Latest Recording: Triunfal
Released July 17, 2020
The release of Triunfal will prelude a worldwide tour to celebrate and commemorate 100 years of the maestro Astor Piazzolla, kicking off in March 2021 and lasting through March 2022.
For the recording and promotion of this special album, the original members of the group that was formed a little over 20 years ago reunite to pay homage to and honor this great composer through a worldwide tour: Pablo Mainetti on bandoneón, Nicolás Guerschberg on piano, Serdar Geldymuradov on violin, Daniel Falasca on double bass, and Armando de la Vega on guitar, under the musical direction of Julián Vat.
This will be a new chapter in the history of Quinteto Astor Piazzolla, which will be making its mark around the world with this powerfully symbolic and emotional homage.
As Omar Garcia Brunelli, author of Estudios sobre la obra de Astor Piazzolla, explains in the liner notes, “This new album brings us a selection of music that walks us through two stages of evolution in Piazzolla's creative career: the creation of the Nuevo Tango ‘piazzolleano’ developed through the 1960s, and its debut to the world throughout the 1980s.”
“Triunfal,” the title track of the album, is one of Piazzolla's earlier works, one that foreshadowed artistic elements that he later utilized in the 1960s. It is also the same piece he played for Nadia Boulanger in Paris upon her request to showcase the kind of music he performed back in Buenos Aires. The iconic pedagogue immediately saw the passion and discipline in his music, two virtues she considered fundamental to creation, and so she insisted that Piazzolla not abandon this path. From then on, Piazzolla began to cultivate a sound that would become synonymous with his name and change the world of tango music.
"The works included in this volume musically recount distinctive moments of an intense and passionate creative story, in which there is no shortage of tributes and nods to his idols and his musicians, the cities he's lived in and his life experiences,” notes Garcia Brunelli.
There are 14 tracks, all masterfully performed by Quinteto Astor Piazzolla, that summarize some of the most emblematic moments of the maestro's career, from “Decarísimo,” which corresponds to Piazzolla's first Nuevo Tango album, recorded in 1961, continuing on to “Bragatisimo,” “Kicho” pays homage to one of the greatest double bassists in the history of tango. Other tracks are “Caliente,” “Bandoneón, guitarra y bajo,” “La Mufa,” “Todo Buenos Aires,” “Mar de Plata 70,” “Biyuya,” “Milonga Tres,” “Camorra II,” “Tristeza — separación,” “Tanguedia III,” and of course “Triunfal,” which lends its title to the album, a tango from 1953, earlier than the creation of Nuevo Tango, yes, but nevertheless important and part of Piazzolla's creative evolution.
“‘Triunfal’ belongs to a time when Piazzolla composed and arranged for other orchestras.” says Garcia Brunelli, “He later picked the piece back up in 1959 to record as a jazz-tango arrangement, a result of his mingling and experimenting with the New York music scene influences of the time. Piazzolla then composed another arrangement for his newfound quintet in 1960, which is the one we hear in this album."
Under the general direction of Laura Escalada Piazzolla, musical direction by Julián Vat, editing and mixing by Mariano Beyoglonian, mastering by Carlos Laurenz, and production by Dario Vaccaro, Triunfal is now available on all major online music streaming platforms.
