del Águila - Tango Trio

Written in 2002 in New York. It was premiered at the Chautauqua Music Festival that summer by the New Arts Trio. The work evokes Argentine-Uruguayan tango idioms, recalling especially the neo-romantic and sentimental style of the early tango period between 1910 and 1940. The musical language is intense, dramatic and direct, becoming at times melodramatic and humorous.
Written as an homage to Tango, TANGO TRIO does not follow the form, rhythm or style of the traditional Argentine dance, nor that of Piazzolla’s “Nuevo tango”. It is more often an abstraction of the dance that contains elements from a broader spectrum of Latin American dances such as Brazilian Samba, and Uruguayan Milonga and Candombe. The piano often provides the sharp rhythmic beat characteristic of this dance, but occasionally blurs the beat with turbulent, virtuosic arpeggios. The tango rhythmic pattern, present through most of the work, undergoes several tempo meter transformations, becoming at times highly syncopated and varied through asymmetrical groupings within the measure. The melodic material, usually given to strings and bandoneons in the typical tango ensemble, is here given to the violin and cello. TANGO TRIO is also available for clarinet, cello and piano and for oboe cello and piano.