Astor Piazzolla merged Argentinean popular music and 20th-century classical styles to spearhead the revolutionary movement known as “new tango.” Born in Argentina, Piazzolla spent much of his childhood in New York. At age eight, he took up the bandoneón, a South American folk instrument in the accordion family. He moved back to Argentina as a teenager and joined traditional tango orchestras, soon establishing a career in Buenos Aires. Besides performing in dance bands and arranging songs for the large ensembles, Piazzolla also pursued a separate path composing concert music. Like many aspiring composers of his generation, he found his way to the legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger in Paris, who encouraged him to drop his Igor Stravinsky/Bela Bartók/Maurice Ravel approximations and embrace his true voice in tango.

Before long, Piazzolla assembled the group that would be the platform for most of his groundbreaking work. The Quinteto Nuevo Tango (New Tango Quintet) featured Piazzolla on bandoneón, plus violin, bass, piano and electric guitar. It was for this group that Piazzolla wrote his Quatros Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires) between 1964 and 1970. As with many of his small-group compositions, the Four Seasons have been reshaped by various arrangers for classical ensembles. The version for solo violin with strings, arranged by Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov, stands as an impassioned response to Vivaldi’s most famous violin concertos, the Four Seasons. The percussive, dancing origins of Piazzolla’s music are on display throughout, and Desyatnikov’s arrangement makes ample use of the string ensemble’s extended techniques and unconventional sound effects to carry the rhythmic drive of the music.

Aaron Grad ©2022