MUSIC FOR FLUTE & GUITAR

Tangos, Songs and Dances

Taylor Kain

MUSIC FOR FLUTE & GUITAR

1
2
3
4

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA 1921-1992

Histoire du Tango
I. Bordel 1900
II. Caf 1930
III. Night-club 1960
IV. Concert daujourdhui (Concert, present-day)

[1845]
340
626
533
306

5
6
7
8
9

ROBERT BEASER b. 1954

from Mountain Songs
Barbara Allen
The House Carpenter
Hes Gone Away
Hush You Bye
Cindy

[1850]
316
215
523
503
253

0
!
@

DAVID LEISNER b. 1953

Dances in the Madhouse
I. Tango Solitaire
II. Waltz for the Old Folks
III. Ballad for the Lonely
IV. Samba!

[1223]
431
158
345
209

$
%
^
&
*
(

CELSO MACHADO b. 1953

Musiques Populaires Brsiliennes (Brazilian Folk Pieces)
I. Paoca (Peanut Candy) Choro
II. Quebra Queixo (Jawbreaker Candy) Choro
III. Piazza Vittorio (Victor Square) Choro Maxixe
IV. Algodo Doce (Fairy Floss) Samba
V. Sambossa (Dance Band) Bossa Nova
VI. P de Moleque (Nut Brittle) Samba

[1452]
242
322
304
137
136
231

ANDR VICTOR CORREA 1888-1948 arr. Timothy Kain and Virginia Taylor

) Andr de Sapato Novo (Andre with New Shoes)

Total Playing Time

213
6703

Virginia Taylor flute

Timothy Kain guitar

The Americas encompassing north and south, old and new, innocence and sophistication: four
centuries discovered, and still the New World. Music of the Americas embraces those same
polarities, with composers from Latin America and the United States bringing together new and old
world styles. The sounds on this recording are a heady mix of classical formality, folk traditions and
the vibrancy of urban pop. And its themes deal with what are ultimately the most important aspects
of life: singing, dancing, food, love... and new shoes.
Towards the end of his life, Astor Piazzolla father of the tango nuevo or new tango composed a
miniature history of Argentinas most popular urban dance, encapsulating its evolving character and
eternal appeal. Histoire du Tango (Tale of the Tango) begins in a turn-of-the-century bordello,
perhaps on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where its composer was born. Bordel 1900 is cheerful and
bustling, its good-natured teasing carried along in a strong two-beat pulse with occasional help
from the guitarist-as-drummer. Caf 1930 brings the tango into the 1930s and a more respectable
milieu. A rhapsodic introduction for the guitar sets the mood for a slow, heavily melodic
interpretation of the dance. This melancholy tango-romanza seems less for dancing and more for
storytelling of a typically fatalistic variety.
The tango fell out of favour during the 1940s and 50s, only to be revived in the nightclubs of the
1960s, when Piazzolla returned from his studies with Nadia Boulanger, having found his
compositional voice. It was the voice not of a contemporary classical composer but, of a
bandoneon player with a gift for the tango. Tango nuevo was born. Night-club 1960 unites the
traditional dance rhythms and colours with the percussive effects of the avant-garde and the
improvisational freedom and rhythmic complexities of jazz. It is structurally more sophisticated too,
moving away from the traditional three-part form of the early tangos. Concert daujourdhui is a
modern concert tango literally a tango of today the title as well as its contemporary style
revealing the influence of Piazzollas studies in France. The melody line is more dissonant and less
singable, the harmony is more audacious, the rhythms more complex. There is a hint of Bartk and
Stravinsky (who wrote his own tango in LHistoire du Soldat). But this is surface gesture: beneath,
you can feel the tango. My tango, said Piazzolla, meets the present.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Robert Beaser has nurtured a style that synthesises European tradition
and the American vernacular. His popular Mountain Songs a cycle of eight movements when
performed in its entirety acquires its American character from the lyric ballads from the southern
mountains of Appalachia. But the songs are not simple transcriptions for flute and guitar; rather, they

