AF2003

ÁSTOR PIAZZOLLA – GENIUS OF TANGOElmira Darvarova, violinHoward Wall, hornThomas Weaver, piano

ÁSTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) was the foremost composer and ambassador of tango music, who made it his life mission to bring the signature music genre of Argentina from the dance halls and clubs onto the concert stages around the world. Piazzolla’s biographer María Susana Azzi defines Piazzolla as transcending all musical boundaries. An extremely hard-working creative genius, Piazzolla not only constantly performed throughout his life (from his first public appearance at age 11 in the Roerich Hall on Riverside Drive in New York City, to his last concert in Greece 58 years later), but he was also one of the most prolific composers ever, writing over 3000 works (including more than 60 film scores), and collaborating with some of the greatest musicians of our time, including Dizzy Gillespie and Mstislav Rostropovich. So invested was Piazzolla in his dual (and dueling) identities - as a highly productive composer, and as a wildly busy performer, that in 1970 he had to reject an invitation to compose the film score for Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris”, due to upcoming appearances at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.

Born in Argentina, Piazzolla spent the crucially formative years of his childhood in New York City. Becoming a virtuoso on the bandoneón (since the age of 8) and studying with the pianist living next door on East 9th Street (a pupil of Rachmaninoff), he soaked up music influences from baroque to Bartók and jazz, and absorbed Klezmer rhythms from Jewish weddings (later encoded in his fundamental 3-3-2 rhythmical combination). While fascinated with jazz and mesmerized by Bach’s music (which he interpreted with his bandoneón), the teen-aged Piazzolla also constantly listened to the records of the tango icons Carlos Gardel, Julio de Caro and Elvino Vardaro. At age 13 Piazzolla met Carlos Gardel, which led to a cameo appearance in a Gardel tango film, but associating with Gardel almost cost Piazzolla his life, as he was supposed to join Gardel on the tour where Gardel died in a plane crash (fortunately for Piazzolla, his father had not let him go on that tour). While still a teenager, Piazzolla joined Anibal Troilo’s high-profile tango orchestra as bandoneón player and arranger. Not satisfied with the traditional tango legacy of earlier generations, Piazzolla was propelled by his eclectic background and versatile tastes, which urged him to strive for a different direction. On the recommendation of legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein (who also encouraged the career paths of other fabulous talents, including the violinist Henryk Szeryng), Piazzolla studied composition with Alberto Ginastera for five years, immersing himself in the scores of Stravinsky, Bartók and Ravel, mastering orchestration and winning a competition with a symphonic work. Anticipating a classical composer’s career, Piazzolla traveled to Paris (on a grant from the French Government) where he sought guidance from the world-renowned pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. She admired Piazzolla’s tango compositions and convinced him to stay true to his own distinct Argentine-rooted style. Abandoning other compositional ambitions, Piazzolla dedicated himself to the development of his Nuevo Tango as a contemporary music genre, incorporating traditional and complex contrapuntal techniques adapted from classical music (mainly baroque), but also fused with angular jazz elements and gritty urban sounds, dissonance, metric shifts, complex counterpoint, juxtaposed to heart-wrenching melodic material in the vein of Puccini’s operas. In 1955 Piazzolla wrote his revolutionary manifesto “Decalogue”, setting standards and principles for his emerging Nuevo Tango style, treating all musicians as soloists, introducing new instruments in the tango formation (including saxophone and electric guitar). Turning his back on established tradition, Piazzolla strived to impose the performance of tango as chamber music (as opposed to just accompaniment to dancers or vocalists), in his life-long mission to elevate the tango genre to a form to be listened to on concert stages, music to be paid attention to and focused on exclusively, without the element of the dancers‘ embrace. Nuevo Tango fused a trinity of cultural backgrounds which Piazzolla strived to reconcile and merge: the legacies of tango, jazz, and classical music, but these innovations spelled a departure from the classical tango style that had been a proud source of national identity. At the time, the tango purists in Argentina were incensed at such radical changes. The severe criticism, hostility and resistance by some conservative tango aficionados expanded Piazzolla’s breaking of a musical paradigm into a political controversy. Piazzolla received death threats. Even the military government in his homeland criticized Piazzolla’s tango reforms in the late 1960s. But the rest of the world embraced Piazzolla’s works, the popularity of which has since exploded globally. In the words of the renowned virtuoso violinist Gidon Kremer (a self-professed tango fanatic), Piazzolla’s music encompasses the entire emotional range, from deep pain to the love of life. Spell-bound audiences and fascinated performers in Europe and America propelled Piazzolla’s international fame and popularized his compositions as essentially classical chamber music. Piazzolla’s dream and mission - to transport the tango from the dance floors to the concert stages of the world, has been accomplished. Vastly transcribed for various formations and orchestras, Piazzolla’s timeless and passionate music is among the most beloved, and is heard everywhere today.

