Classical Music | Cello Music

Recorded on 06/22/2005, uploaded on 02/18/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Grand Tango for Cello and Piano                  Astor Piazzolla

Written in 1982 and dedicated to Mtislav Rostropovitch, this work contains all the qualities of Tangos: daring harmonies, spiky dissonance, pulsing rhythm and syncopation, as well as glissandi (slides up and down the fingerboard), strikes to the instrument, and wide mood swings. This is a wonderful rhapsody, requiring a high degree of virtuosity by the players. Though played without pause, the work is comprised of three sections; the first rhythmically strident, alternating moods of violence and tenderness; the second, a lyrical melancholy song of simple texture, and the third a return to the rhythmic insistence of the first, with a wonderful bluesy part for piano, building in tempo and intensity to a grand climax.    Wendy Law

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.