(May 2023)
Hannes Pohlit: Paraphrases de Tango sur des mélodies de Carlos Gardel / Nos. 1 – 12
Hannes Pohlit – Piano
- N° 1. Paraphrase de concert sur “Mi Buenos Aires Querido” _04:58
- N° 2. Fantaisie sur la mélodie “El Día Que Me Quieras” _04:20
- N° 3. Solitude (Paraphrase de concert sur “Soledad”) _06:22
- N° 4. Grande Valse-Fantaisie sur “Amores de Estudiante” _13:59
- N° 5. Paraphrase de concert sur “Por Una Cabeza” _05:53
- N° 6. Paraphrase de concert sur “Volvio Una Noche” _03:21
- N° 7. Grande Fantaisie de bravoure sur “Recuerdo Malevo” _11:28
- N° 8. Fantaisie sur la mélodie “Sus Ojos Se Cerraron” _06:58
- N° 9. Le Retour (Paraphrase de concert sur “Volver” _07:47
- N° 10. Paraphrase de concert sur “Amargura” _03:35
- N° 11. Paraphrase de concert sur “Cuesta Abajo” _03:02
- N° 12. Paraphrase de concert sur “Arrabal Amargo” _04:34
- total duration: 76:21
“Pohlit shakes the glittering cascades, chord-vibrati, jump-effects as well as fast octave and third passages out of his sleeve and provides a brillíant-colored piano-texture that is always in motion. […] The development of the themes testifies to a particularly lively imagination. However, one may wonder whether the sometimes quite salon-like and plush piano style does not take away too much of the tango’s ascetic, angular peculiarity. Pohlit, of course, is prepared for this objection, and he parries it with a figure of argument that is no less brilliant than his piano style. “Like the contours of a picture, fading in the course of time, the laconical form and clear rhythmic structure of the classical Tango appear in many of these pieces in a transfigured lyrical way: transmitted in the atmosphere of the past musical salon, of which they do not originate in reality, but to which sensitive pianists and ambitioned music-lovers can lead them.” (“PianoNews”, Robert Nemecek 2014)
To be honest, the 12 tango-paraphrases – created in 2012/13 – are more paraphrases than tango and also a homage to the romantic “Salon”. In the concerts of the 19th century viruosos, the concert-paraphrase about melodies from famous operas was a popular genre in which the audience were offered not only echoes of great stage works, but also impressive pianistic feats. When I began – initially as an experiment without any particular intention – to write paraphrases on melodies by Carlos Gardel in imitation of Franz Liszt’s method, I gradually immersed myself in this nostalgia under the impression of Alfredo Le Pera’s lyrics and became part of a nostalgic utopia, whose anachronism (melodies from the popular music of the 1930-years arranged in a style which remains to the 19th century) reinforced the sense of the utopian. The French titles were based on the way how Liszt titled his virtuoso salon pieces. Some titles are a kind of rhapsodic fantasies with variations and concerto-cadence, some follow the strophic form of the models and form small “scenes”.
Hannes Pohlit plays the Blüthner Model 2 (Aliquot). The recordings took place in January 2021 in the Media Campus Villa Ida (Leipzig) and have been supported by the Media Foundation of the Sparkasse Leipzig.