Having collaborated for several years with the late great tango pianist Octavio Brunetti (hailed by the New York Philharmonic as “the inheritor of Piazzolla’s mantle” on the occasion of that orchestra’s commissioning of Brunetti’s arrangement of Piazzolla’s “Angel Suite” for Yo-Yo Ma and the Philharmonic’s strings), I embraced Piazzolla’s music through the violin and piano transcriptions Octavio Brunetti created for the two of us from the original Piazzolla scores. Performing and recording music by Piazzolla with Octavio Brunetti was one of the highlights of my career as a concert violinist, and it is very rewarding to continue to relate to Piazzolla’s oeuvre through further projects, in the quest to re-imagine and re-interpret the supreme beauty and passion that has been gifted to humanity by Piazzolla’s genius. The arrangements on this album (mostly created by us, the performers, and presenting several world-premiere recordings of transcriptions which involve the horn) also include three of Octavio Brunetti’s transcriptions for violin and piano, in honor of his memory.

Invierno Porteño is part of the popular set of four tangos bearing the titles of the seasons and widely known as Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), where the word Porteño refers to Buenos Aires as a port city. Composed in the late 1960s, the four installments of this cycle were originally written as stand-alone pieces, not initially conceived as an entire suite. Piazzolla performed them sometimes as a set, but mostly as separate entities. Contemporary ensembles everywhere avail themselves of the lately fashionable practice to juxtapose, in numerous concert programs, Piazzolla’s Four Seasons set with that of Antonio Vivaldi. Of the four Piazzolla “Seasons”, it is his Invierno Porteño (Winter) that bears the most traces of “vivaldiesque” influence, especially in the closing coda which has unmistakably baroque tunes. Our transcription, which also includes horn, is presented on this album as a world-premiere recording of this arrangement, which we have performed at prestigious venues on two continents, including at Carnegie Hall.

Michelangelo ’70, heard on this album in Octavio Brunetti’s violin and piano transcription from the original Piazzolla score, is titled after the name of a Buenos Aires café where the composer’s quintet performed in the 1970s. Based on a repeated ostinato motif of three consecutive notes, it is a very exciting composition, perfectly timed in its short duration to leave the listener exhilarated and addicted to its breathless pace, wishing it had lasted longer.

Café 1930 is part of Piazzolla’s 1986 “Histoire du Tango”, where Piazzolla programmatically depicts how the process of revolutionizing the tango unfolded, conveyed in four 30-year intervals, progressing from the bordellos of the 1900s, through the cafés in the 1930s, the nightclubs in the 1960s, and finally arriving at today’s concert halls. In his own program note to “Café 1930”, Piazzolla states: “This is another age of the tango. People stopped dancing it as they did in 1900, preferring instead simply to listen to it. It became more musical, and more romantic. This tango has undergone total transformation: the movements are slower, with new and often melancholy harmonies.” Originally composed for flute (or violin) and guitar, this piece was transcribed by us for violin and horn, transforming the beginning of it into a violin solo, abounding with baroque chords. Upon the entry of the horn with the main theme, the violin chords from the opening solo return but not as a cadenza – they serve as a counterpoint to the horn melody. “Café 1930” was previously included by Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall on their CD album “Music from Five Centuries: 17th C. - 21st C.” (Affetto AF 2001).

Fugata is another baroque-inspired composition, starting as a bona-fide, polyphonically textured, fugue, but despite its relatively short duration managing to undergo a structural transfiguration into an accompanied melody, and ending as a catchy playful tune that can be casually whistled. Fugata is the second part of the “Silfo y Ondina” suite (following Tangata and preceding Soledad, two of Piazzolla’s most heart-rending masterpieces). The “Silfo y Ondina” cycle was created by Piazzolla in 1969 as a ballet suite for the eminent Argentinian choreographer Oscar Arraiz. Its title was chosen by Piazzolla after being told by a fortune-teller that he is protected by the mythological elemental beings Sylph (an air spirit) and Ondine (a water spirit). According to his friend Horacio Ferrer – a tango lyricist – Piazzolla was superstitious and “very sensitive to esoteric things”. This album presents the world-premiere recording of a violin and piano transcription from the original Piazzolla score, which we have performed internationally.

