Baroque Blues

Piazzolla is one of the most-performed composers of the 20th century, and yet, little is known about him beyond the catchword “tango”. For example, his hobby was shark fishing. “Trout fishing did not interest us,” says Astor Piazzolla’s son Daniel. “A shark is something else, a thirty-pound boulder, you have to pull, let go, pull again. My dad used to say: “If I cannot get a shark out, then I can no longer play a bandoneon.” Piazzolla paid tribute to the predatory sea creature with “Escualo”(shark), one of the pieces to be performed this evening. Eckart Runge and Jacques Ammon call their program “Baroque Blues,” combining the baroque music of Bach, Händel, and others with works of dance of the 20th century. Surrounded by gypsy jazz, Latin jazz, waltz, burlesque, and tango, the Baroque pieces start to groove.