PIAZZOLLA – Ave Maria – CELLO and PIANO or ACCORDION

Other Identification:
Astor Piazzolla (March 11th, 1921 – July 4th, 1992) was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. His works revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. In 1992, American music critic Stephen Holden described Piazzolla as “the world’s foremost composer of Tango music”.

The “Ave Maria” is perhaps a less famous work and it has some peculiarities. Piazzolla didn’t dedicate himself to religious music, and this piece doesn’t really belong to that genre in the strictest sense either. The original version of the score is for piano and oboe, and under the title “Tanti Anni Prima” (Twenty Years First), it is part of the soundtrack that the Argentine composer composed for the film “Enrico IV” (1984) by Marco Bellocchio, with Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale, based on the work of the same name by Pirandello.