Milonga del Ángel was composed by Piazzolla in 1962 at the request of playwright Alberto Rodríguez Muñoz, who asked to use Piazzolla’s 1957 composition “Tango del Ángel” for a play with the same title (“El tango del Ángel”). Muñoz also commissioned additional stage music for that play, and thus three other works were composed by Piazzolla – “Introducción al Ángel”, “Milonga del Ángel”, and “La Muerte del Ángel”. (The play conveys the story of

an angel arriving to save the souls of the impoverished residents of a building, but the angel is tragically murdered in a knife fight.) Although not initially conceived as a suite, this cycle later became the 5-movement Suite del Ángel, when 3 years later, in 1965, Piazzolla also added “Resurrección del Ángel” as a final installment. Milonga del Ángel is the central movement in this series, and one of Piazzolla’s most lyrical tangos. A milonga is a dance, which, as a predecessor to tango, uses a syncopated rhythm. On this album we present the world-premiere recording of our arrangement for violin, horn and piano, transcribed for these three instruments from the original Piazzolla score.

Vardarito is dedicated to one of Piazzolla’s idols – the virtuoso violinist and tango composer Elvino Vardaro (1905-1971), who not only inspired Piazzolla as a teenager, but later also became his colleague, performing in several of Piazzolla’s groups. After collaborating with the most distinguished tango stars of his time (such as Anibal Troilo and Osvaldo Pugliese), Elvino Vardaro joined in 1955 Piazzolla’s string orchestra and in 1961 became the violinist of Piazzolla’s first Quintet formation. Written in 1972, after Elvino Vardaro’s death, Vardarito features brilliant virtuoso techniques for the violin. Melancholic rhapsodic episodes alternate with sunny lively rhythms, giving this composition a rich palette of contrasting moods. On this album we present the world-premiere recording of our own arrangement for violin and piano of Piazzolla’s Vardarito, which we have performed in the United States and Europe.

Ave María (Tanti Anni Prima), initially composed for oboe and piano, is featured in Piazzolla’s score for the 1984 film Enrico IV (Henry IV) by Marco Belocchio (based on the 1922 play by Luigi Pirandello). The original title Tanti Anni Prima (Many Years Before) was later changed to Ave María by Piazzolla’s Italian agent, but this popular piece is performed and recorded under either of these names. The film Enrico IV features the mega-stars Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale, and Cardinale’s character – Matilde – is associated with the Ave María theme. No less haunting than the other huge Piazzolla hit from the same movie score – the universally cherished Oblivion, the heartbreaking simplicity and purity of Piazzolla’s Ave María define it as a true gem among all other masterpieces by Piazzolla. Howard Wall’s transcription for horn and piano has been performed by the artist internationally and is presented on this album in its world-premiere recording.

Introducción al Ángel was included, as mentioned above, in Piazzolla’s Angel Suite, at the request of Alberto Rodríguez Muñoz, who commissioned Piazzolla to create incidental music for the play “El tango del Ángel”. Rarely performed, but a masterpiece nevertheless, Introducción al Ángel starts with a baroque-influenced exposition which evolves into a stunningly passionate and cathartic lament, undergoing a metamorphosis of its mood through a change of key, which also symbolically “unlocks” the way to solace and closure, where the anguish fades and the tears dry. This album presents the world-premiere recording of Thomas Weaver’s transcription of Piazzolla’s Introducción al Ángel for violin and piano, which has been performed by the artists at the New York Chamber Music Festival, at the Red Rocks Music Festival, and at venues in London and Berlin.

Primavera Porteña, which concludes the first disc in this double-CD album, is the Spring in Piazzolla’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires). It opens with a spirited fugue and features distinctive counterpoint elements. The music is passionately romantic and imbued with a rhythmically sophisticated atmosphere, which emanates an irresistibly infectious enthusiasm. The theme emerges forever fresh and exciting throughout its many appearances. It is one of Piazzolla’s most sunny compositions, and even its slower middle section is serene, rather than melancholic. This album presents the world-premiere recording of our transcription for violin, horn and piano, which we have performed internationally.

