Jan Vogler - Tango! (2008)

German cellist Jan Vogler, who grew up in East Berlin and came to tango music via the famed surrealist film The Andalusian Dog, is straightforward in his aims for this release, which was recorded in New Jersey but grew from tango-themed performances at Germany's Moritzburg Castle. "We have found it most stimulating to classify Piazzolla as one of the twentieth century's great classical composers and to search for a wholly unique, and by the same token classical, Piazzolla performance practice." His view of the tone of Piazzolla's music is specific: inheriting the tango from vocalist Carlos Gardel, "Piazzolla transformed it into something explosive, sometimes almost brutal, sizzlingly passionate, and with the ambition of being great music," influenced, among others, by Stravinsky and Bartók. This is not all there is to Piazzolla, whose encounter with rock music, to take just one example, is often underestimated. However, Vogler forges elements that cohere into a muscular whole and delivers what he promises. He uses the arrangements of Piazzolla associate José Bragato, a cellist himself, who was adept in re-creating the textures of Piazzolla's bandoneón-led group on traditional instruments. He picks Piazzolla pieces that, although not the obvious "classical" ones except for the string quartet Four for Tango, are shaped by classical models, with special emphasis on fugal textures. He adds a fascinating non-Piazzolla piece to the mix: the "Alla Tango Milonga" movement from the Five Pieces for String Quartet of Erwin Schulhoff, a composer generally mentioned in connection with his demise in a concentration camp but whose music is well worth exploring on its own merits. Top it off with moody, intense performances that liberally draw from Piazzolla's own style, and you get a very strong choice for those wanting to start out with Piazzolla from the classical side.