“You idiot! Don’t you see that this is the true Piazzolla, not that other one? You can throw all your other music away!” Nadia Boulanger, the famous Paris professor of composition, is said to have said to Astor Piazzolla when he played her a tango on the piano. By the “other music” she meant his composition attempts in which the musical influence of Argentina was nowhere to be heard. Piazzolla’s affinity with the traditional music of his homeland was too deep for him to be able to deny his musical roots, even though tango musicians were anything but respected in the Argentina of his youth.

The music of all the composers on this CD is an inspiring fusion: folk roots reflected in serious musical works that are strongly characterised by their composers’ Latin origins. The composers also share common role models in European art music – Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy and de Falla.

The mandolin and the guitar are inextricably linked with the traditional music of Italy, Spain, Argentina and Brazil – the native countries of the composers on this CD. In Spain and Argentina the guitar is the national instrument; the mandolin is most closely associated with Italy, where it originated. Playing these “folk instruments” in a classical style also connects them with traditional art music through their provenance and individual tonal spectrum.

In several respects this recording is dialectically positioned between traditional Latin roots and the search for modern European music.

re: composed – rearranged, reinterpreted, recomposed

The program of this CD recording provides for the unusual instrumentation of classical guitar and percussion, combines works of the most distinctive styles and ages:  In addition to musical “discoveries,” some older and well-known works, originally composed for the piano, can be heard here arranged for guitar and percussion allowing the listener to “re”-discover these wonderful compositions.

Perhaps not at first sight, but when you look at it again, a piano has some things in common with both a guitar and the percussion instruments. The tone is generated by striking a string. By arranging the piano works for this duo instrumentation, not only new acoustic colors are created: Manners of articulation specific for the instruments can point to other and new ways for the future of music.

The pieces of Jaime M. Zenamon and Christian Klaus Frank are first recordings.