Understanding the tango genius of Astor Piazzolla

Why Piazzolla is considered the most innovative composer of Argentine tango in the 20th century? What is the connection between J.S. Bach and Piazzolla? How hard was it to change the tradition of Argentine tango music?

Track 1, 2:

Two world-class cellists, Carlos Prieto and Yo-yo Ma and  the Argentine-born composer Osvaldo Golijov are discussing why Piazzolla's tango music has such universal appeal. The tango pianist Octavio Brunetti "illustrated" the discussion.

Track 3:

Mexican cellist Carlos Prieto tells the history of Le Grand Tango, the tango for cello, which Piazzolla composed for Mstislav Rostropovich. Prieto was the first cellist to record Le Grand Tango with Edison Quintana.

Prieto wrote the gem of a book The Adventures of a Cello, which has an excellent section on Argentine tango, Piazzolla and Le Grand Tango. CD From Bach to Piazzolla (with Le Grand Tango) accompanies the book.

One thing that the listeners of this show will  not able to experience is Soledad performed live by Brunetti and Yo-yo Ma at the end of seminar. I am positive that a lot of people in the audience were on the verge of tears. There is the studio recording of Soledad by the same duo. It appears on Yo-yo Ma's album Appassionato.

Yo-yo Ma/Brunetti - Soledad

Sources

The "sound quotes" for this show came from the panel on Astor Piazzolla, Radcliffe, October 2007.

Links

Audio-visual recordings of lectures from Tango! conference

Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla (PDF) Maria Susana Azzi (Piazzolla's biographer)
lecture in IDB Cultural Center, Washington, DC, March 2000