Otoño Porteño, with which Disc 2 opens, is the Autumn in Piazzolla’s Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires). Darker and more somber in mood than Primavera Porteña, it starts with a chicharra effect, referring to the unique raspy sound produced by the cicada insect. (This effect is generated by a violinist’s bow, through scraping it next to the wrapping of a string). Lively episodes alternate with slower sections of repose, but the entire piece pulsates with gripping and deeply moving passion. This album presents the world-premiere recording of our transcription for violin, horn and piano, which we have performed at concert venues in Europe and the United States.

Escualo (Shark) was composed in 1979 for Piazzolla’s colleague, the prominent tango violinist Fernando Suárez Paz with whom Piazzolla collaborated in his second Quintet formation. This short, energetic piece is an homage

to Piazzolla’s favorite leisure activity – fishing, with which he passed the time vacationing at his summer house in Punta del Este, Uruguay. A technically challenging work, it “robbed Suárez Paz of a vacation while he studied the score”, according to Piazzolla’s biographers Azzi and Collier. Our recording of Escualo on this album presents the violin and piano transcription made by the late Octavio Brunetti from the original Piazzolla score.

Soledad (Solitude) follows Fugata as the third part of the aforementioned “Silfo y Ondina” suite. One of the most cherished masterpieces by Piazzolla, Soledad is a milonga with extended lines of built-up tension, intensifying through the repeated sequential phrasing, which delays the release of pent-up sadness. Prolonging the unease, Piazzolla imposes constant syncopations that are unsettling. The strange dissonances additionally emphasize the feeling of alienation and not belonging. A recitativo-like cadenza in the middle of the piece ushers in yet another element of loneliness, while the dejected mood of the ending coda does not bring relief from the sorrow. This album presents the world-premiere recording of our transcription for violin, horn and piano, which we have performed internationally, at venues in Europe and the United States, including Carnegie Hall.

Libertango, one of Piazzolla’s most celebrated and iconic masterpieces, was composed in the 1970s in Italy. The title of this piece symbolizes Piazzolla’s liberation from the traditional tango style, as well as his escape from the hostility of his critics and enemies in his homeland. Retreating to Italy for several years during the period of military dictatorship in Argentina (while recovering from a heart attack) provided Piazzolla with a temporary sanctuary, as he and everything that he stood for – drive for innovation, lack of respect for tradition, and shunning of norms – had become politically unwelcome. The world-premiere recording of our arrangement for violin and horn of Piazzolla’s Libertango is included on this album, and we have performed this violin and horn transcription many times, in the United States, Canada and a number of European countries. “Libertango” was previously included by Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall on their CD album “Music from Five Centuries: 17th C. - 21st C.” (Affetto AF 2001).

Resurrección del Ángel was the Angel Suite’s fifth and last installment, added by Piazzolla in 1965, three years after the initial creation of stage music commissioned by playwright Alberto Rodríguez Muñoz for his play bearing the name of Piazzolla’s 1957 “Tango del Ángel”. The mournful beginning transitions through an extended solo piano cadenza which not only brings hope, but it also transforms the poignancy into a grandiose ending. It affirms the triumph of resurrection with which the angel overcomes and nullifies the tragedy of his murder. Our recording of Resurrección del Ángel on this album presents the violin and piano transcription made by the late Octavio Brunetti from the original Piazzolla score.

Oblivion, like the above-mentioned Ave María (Tanti Anni Prima), was part of Piazzolla’s score for Marco Belocchio’s 1984 film Enrico IV derived from Pirandello’s play and presented at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. A milonga, dating from 1982, Oblivion is heard at the film’s closing scene and its mood perfectly captures the delusion depicted in this tragicomedy – which tells the story of an Italian aristocrat suffering a debilitating fall from a horse during a carnival performance, while he is acting as the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. Upon regaining consciousness, he believes himself to be the actual Henry IV, while for the next 20 years his family members install him at a remotely located villa where hired servants simulate medieval scenes and perform the roles of councillors at the 11th C. court of Henry IV. Oblivion has become one of Piazzolla’s most recognized and recognizable works (together with Libertango), and its vast popularity is beyond universal. This album presents the world-premiere recording of our transcription of Oblivion for violin, horn and piano, which we have performed internationally, at venues in Europe and the United States, including Carnegie Hall.

