Concierto para bandoneón

Astor Piazzolla chose a conventional title when he composed Concierto para bandoneón in 1979, but his Italian publisher, Aldo Pagani, gave it the name Aconcagua after the highest mountain peak in South America, considering it the apex of the nuevo tango pioneer’s output up to that point. The three-movement, 20-minute marvel deploys a fast-slow-fast structure. The bandoneon soloist enters right after a scene-setting orchestral outburst that establishes the tango style, with an extended lyric solo followed by a pair of cadenzas just before the movement’s heated climax. Repose arrives in a delicate duo with harp that grows more unsettled as it proceeds, with the opening theme gently reasserting itself toward the closing moment. The brisk final movement borrows the melody from “Flaco Aroldi”, a tune from Con Alma y Vida (“With Life and Soul”), a film score Piazzolla wrote in 1970, rushing to a frenzied conclusion with a melody as tender as the rhythm is forceful.