peter Laenger, Tritonus Musikproduktion, Stuttgart
    Recorded July 1995 at Castle, Lockenhaus, and January 1996 at Studio Guillaume Tell, Paris
    Assistant Engineer: Marcus Heiland

    All compositions by Astor Piazzolla, except track 10 by Jerzy Peterburshsky. Arrangements: track 2 by Gustavo Beytelmann, track 3 by José Bragato, track 4 by Svjatoslav Lips, tracks 5-8 by the performers, track 9 by Carel Kraayenhof, track 10 by Leonid Desyatnikov, track 11 by Sofia Gubaidulina, Gidon Kremer, Vadim Sakharov

    Design by Barbara deWilde
    Cover photograph by Isabel Muñoz

    Executive Producer: Robert Hurwitz

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