Adiós Nonino is one of Piazzolla’s most deeply and personally felt works, written in 1959 on the occasion of the passing of Piazzolla’s father, Vicente “Nonino” Piazzolla, after a bicycle accident in his hometown Mar del Plata. A few days after receiving the sad news while performing in Puerto Rico, Piazzolla returned to New York from his tour and wrote Adiós Nonino. In the words of his son Daniel: “...Dad asked us to leave him alone for a few hours. We went into the kitchen. First there was absolute silence. After a while, we heard dad playing the bandoneón. It was a very sad, terribly sad melody. He was composing “Adiós Nonino”. Piazzolla had been already depressed due to the financial failure of his tour, and the loss of his father totally devastated him. Created during such a heartbreaking moment of personal tragedy and despair, Adiós Nonino has acquired, due to its palpable nostalgia, a symbolic

meaning for the Argentine diaspora. This album presents the world-premiere recording of our transcription of Adiós Nonino for violin and piano, which we have performed for international audiences.

Le Grand Tango, written in 1982, was dedicated by Piazzolla to the legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who, unfortunately, had never heard of Piazzolla, and neglected to look at the piece for eight years, keeping it stashed in a drawer, as he himself confessed later in interviews. Meanwhile, Piazzolla met in 1987 the American virtuoso cellist Carter Brey, and impressed with his great talent, sent him the score of Le Grand Tango. Brey gave the world-premiere performance of the work in 1988. Rostropovich finally opened the score of Le Grand Tango in 1990 and traveled to Buenos Aires for a meeting with the composer and guidance on how to interpret the piece. Rostropovich performed Le Grand Tango in 1990 (two years after Carter Brey presented the world premiere) and recorded it in 1996. One of Piazzolla’s most sophisticated and elegant works, Le Grand Tango has been hailed by the world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma as one of his favorite pieces of music, with “inextricable rhythmic sense... total freedom, passion, ecstasy”. This album presents the world-premiere recording of our transcription for violin, horn and piano, which we have performed internationally, and at prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall. One notable coincidence – and additional inspiration – for the use of horn in our arrangement, was the fact that Carter Brey – the first performer of Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango, is an esteemed colleague of Howard Wall at the New York Philharmonic, where Brey has been, since 1996, the Principal Cellist.

—© Elmira Darvarova, 2020

ARTISTS’ BIOS

ELMIRA DARVAROVA, Violin

Grammy®-nominated recording artist, a concert violinist since the age of four, and an award-winning performer (2017 & 2018 GOLD MEDAL at the Global Music Awards), Elmira Darvarova caused a sensation, becoming the first ever (and so far only) female concertmaster in the history of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. With the MET Orchestra she toured Europe, Japan and the United States, and was heard on the MET’s live weekly international radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, CDs and laser discs on the Sony, Deutsche Grammophon and EMI labels. As concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera she has performed with the greatest conductors of our time, including the legendary Carlos Kleiber. She studied with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School in London (on a British Council scholarship), with Josef Gingold at Indiana University in Bloomington (as one of his assistants), and with Henryk Szeryng (privately). An award-winning artist (Gold Medal in two consecutive years – 2017 and 2018 – at the Global Music Awards; the Gold Quill Award by Classic FM Radio, and the Boris Christoff Medal), and hailed by American Record Guide as a “marvelous violinist in the Heifetz tradition”, Elmira Darvarova can be heard on numerous CDs, recorded for several labels (recent releases include the world-premiere recording of Vernon Duke’s violin concerto with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and a CD with world-premiere recordings of chamber music by René de Castéra, named by MusicWeb International a Record of the Year 2015). Several of her albums have also been

