The rapid stream of
Piazzolla
releases of the years on either side of 2000 has slowed a bit, but performers keep coming up with fresh takes on his music. An example is this set of "
Piazzolla Stories
" by trumpeter
Lucienne Renaudin Vary
. One wouldn't immediately expect the trumpet to be well suited to
's music, but
Vary
has approached her task intelligently in several ways. For one thing, her program is not exclusively devoted to the tango master; the
Stories
are views into
's relationships with other composers who had an impact on his music in some way. These are not just the obvious ones -- tango star
Carlos Gardel
, composer and
's teacher
Alberto Ginastera
-- but also
Bach
,
Nadia Boulanger
(another teacher, and the one responsible for
's having selected tango as his path), and
Niccolo Paganini
, perhaps a stretch, but the transcriptions for trumpet are great. Further, although
Oblivion
is here,
inclines toward tango songs and the overture music from the opera
Maria de Buenos Aires
more than toward the bandoneonist's classic tangos, where the trumpet might have an unwanted dominant role. She cultivates a gentle, melancholy tone that is appropriate to the tango surroundings, and the
Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra
also shapes itself well to the music. This may be an odd
/classical crossover release, but give it a hearing. ~ James Manheim