Concierto de Nácar
Concierto de Nácaroffers a wide-angle vantage on Astor Piazzolla's long, creatively fertile career. First, the 1983 concert took place at Buenos Aires's classical venue of choice, the Teatro Colón; and second, the ensemble made a bridge between the early 1970s Conjunto 9 and Piazzolla's later, smaller groups. The nonet, buoyed by two violinists, Fernando Suárez Paz and Hugo Baralis, was also enlarged to include percussionist Enrique Roizner, who gives the music a polyrhythmic flooring that energizes and rounds out the harmonic richness of multiple strings and Piazzolla's bandoneon. The fullness of sound stands in contrast to Piazzolla's leaner essentials,Tango Zero Hourand theVienna Concert, offering orchestral breadth and depth and even making the strings alone sound liquidly polyrhythmic.--Andrew Bartlett