The works on this CD, by composers from geographically distant regions, represent a wide, sweeping journey from one land to another, a sort of musical voyage between two continents, between Argentina and the Mediterranean region. The bond linking these regions is undoubtedly to be found in the music of Buenos Aires in general and in Astor Piazzolla's tango in particular. Piazzolla was taken up by Tirao and Lacagnina and adapted to their own styles. If we can say that the Mediterranean sowed a seed at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata so that a hybrid like the tango should spring up, then it is also true to say that these double roots lent it particular potential in terms of content and meaning, history and tradition, past and strength: they make of the tango a type of music that steps beyond time and space and is constantly seeking its oldest origins.
In the double concerto for guitar, bandoneon and string orchestra by Astor Piazzolla (1921-22) the Introduction (Hommage à Liège, 1985) marks the "entrée" of the soloists in a free musical discourse, prelude without time signature (as though seeking the keys that will only be reached further on). The movement is rich in chromaticisms and characterised by the enharmonic of E flat-D sharp. The opening motif, sustained by percussion rhythms, moves into an arpeggio continuation where the bandoneon at last finds its entry. The movement closes in meno mosso, a harmonic voyage of discovery that prepares the second movement (Milonga). Here the orchestra finally enters. From the very beginning the tango rings out in a strongly marked rhythm, at first on the bandoneon accompanied by orchestral chords. This accompaniment offers in some places a three-part division of violas and cello. After a brief cadenza the solo instrument begins a da capo in which the bandoneon line is transferred to the strings (a genuine orchestral reprise). A fugal concluding theme, introduced by the cello, is immediately taken up by the violins in the closing section of this concerto.
Cacho Tirao (born in Buenos Aires in 1941) played his Conciertango Buenos Aires for guitar and orchestra in Liège in 1985 - on the same occasion he performed the Piazzolla concerto under von Brouwer's baton. The piece is based, as the title suggests, on Argentinean folk music. The concerto itself is structured as a series of small pictures, closed forms, which lend the work an authentic, naïf character. Notwithstanding this the music is no less profound and in terms of imagery no less meaningful than the extra-musical realm of tales and mimic-gestural elements that we have already mentioned. Cacho Tirao's long musical experience with tango groups (from the "muchachos de antes" with whom he has devoted himself to the traditional tango on to the Piazzolla Quintet of which he was a member from 1968 to 1970), is brought to life pictorially like the joyful bustle of carnival, in the folk elements of this composition which reminds the listener of a popular street festival.
The Concerto Serenata by Oliviero Lacagnina (born in La Spezia in 1951) was composed in 1994 and dedicated to Edoardo Catemario. It is a tribute to the composer Piazzolla's Mediterranean spirit. The Italian influence emerges in a heartfelt central movement (Elegia), whose gripping melody, triple time and strophic order point towards Castelnuovo Tedesco's Concerto N° 1 for Guitar and orchesta. The composition is of exceptional rhythmic wealth, borne especially in the first movement (Ritmico) by the urgent phrasing of the soloist and orchestra, and never finds respite in its rapid succession of short episodes. The tango as an eternal expression of the human spirit, mysterious and captivating in its lively, irregular 7/4 beat, exploding in the third movement in a cry that is overwhelmed in the restless chase of the protagonists with the initial "conflict" allayed as the guitar is drawn into the orchestra.
The contraposition of the soloist, which has already been found, albeit in other forms, in the two previous works, develops in the following piece into an authentic sound-drama which - like the tango itself - holds within itself the transience of the present, the joy of encounter (the tango as a dance is the expression of sensuality and desire, of the unattainable and of melancholy). The solo concerto thus becomes a theatrical transposition of deep, secret feelings cast in music.
The variety of ways in which the creators of these three concertos handle the insertion of the soloist as a sort of "entrance" makes the solo concerto an ideal, suggestive stage for a "Listening Theatre".