*** Vinyl LP ***

A high-grade transfer to LP for a 2018 album of tangos stylishly arranged and performed by an Italian violin-guitar duo.

It has been said that in Argentina ‘everything can change except the Tango’. Such a statement reckoned without the catalysing influence of Astor Piazzolla, who revolutionised this genre in the mid-20th century. Effectively making a new genre of ‘classical tango’ he reinvented tango against the traditionalists’ opinions. Andrea Dieci’s arrangements encourage the performers to yield to the pulse of the music, to conjure up sounds full of vivid colours, to succumb to the melodies that chase after each other in a fever of modulation and variation, swaying between frenzy to intimacy.

If Argentina and the Tango are inextricably linked together, Astor Piazzolla is the personification of a ‘Nuevo Tango’, a new exciting mix of the traditional dance with jazz and classical influences. As one of his biographers remarked: ‘Tango is a music of paradoxes. For porteños, as the inhabitants of the port city Buenos Aires are called, it is the deepest expression of their identity. But this music, born at the turn of the century in the muddy outskirts of the city, is a porridge of African, European, and indigenous cultures.’

Piercarlo Sacco and Andrea Dieci demonstrated their special affinity with Piazzolla in their ‘Café 1930’ album. This sequel is no less successful in turning to more rarely heard tangos by Piazzolla such as Psicosis, Suavidad, Dernier lamento and Made in USA.

Piazzolla’s art rings out in authentically sinuous style through the voice of the guitar in dialogue with the violin; and in Fièvre and Détresse with the viola.

‘First-class performances, and the transcriptions are most exciting in terms of both sound and tango... Piercarlo Sacco and Andre Dieci prove to be sensitive interpreters of instrumental melancholy and passion.’ – Klassik.com