The three generations of composers represented on Amsterdam Sinfonietta’s Argentinian album are linked by more than their nationality. Astor Piazzolla studied with Alberto Ginastera in the 1940s, while in turn Osvaldo Golijov was hugely influenced by Piazzolla and the nuevo tango when growing up in La Plata in the 70s. In 1991 Golijov began composing Last Round, evoking the sound of the bandoneon and the ghosts of tango rhythms, after hearing that Piazzolla had suffered a stroke. The Sinfonietta play Piazzolla’s Four Seasons in a string-orchestra arrangement by Leonid Desyatnikov; like so many expert string bands these days, they have mastered the slides and snaps that are required to bring something of the flavour of the original to that music, but they never quite manage to capture its essential earthiness. It is the Ginastera Concerto, the composer’s own expansion of his second string quartet, with its echoes of Bartók and Berg, that comes off best here, and shows what the Amsterdam Sinfonietta can do so very well.
