LETTERS FROM ARGENTINALalo Schifrin (b. 1932)

Tango del AtardecerPampasTango BorealisDanza de Los MontesTango a borgesMalambo de Los Llanos

:: intermission ::

SIX BY PIAZZOLLAAstor Piazzolla (1921-1992)

Michelangelo 70Verano PorteñoAdios NoninoLa Muerte del AngelOblivionLibertango

9july

Satur

day

8 PM

Cho-Liang Lin, violin

David Shifrin, clarinet

Hector Del Curto, bandoneon

the program

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6viva tango!Alex Brown, piano

Satoshi Takeishi, percussion

Pablo Aslan, bass

This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of Jeannie and Angus McIntyre.

LETTERS FROM ARGENTINALalo Schifrin (b. Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 21, 1932)Composed 2004; 57 minutes

Letters from Argentina was premiered in April 2005 at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center andwas subsequently recorded on Lalo Schifrin’s CD label, Aleph Records. This evening’s concertfeatures four members of the original ensemble—Cho-Liang Lin, David Shifrin, Pablo Aslan, andSatoshi Takeishi—with Hector Del Curto now playing the bandoneon (originally Nestor Marconi),and Alex Brown at the piano instead of the composer, Lalo Schifrin, who was a member of thesextet in its first performance and recording. Mr. Schifrin (who is a distant cousin of the clarinetistDavid Shifrin, for whom he wrote the work) has provided the following comment, which heoriginally wrote for the liner notes of the Letters from Argentina CD.

Like the clear sky, like the rain, like the clouds, music has always been part of the Argentinean atmosphere. The strumming of the Gauchos’ guitars, the rhythms of theIndian drums, the expressive melodies of the bandoneon were the aural medium inwhich I grew up. In Argentina, the music was ever present in the literature, in the visual arts, and in the history of the country.

Tangos coming from radios, folk music sung and danced in festivities, Milongas and Candombes celebrating Mardi Gras surrounded my childhood in Buenos Aires.

Letters from Argentina are the musical memories enhanced by my imagination andconverted into impressions of my homeland. Working on this project helped me torecreate an unreal past in which a memory persists and invites us to a journey full of promises and dreams.

Tango Del Atardecer This is one of the pieces which I wrote for the score of CarlosSaura’s film “tango.” In this version a second part (Trio) was added, and its lyricism is a contrast to the sense of self-assurance of the first two themes.

The musicians participating not only in this number, but, in the whole CD are members of the Lincoln Center Chamber group ensemble. Its former director, DavidShifrin, a clarinet virtuoso. Cho-Liang Lin, an outstanding violin soloist. Pablo Aslanon bass and Sato Takeishi in percussion together with me on piano are added to thesextet’s nucleus. And finally, as a guest soloist, Nestor Marconi on bandoneoncompletes the ensemble.

Pampas The vast plains between the populated centers of Central Argentina and thePatagonia are called the PAMPA. I purposely wanted to convey the feeling of infinity, of vast spaces and solitude by transforming the title into “PAMPAS” in plural. There is a feeling of nostalgia but also of hope in this number which reflects the echoes ofArgentinean folk music.

Tango Boreales Vigor, energy, and a strong pulsation are the basic elements of thistango. The second part allows for the theme and variations form, inviting the soloiststo perform solos, duets and different instrumental combinations. The whole piecewhich came to my mind in Iceland was a tribute to Buenos Aires suburbs, where thecity almost meets the countryside.

Danza De Los Montes The Calchaquí Indians in the Northwest of Argentina were vassalsof the Incas before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors. In this number, we feel their

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

84 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

Lalo Schifrin, the renownedpianist, composer, arranger,and conductor, is widely admired for his work inmany musical genres. Hismany accolades include four Grammy awards and,for his film scores, severalOscar nominations.

rhythms juxtaposed to the scales that suffered the passing of time. The result is anexciting study on rhythms and melodic counterpoints.

Tango A Borges Jorge Luis Borges was one of the greatest Argentinean writers. Hispoems, essays, and short stories have enriched our culture.

This is a tribute to the great man whose provocative thoughts were (and still are) partof my intellectual formation. He loved Tango and even wrote lyrics to Milongas,which are the ancestors of that genre. We could say that the Milonga is a fast tango.

Resonancias Two different themes alternate almost as a “sonatine”: the first, which is built around the cycle of fourths (an interval which is neither major nor minor). Thesecond theme is actually a passacaglia which allows for improvisation. The spirit ofBuenos Aires permeates all through the piece.

La Calle y La Luna (The Street and the Moon) Like a musical portrait, this tangoevokes images of the Argentinean capital. I remember one night in one of the barrios.The street was deserted, only illuminated by a full and bright moon. However, themusic is not only a description of the scene, but expresses the feelings that this “letter” or rather “postcard” awakens in my memory.

Malambo De Los Llanos The gauchos were not peons. They were independent and enjoyed their absolute freedom. The Pampa was their habitat, and the horse theirtransportation. They did not work for a landlord and their resources came from whatever they could find in their nomadic lives.

