The cover and tracklist of this British release do not quite convey what it's all about. It is not simply a performance by a classical chamber orchestra of some familiar Piazzolla pieces with a few neo-tango compositions added on. The revival of Astor Piazzolla's music may have been more pervasive in Britain than anywhere else, and pianist David Gordon and violinist Adam Summerhayes, working with the London Concertante orchestra, try something that no one else has quite attempted: a continuum of adaptation, beginning with fairly close string adaptations of Milonga del ángel and Muerte del ángel (although these two are fused together and capped with a Piazzolla-like fugue derived from the latter). From there the pair move through fairly substantially altered version of Piazzolla works (Soledad, which is sort of stripped down and then reconstituted), jazz treatment of Piazzolla (Decarísimo and Invierno porteño), and finally original pieces by Summerhayes, picking up on one aspect or another of Piazzolla's language. Despite Gordon's trepidation, expressed in his notes, these actually work quite well; Gordon has a jazz background, and the stylistically kaleidoscopic Milonga bourgeois, on which he collaborates with Summerhayes, makes for an attractive contrast with When Churchyards Yawn (track 5), picking up on Piazzolla's gloomy mode. The alterations to Piazzolla's works may seem bold, but they are motivated by admiration; Gordon writes that Piazzolla, "more than perhaps any composer since J.S. Bach … achieved the feat of absorbing all the musical influences acting upon him," and who is to say he is not correct in this rather startling assertion? It is further true that Piazzolla was open to stylistic fusions; even if he avoided the jazz angle, he surrounded himself toward the end of his career with players like Pablo Ziegler, who could play jazz, and there was clearly useful creative tension there. Listeners may like some pieces here more than others, but this is a stimulating and original program that hangs together. There's an X factor of sheer imagination working in the music's favor. The worst charge may be that the London musicians drag a bit in the more energetic tango rhythms. Gordon's notes expand on the project's aims; they appear in English, French, and German.
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