Search - Astor Piazzolla, Jerzy Petersburski, Paul Dessau :: Hommage A Piazzolla

Piazzolla's Unofficial Interpreter

Kurt Harding | Boerne TX | 04/11/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first became aware of this CD several years ago as its melancholy strains wafted through the air of a bookstore through which I was browsing. My ears perked up...Piazzolla!!! Upon inquiry, I was shown the CD and I immediately purchased a copy. I couldn't wait to get home and listen to it at elevated volume. What a recording!! Kremer has captured and distilled the essence of Piazzolla's music. Every song is a masterpiece and nearly all of my favorite mid-period Piazzolla compositions are contained within. A special treat is the magnum opus which closes the set, a 12-minute rendering of Le Grand Tango with just Kremer's violin and the restrained passion of Vadim Sakharov's piano to lead your mind into another musical dimension. Gidon Kremer has since recorded a number of Piazzolla-related CDs and in so doing has set himself up as the unofficial interpreter of El Maestro's music. If you like Piazzolla, you are sure to enjoy this CD. I give it my highest recommendation."

Explains It All To Those Wounded in Love

Danusha Goska | Bloomington, IN | 01/15/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ever have a moment where you loved someone so much you hated him?



Ever have a relationship you could not get out of your mouth, your mind, your heart, your system, but that you knew was over and done with forever and ever, and you'd never even see the other again?



Ever feel so happy you wanted to cry? No, sob? Wrenching, wracking sobs? From happiness, now.



Yes?



Have I got a CD for you: Hommage a Piazzolla, featuring Gidon Kremer.



Like many, I suspect, I have a mixed relationship to tango. When I put on a tango CD, I fear I'll be hearing something that sets my teeth to jangling and makes me want to slap someone in the face.



This isn't that. You could listen to most of this while sitting perfectly still, on a window sill, in fact, with the lights down low in your apartment, as you stare out at the rain-slicked city at night. A drink sits on a nearby table, unfinished...you have no will to finish it.



(It's hard not to imagine these things while listening to this music; really, it's all so poetic, cinematic, irresistable.)



At some point, though, you're probably not going to be able to sit still any more, and you'll have to put that rose in your teeth and cut a few moves.



Tango often sounds, to we non-Argentinians, like a parody of itself.



This CD does not.



Rather, when I put it on, not at all sure what to expect, I had one of those epiphanies that art can give you.



I had been brooding over a vexed relationship, one I did not understand, but knew was hurting me, not with any immediacy, but like a sore tooth that could stand to go a few more months before you get over your fear of the dentist to get it fixed.



What bugged me most of all was that I did not understand what was hurting. Rationally, I had no reason to feel troubled.



I put on this CD, with the relationship way in the back of my mind, and I just, immediately thought, "That's it. This music is explaining it all; this music is articulating everything."



Not bad.



This kind of music, music that allows in the true bittersweet of life, the unsolvable, the passion, is all too rare. If music that addresses those qualities is what you crave, this CD might be just what you need.

"

Passionate, a little perverse, compelling

Francine Krasowska | Silver Spring, MD United States | 12/29/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was captivated by this recording after hearing bits of it on the radio. It grabs you by the lapels.... and then it grows on you. These readings of Piazzola's works are not as urbane as Yo-Yo Ma's, not as dignified as the Eroica Trio's, but I'm gonna stick my non-Argentine neck out & say these Russian & French musicians (consummate artists; this is no sloppy-but-soulful performance) are closer to what I've grown to see as Piazzola's mournful, peculiar, desperate, perverse spirit. These are not tango arrangements for the faint of heart."