The “Malambo” (Danza de Los Llanos) was their music, which they play with guitarswhile dancing. They used their spurs as percussion in combination with the bootspoints and heels. This was a dance for men only and a kind of challenge for the oneswho were trying to be faster, more creative in their rhythmic inventions and moreaggressive. Since it was performed only by male dancers, it was a metaphor of a duel!

SIX BY PIAZZOLLAAstor Piazzolla (b. Mar del Plata, Argentina, March 11, 1921; d. Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 4, 1992)

As a sixteen-year-old, Astor Piazzolla worked in the night clubs of Argentina, performingwith traditional tango orchestras while attempting to compose on the side. The pianist ArturRubinstein heard Piazzolla’s early compositions and, impressed, urged him to study with the great Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983). Under Ginastera’s tutelage, Piazzolla became familiar with the music of Ravel, Stravinsky, and Bartók and enthusiasticallyadopted them as models. By night he continued to make his way as a tango musician.

In 1953, with Ginastera’s support, Piazzolla won a French government grant to study in Pariswith the renowned Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979). Thinking that this student of Gabriel Fauréand teacher of Aaron Copland would help him unlock the mysteries of composition, Piazzollapresented himself to her for instruction.

“When I met her,” he wrote later, “I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. Shestarted to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: ‘It’s very well written.’And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball. After a long while, she said, ‘Hereyou are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what happens? I can’t findPiazzolla in this.’ And she began to investigate my private life, what I did, what I did and did

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Astor Piazzolla was a virtuosoperformer on the bandoneon.

not play, if I was single, married or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent.

“And I was very ashamed to tell her,” Piazzolla continued, “that I was a tango musician.”

“Finally I said, ‘I play in a night club.’ I didn’t want to say ‘cabaret.’ And she answered, ‘Nightclub, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered, and thought ‘I’ll hit thiswoman in the head with a radio…’ It wasn’t easy to lie to her. She kept asking. ‘You say thatyou’re not a pianist. What instrument do you play, then?’ And I didn’t want to tell her that Iwas a bandoneon player, because I thought, ‘Then she will throw me from the fourth floor.’Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own.

“She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand, and told me: ‘You idiot. That’s Piazzolla!’ AndI took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds.”

He continued his study with Boulanger, devoting himself whole-heartedly to the tango, to thebandoneon, to the tango orchestra, and to searching explorations of the music. Returning toBuenos Aires, and with extended stays in the United States and tours throughout the world,Piazzolla became enormously influential as a bandoneon performer and composer of tangos.The six tangos on this evening’s concert are among his most well-known.

Michelangelo 70 Michelangelo was a Buenos Aires café in which Piazzolla’s New Tango Quintet performed in the 1970s. The piece first appeared on the recording Nuevo Tango: Zero Hour, which wasreleased in 1986. Piazzolla is said to have considered this his greatest album.

Verano PorteñoPiazzolla wrote four tangos that eventually were gathered under the title of “Cuatro EstacionesPorteñas”—The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires (“porteño” refers to someone born in thecapital city of Argentina). Verano Porteño—Buenos Aires Summer—was composed in 1965as incidental music for a play, Melanita de Oro, by Alberto Rodriguez Muñoz.

Adios NoninoIn October 1959 Piazzolla composed “Farewell, Nonino” in New York City as a memorial tribute to his father, Vicente “Nonino” Piazzolla, a few days after his passing.

La Muerte del AngelIn 1962 Piazzolla composed evocative incidental music for another theater piece by AlbertoRodriguez Muñoz, Tango del Ángel. The play portrays the residents of a poor Buenos Airesneighborhood who are uplifted by the benevolence of an angel. This innocent being suffers

the common fate of many urban saints: death in a knife fight, describedmusically in “La Muerte del Angel—The Death of the Angel.”

OblivionPiazzolla wrote and recorded “Oblivion” for the Italian film Enrico IV,based on the play of that name by Luigi Pirandello. Directed by MarcoBellocchio, and featuring the well-known actors Marcello Mastroianniand Claudia Cardinale, the film, seen at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival,helped to bring this tango before a world-wide audience.

LibertangoAs a symbol of his transition from so-called Classical Tango to what he called his Tango Nuevo—New Tango—Piazzolla named this piece“Libertango.” First recorded and published by Piazzolla in Milan in 1974,Libertango has been widely performed and recorded, notably by thecellist Yo-Yo Ma on his CD Soul of the Tango: The Music of Astor Piazzolla.

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

86 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

Astor Piazzolla(1921-1992)

The bandoneon is the most typical instrument in the tango ([like] the saxophone in jazz). It is very differentfrom the accordion, [to] which somesuperficial similarities could be perceived.However, the bandoneon was born inGermany during the Renaissance invillages with small churches that couldnot afford a large organ. So, thebandoneon is a sort of portable organand arrived to Argentina with theimmigration waves from Europe during the nineteenth century.

–Lalo Schifrin