About the piece:

Astor Piazzolla is widely considered the most important tango composer of the latter half of the twentieth century. His compositions revolutionized the traditional tango with a modern style — incorporating elements from jazz and classical music in a style termed nuevo tango. He was keenly aware of the changing style of the Argentine national dance over his lifetime. It was entirely natural that he should seek to remind his critics and fans alike of the fact that tango had begun in the process of musical evolution and altered its sound and mood through that same process.

Histoire du Tango is the vehicle by which he did so. It is not written for the standard tango band, but is a kind of abstraction of that sound into a classical suite, originally written for flute and guitar.

The 3 movements of the piece (Bordel 1900, Café 1930, Nightclub 1960, and Concert d'aujourd'hui) covers the evolution of the dance through the twentieth century. Tango evolved from an earlier popular dance called the milonga, which is itself evolved from the Cuban rhythm known as habañera. Tango was initially regarded as a low dance because, like North American jazz, it originated in bordellos.

“Café 1930” was written directly from Piazolla's memories of the type of tango played in cafés in Buenos Aires. This respectful depiction of the full-blown traditional tango is performed by Eduardo Leandro on marimba and Yeon-Su Kim (Eduardo's wife) on violin.

From the composer:

Khan Variations was jointly commissioned by Bogdan Bacanu, Michael Burritt, Ricardo Gallardo, Eduardo Leandro, Nanae Mimura, William Moersch, Peter Prommel, Gordon Stout, Jack Van Geem, Robert Van Sice, Nancy Zeltsman and Alan Zimmerman, with the assistance of New Music Marimba. Nancy Zeltsman was the "Project Organiser."

"For some years I have listened to the Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He was perhaps the greatest exponent of Qawwali, the music of the sufi mistics. This music in general, and Ali Khan’s singing in particular, are characterised by remarkable rhythmic and melismatic subtlety.

The Kahn variations are a set of 8 rhythmic variations based on a traditional theme from Qawwali music as sang by Ali Kahn. The basic pulse and ‘feel’ of the music has lingered in my mind ever since I first heard the recording in the early 90’s. I developed each of the 8 variations -which are played as a continuous piece- exploring a different rhythmic and melodic aspect of the original theme. However, from the harmonic point of view the piece is rather static, respecting the lack or harmony -in the western sense- of the original traditional theme.

As I look at the score now, I can recognise a range of influences from Conlon Nancarrow, tango music, and my own previous pieces for marimba. All these influences have one thing in comon: the articulation of pulse, or multiple simultaneous pulses to create a dramatic musical discourse."

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