Astor Piazzolla: Tango Nuevo Piano Duo Eduard & Johannes Kutrowatz

• Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992): Arranged by Kyoko Yamamoto:
• 1 Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas: I. Primavera Porteña (Frühling / Spring) 05:26
• 2 Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas: II. Verano Porteño (Sommer / Summer) 06:33
• 3 Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas: III. Otoño Porteño (Herbst / Autumn) 06:12
• 4 Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas: IV. Invierno Porteño (Winter) 07:36
• 5 Decarísimo 03:02
• 6 Escualo 03:42
• 7 Milonga del Angel 07:46
• 8 Libertango 03:54
• 9 Michelangelo '70 03:09
• 10 Buenos Aires Hora Cero 05:01
• 11 Adiós Nonino 07:05
• 12 Oblivion 05:25
• 13 Le Grand Tango 12:22
• Total Runtime 01:17:13

Info for Astor Piazzolla: Tango Nuevo

“I am a tango man, but my music makes people think. Those who love the tango, and those who like good music.” Astor Piazzolla

Piazzolla was a perfectionist who was never satisfied. Loved by his colleagues and dreaded for his uncompromising attitude whilst performing. A master of the 20th century who succeeded in giving a universal touch to a style bound to a place and a specific way of life. Piazzola’s tango nuevo is fully composed. However, it does not set limits to instrumentations and allows individual orchestrations – the performer can tap the full potential of his instrumental possibilities.

Many musicians succumbed to the richness and emotional range of his music. “Astor’s music enables me to express a wide range of emotions in a very artistic and, at the same time, very simple manner. Piazzolla was courageous, honest and uncomplicated. He did not suppress his emotions, a fact that tends to cause the contempt of intellectual snobs”, says Gidon Kremer, who has been connected to Piazzolla’s work through long lasting love. He was also the first to infect the Kutrowatz duo with this love for Piazzolla. May they be called Kremer, Emmanuel Ax, Daniel Barenboim, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma or Kronos Quartet – they all know: Astor Piazzolla’s music does not sully the hands of a classical musician. On the contrary: it enriches and challenges.

The soulful, sensitive interpretations of the Kutrowatz duo – arranged by Japanese pianist and composer Kyoko Yamamoto and accompanied with feeling by percussionist Anton Mühlhofer – make up for an authentic dialogue with Astor in the recording at hand. An examination of vital significance, which is both serious and calm. For it is always a tightrope walk to find the right balance between an intonation full of nuances and a free flowing play within the required tango rubato: In tempi which are either hasty and pushy or tremendously slow, with sudden breaks, that seem as if the heart suddenly stops – they stand for the corte in danced tango, the pauses of the couple in between the step sequences. May the wondrous journey to a multilayered world of emotions and authentic tango feeling begin.

“The delicacy of their interpretation cannot be praised highly enough” ... “Brilliant playing by two exceptional brothers” ... “Between meditation and ecstasy” ... “A fiery torrent from two pianos” ... „Pure musicality, coupled with temperament and intelligence“ ... „When they play together, they seem to blend into one” ... “A piano duo of superlatives!” – a selection from international press reviews.

Eduard Kutrowatz, piano
Johannes Kutrowatz, piano
Anton Mühlhofer, percussion

Recorded from 21.–23. January 2008 at Franz Liszt-Konzertsaal Raiding, Österreich
Produced by Klaus Faika

