Le Grand Tango for Cello and Piano
ASTOR PIAZZOLLA
Born March 11, 1921, Mar de Plata, Argentina
Died July 4, 1992, Buenos Aires

As a young man, Astor Piazzolla learned to play the bandoneon, the Argentinian accordion-like instrument that uses buttons rather than a keyboard, and he became a virtuoso on it. But his musical path was not at first clear: he gave concerts, made a film soundtrack, and created his own bands before a desire for wider expression drove him to the study of classical music. He received a grant to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and it was that great teacher who advised him to follow his passion for the Argentinean tango as the source for his own music.

Piazzolla returned to Argentina and gradually evolved his own style, one that combines the tango, jazz and classical music. In his hands, the tango-which had deteriorated into a soft, popular form-was revitalized. Piazzolla transformed this old Argentinean dance into music capable of a variety of expression and fusing sharply-contrasted moods: his tangos are by turn fiery, melancholy, passionate, tense, violent, lyric and always driven by an endless supply of rhythmic energy.

Le Grand Tango, which Piazzolla wrote specifically for cello and piano, is one of his few chamber works and one of his few pieces of "classical" music, though it too is driven by the varying moods and vitality of the tango. This is a big piece, and it has become a great favorite of cellists-there are a number of recordings available. Le Grand Tango is episodic in structure: moments of lilting languor alternate with impassioned sequences full of energy, and finally this Tango rushes to its fiery close on a great upward glissando.