"music is played to heal wounds, but tango to open and put a finger in them" (Ramon Gomez de la Serna)
Astor Piazzolla
Bandoneonist Astor Piazzolla, born 1921 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, lived in New York, USA and Rom, Italy, studied composition at the Paris Conservatory with Nadia Boulanger and finally conquered the world with his Quintett and his Tango.
Piazzollas music defines itself by a huge emotional range: wildness, passion, poetry, sensuality, cruelty – all the depth of the human soul.
Only an exceptionally talented musician with total mastery in the art of composition could transform the traditional Argentinian tango in a whole new musicform – the Tango Tango Nuevo: a music in which Piazzollas affinity to works of Bach (counterpoint lines and harmonic sequences), Bartok and Strawinsky (extended harmonics) can be clearly recognized.
Piazzolla, who was always sensitive to the borderline between emotion and pathos, who hardly separated improvisation and composition in his concerts with his famous quintett, playing with jazz- as well with classical-musicians, will mostly be remembered for his unsurpassed bandoneon-play