Eduard & Johannes Kutrowatz
studied first at the Josef Haydn Conservatory in Eisenstadt piano with Uwe Wolff, then at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Johannes chose as his subsidiary subjects clarinet (with Peter Schmidl) and conducting (with Karl Österreicher); Eduard studied all facets of percussion (with Richard Hochrainer and Walter Veigl). The initial stimulus for studying original works for four hands or two pianos came from their piano teacher Renate Kramer-Preisenhammer. Now Eduard & Johannes Kutrowatz has been teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Their work as a piano duo gained decisive impetus at master classes in Freiburg with Karl Ulrich Schnabel (the only course held in Europe until then by the son of the legendary Arthur Schnabel, specialist for piano duo and modern pedal technique) and in Lockenhaus with Franz Rupp, the famous violinist Fritz Kreisler’s congenial piano partner. In 1986 they won their first international competition in Stresa, Italy, where they won 1st prize in the piano duo category. Numerous awards and honours followed: for both brothers, among others, the Cultural Promotion Prize of the Province of Burgenland, the Music Prize of the Theodor Kery Foundation, the Grand Decoration of Honour and the Commander's Cross of the Province of Burgenland, the EUROPAN 2017 and 2019 Franz Liszt Honorary Prize of the Weimar Classic Foundation. Johannes Kutrowatz was also a prizewinner of the international Schubert Competition Graz 1992 and received a Bösendorfer scholarship. The varied training of the two musicians, their wide range of activities (as pianists, chamber musicians, lied accompanists, conductors) and their keen interest in other fields of the arts certainly contribute to the great depth of expression and the versatility of their playing. It is probably also due to the fact that making music in the chamber music category of piano duo requires an enormously constructive dialogue and fruitful dispute among the players, as may be better achieved “among brothers”.

Performances in major concert halls around the world (Vienna - Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Eisenstadt - Haydnsaal, London - Wigmore Hall and South Bank Centre, Toronto - Centre of the Arts, Munich - Herkulessaal, Tokyo - Suntory Hall, New York - Carnegie Hall and 92nd Y) and at international music festivals such as Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Haydnfestspiele Eisenstadt, Klavierfestival Ruhr, Chamber Music Festival Kremerata Lockenhaus, Kuhmo-Festival (Finland), Kowmung Festival Australia, Liszt Festival Raiding. Radio and television recordings, as well as much praised CD albums of works by Schubert, Brahms, Strauss, Liszt, Gershwin, Bernstein, Takács, Piazzolla, Sakamoto, Bach, Pärt and Brubeck document her artistic work. With the founding and artistic direction of the annual international festival "klangfruehling" at Burg Schlaining in 2001, which they also directed until 2015, Eduard and Johannes Kutrowatz realized their dream of designing, experimenting and programming in a global context. Since 2007 Johannes Kutrowatz has been the artistic director of the Yamanakako-Klangsommer festival in Japan. Since 2009 the brothers have been the artistic directors of the international Liszt Festival Raiding.

Anton (Toni) Mühlhofer
born in Austria in 1958, studied jazz percussion with Prof. Erich Bachträgl at the Conservatory of Music in Vienna and classical percussion instruments at the University of Music and Performing Arts. Further studies at the Berklee College of Music Boston, USA (jazz percussion). Numerous trips to Cuba where he deepened his knowledge of Afrocuban music with Carlos Aldama Perez at the institute „Conjunto Folklorico Nacional“.Toni decided to produce his own albums to express his passion for the Latin world and Cuban music in particular. Foundation of the band CAOBA (Latin Jazz). He has performed with outstanding artists of the international music scene: Peter Alexander, Alegre Correa, Eddie „Lockjaw“ Davis, Plácido Domingo, Jim Galloway, Fatty George, Steve Hacket, Thomas Hampson, André Hellers Wintergarten (Varieté), Udo Jürgens, Johnny Logan, George Masso, Erika Pluhar, Angel Romero, Arturo Sandoval, Toots Thielemans, Hubert Tubbs (Tower of Power), Leo Wright, Joe Zawinul among others. He toured in Austria, Europe and Asia with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and as percussionist of the Vienna Instrumental Soloists. From 1987 to 2001 he was drummer with the Musical Orchestra of the Vereinigte Bühnen Wien, since 2002 he is music teacher at the Leonard-Bernstein-Institute of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (Latin Percussion and Jazz Drums).

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