selected as Record of the Month by MusicWeb International. Her CDs have won critical acclaim in such esteemed publications as The Strad Magazine, Gramophone, Fanfare, American Record Guide, BBC Music Magazine, Klassik Heute. She has appeared on the most prestigious stages of five continents (including Carnegie Hall, as soloist with orchestra), and has performed concertos with the Moscow State Symphony, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, and with numerous other orchestras. Well-versed not only in opera, symphonic and chamber music repertoire, she also performs and records in many other genres and styles, including tango, jazz, blues, folk, world music, contemporary/ electronic music, Stroh violin, and Indian Ragas. She has partnered for chamber music performances with music giants such as Janos Starker, Gary Karr, Pascal Rogé, Vassily Lobanov, with tango and jazz legends such as Octavio Brunetti, Fernando Otero and David Amram, and with the world-renowned Indian classical musician, the superstar of the Sarod: Amjad Ali Khan, with whom she recorded a trilogy of CD albums, based on traditional Indian Ragas (released in the United States, and separately, on the Indian sub-continent). She has recorded 2 CD albums of Baroque music (world-premiere recordings) with the world’s most renowned double bassist Gary Karr, and she has performed with him Bottesini’s Gran Duo Concertante in the United States and Canada. She has also recorded 4 CDs of music by Ástor Piazzolla, two of them with the late great tango pianist and arranger Octavio Brunetti (named by the New York Philharmonic “the inheritor of Piazzolla’s mantle”), and she has performed in a duo with Octavio Brunetti at festivals in the US and Europe. For the Naxos label she has recorded 3 CDs of chamber music by Franco Alfano (world-premiere recordings). Her recital at Bela Bartok’s memorial house in Budapest was broadcast live throughout Europe. A documentary film about her life and career was shown on European television. She performs in a duo with Grammy®-winner, pianist/ composer Fernando Otero, and is a founding member of The New York Piano Quartet, the Delphinium Trio, the Quinteto del Fuego and the Amram Ensemble. She is Jury President of several international chamber music competitions in Europe, and she is the President & Director of the New York Chamber Music Festival. Praised by Gramophone Magazine for her “ultra-impassioned performances”, and in The Strad for her “intoxicating tonal beauty and beguilingly sensuous phrasing” and “silky-smooth voluptuous tone”, she was featured in Gramophone Magazine with an interview about her world-premiere recording of Vernon Duke’s violin concerto (written for Heifetz in 1940), which she recorded recently with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. For more information please visit her website www.elmiradarvarova.com

Photo by David Finlayson

HOWARD WALL, Horn

Howard Wall, a native of Pittsburgh, holds The Ruth F. and Allan J. Broder Chair at the New York Philharmonic, where he joined the horn section in 1994, after having been a member of The Philadelphia Orchestra for almost 20 years, and a former member of the Phoenix and Denver Symphony Orchestras. He also performs and records with the All-Star Orchestra. Mr. Wall has appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic in Schumann’s Konzertstück for Four Horns multiple times in New York, as well as on New York Philharmonic tours in Europe and South America. An avid chamber musician, he appears regularly at the New York Philharmonic Ensembles series, as well as at the New York Chamber Music Festival, and performs with the Delphinium Trio, the Amram Ensemble, and in a duo with his wife, violinist Elmira Darvarova. He can be heard on the CD album “Take 9”, featuring the New York Philharmonic horn section and the American Horn Quartet, as well as on former Principal Horn Philip Myers’ “New York Legends” CD album, and several other chamber music discs. Howard Wall recorded Poulenc’s Elégie for Horn and Piano with world-renowned French pianist Pascal Rogé for an all-Poulenc CD album. Mr. Wall has also recorded David Amram’s Blues and Variations for Monk for Solo Horn, and gave its European premiere in Paris. Howard Wall’s most recent CD albums are “Phillip Ramey: Music for French Horn”, “Music from Five Centuries” and “Horn Monologues” (all released on Affetto/Naxos). This season Howard Wall performs chamber music on three separate occasions at Carnegie Hall, as well as at venues in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the United Kingdom. Howard Wall began playing the horn at age ten and earned his bachelor’s degree in music performance at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 19 performing Schumann’s Konzertstück for Four Horns; he most recently performed the same work again as soloist with orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 2012. Howard Wall was among the performers awarded Gold Medal and Top Honors at the 2018 Global Music Awards.

THOMAS WEAVER, piano

Thomas Weaver is an American composer and pianist whose active solo and chamber career has included performances both in the United States and abroad. His playing has been hailed as displaying both “sensitivity” and “incredible dexterity.” Weaver has appeared in many concert halls including New York (Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center), Philadelphia (Field Concert Hall), Boston (Jordan Hall), Chicago, Washington DC (Phillips Collection), Nashville, Dallas, and Berlin, in addition to regular performances at Tanglewood. Weaver has performed with a number of eminent musicians such as Elmira Darvarova, Jess Gillam, Kenneth Radnofsky, Jennifer Frautschi, Gene Pokorny, and members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Boston Symphony Orchestra. Weaver is currently a member of the Amram Ensemble, Trio Ardente, and New England Chamber Players. During the 2019-2020 season Weaver looks forward to performances at Carnegie Hall and in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Arizona, London, and Berlin. A champion of new music, Weaver has premiered many new compositions, including works by David Amram, David Loeb, Anthony Plog, and Christopher LaRosa. Previously, Weaver performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue alongside H. Robert Reynolds and the BUTI Young Artists Wind Ensemble. Recently, Weaver appeared on the Phillips Collection Recital Series, the New York Philharmonic Ensembles series, and performed Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 “Age of Anxiety” with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Orchestra as part of the Bernstein Centennial celebration at Tanglewood.  He was featured on the CD, David Amram: “So In America”, released by Affetto Records, which includes many world premiere recordings.  

An award-winning composer, Thomas Weaver’s music has been performed in halls throughout four continents, in cities such as Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Berlin (Germany), Vienna (Austria), Itami (Japan), and Sydney (Australia). His works have been commissioned by a number of organizations and musicians including The New York Chamber Music Festival, Elmira Darvarova, Kenneth Radnofsky, Dr. Brittany Lasch, Joshua Blumenthal, the Pharos Quartet, Alea III, and the Daraja Ensemble. Weaver’s works have also been performed by large ensembles such as the Boston University Symphony Orchestra and Mannes American Composers Orchestra. Weaver’s compositions have won multiple awards and competitions, including the Bohuslav Martinu Award and the Boston University Composition Competition. During the 2019-2020 season Weaver looks forward to world premiere performances of his works at Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, and other esteemed venues.

 An active educator, Weaver holds faculty positions at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, PA and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Weaver has presented lectures and classes at a variety of locations, including Northwestern University, Murray State University, Austin Peay State University, and The People’s Music School in Chicago. Weaver’s primary piano teachers include Anthony di Bonaventura, Victor Rosenbaum, and Pavel Nersessian. His primary composition teachers include David Loeb, Dr. John Wallace, and Dr. Martin Amlin. He has also had the opportunity to work with Samuel Adler, Gunther Schuller, and Theodore Antoniou. For more information please visit www.thomaseweaver.com.

Photo by Stratton McCrady

Photo by David Finlayson

8 88295 99136 0

Producers: Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall | Recorded 2019-2020 by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Studio, Mount Vernon, New York | Recording Engineer: Ryan Streber | Editing and Mixing: Ryan Streber | Mastering Engineer: Sam Ward | Program Notes: Elmira Darvarova | Photos: David Finlayson (E. Darvarova and H. Wall), Stratton McCrady (T. Weaver) | Graphics: Jana DeWitt design

C & P 2020 AFFETTO RecordingsAffetto Recordings, LLCP.O. Box 502, Princeton NJ 08542 USAdistributed by

DISC 1

1. Invierno Porteño, arr. for violin, horn and piano by Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall 7:08 world premiere recording

2. Michelangelo ‘70, arr. for violin and piano by Octavio Brunetti 2:54

3. Café 1930, arr. for violin and horn by Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall 9:27 world premiere recording

4. Fugata, arr. for violin and piano by Elmira Darvarova 2:55 world premiere recording

5. Milonga del Ángel, arr. for violin, horn and piano by Howard Wall 6:12 world premiere recording

6. Vardarito, arr. for violin and piano by Elmira Darvarova and Thomas Weaver 7:44 world premiere recording

7. Ave María (Tanti Anni Prima), arr. for horn and piano by Howard Wall 5:14 world premiere recording

8. Introducción al Ángel, arr. for violin and piano by Thomas Weaver 4:48 world premiere recording

9. Primavera Porteña, arr. for violin, horn and piano by Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall 5:45 world premiere recording

DISC 2

1. Otoño Porteño, arr. for violin, horn and piano by Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall 6:49 world premiere recording

2. Escualo, arr. for violin and piano by Octavio Brunetti 3:15

3. Soledad, arr. for violin, horn and piano by Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall 7:37 world premiere recording

4. Libertango, arr. for violin and horn  by Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall 4:41 world premiere recording

5. Resurrección del Ángel, arr. for violin and piano by Octavio Brunetti 6:18

6. Oblivion, arr. for violin, horn and piano by Howard Wall 4:37 world premiere recording

7. Adiós Nonino, arr. for violin and piano by Elmira Darvarova and Thomas Weaver 10:16 world premiere recording

8. Le Grand Tango, arr. for violin, horn and piano by Elmira Darvarova and Howard Wall 12:14  world premiere recording