have become the source for original music. The clarity and melodic sweep of these pieces is typical of
Beasers lyrical style, which has been compared to that of Samuel Barber, and in 1986 Mountain
Songs was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Contemporary Composition.
Barbara Allen begins hesitantly, the guitar picking out a fragment of the melody, which is taken
up by the flute. A Japanese flavour is given to the dialogue the flute imitating the sounds of a
shakuhachi revealing the influence of Beasers studies with composer Tru Takemitsu. But barely
has the familiar tune been heard in its entirety than the music launches into a unique exploration
of its melodic shapes and harmonic ideas, weaving together different versions of the melody.
The House Carpenter and Hes Gone Away maintain the strongly improvisational spirit of the cycle,
in which new melodies, harmonies and structures emerge from the traditional verse-forms.
The selection of Mountain Songs on this recording concludes with two strangers to the Appalachian
Mountains. Hush You Bye transforms a popular lullaby of the deep South into a whirling fantasia
before returning to the calm of its opening. Cindy takes its cue from a minstrel fiddle song, and
provides a spirited finale with a cheeky surprise in every verse.
For popular music to be truly of the people it must relate to real life. The early-20th-century
American painter George Bellows felt the same way about his art, despite the prevailing belief that
painting should uplift and inspire the human spirit through its vision of the ideal. Bellows was not
afraid to depict the harshness of life or the frailty of human beings in his scenes from everyday life,
and one of the most powerful of these is his lithograph Dance in a Madhouse from 1917. Its subtle
composition highlights four groups of asylum inmates, inspiring guitarist-composer David Leisner to
match its evocative drama with that of his music.
Leisners Dances in the Madhouse was completed at a time when a debilitating hand injury had
forced him to stop playing and turn his attention to composition. Originally for violin and guitar, it
has been widely performed in this version for flute and guitar and in an arrangement for orchestra.
The first movement, Tango Solitaire, depicts a woman dancing stylishly, but alone. Its sensuous
melancholy reminds us that every tango is a self-contained melodrama, and makes us pause to
wonder: What story does this woman have to tell? The cadenza for unaccompanied flute only
emphasises the feeling of isolation and self-absorption.
The old folks of the waltz are a happy couple who seem perfectly comfortable in their insanity.
But there are no such delusions in the music its predictable oom-pah rhythms are disturbed by

unexpected, even crazy, bass lines and harmonies that nonetheless sit comfortably with the flutes
bizarre, unfurling melody. The Waltz for the Old Folks comes to an abrupt ending, as if they
suddenly remember where they are.
But not all are dancing in Bellows lithograph, and to one side sits a pair of forlorn, despairing
women even the rejected of society must have their wallflowers. For them Leisner has written a
Ballad for the Lonely, in which a drooping and introverted piccolo melody provides a counterpoint
for the resignation of the guitars gently moving lines. But attention ultimately turns to the middleaged couple in the foreground, dancing a wild and dizzy Samba!. Percussive effects on the guitar
punctuate the music and draw attention to the relentless syncopations that underpin the busy,
leaping melodic lines. The music is borne along by the energy of the samba rhythms until they are
discarded in a throw-away ending.
Virtuoso guitarist and composer Celso Machado was born near So Paulo, Brazil, into a family of
musicians and a life of constant jam sessions. From the age of seven he was immersed in the
popular music of Brazil, playing in roving street bands, but, like the Argentine Piazzolla, Machado
made a thorough study of classical music and the European tradition. The result is an exciting blend
of percussive rhythms, innovative harmonies and popular urban forms.
Musiques Populaires Brsiliennes brings together the samba, choro and bossa nova in an
encapsulation of Brazilian popular music not unlike Piazzollas history of the tango in Argentina. The
first two movements are choros, a genre developed by the musician serenaders of Rio de Janeiro in
the 1870s. They had no special music but appropriated the dances and sentimental songs of 19thcentury Europe, and later the popular urban dances. Paoca, named after a traditional Brazilian sweet,
has a wistful simplicity and singing quality, but breaks into candid cheerfulness in its middle section.
Quebra Queixo (another type of Brazilian confectionery) begins with idiomatic arpeggio patterns for
the guitar supporting a sensuous flute melody. Two contrasting moments disrupt the mood, first when
the flute soars into its upper register, and later when both instruments launch into a sedate polka.
The choro maxixe is even more closely aligned with the fashionable European dances, the polka and
the mazurka, adding Brazilian flavour with systematic syncopation that displaces the strong beats
not only in the melodic line but in the accompaniment too. In fact the off-beat flute theme of Piazza
Vittorio would be perpetually unsettling if it werent for the compelling drive of the underlying
pulse. Like Quebra Queixo, Piazza Vittorio follows the formal structure of the polka, with a recurring

theme interspersed by contrasting sections, but this buoyant music steals out of the 19th-century
ballroom with a twinkle in its eye.
Algodo Doce (literally cotton candy or fairy floss) jumps a century to the samba revival of the
1970s. The style is freer and more spontaneous, with a smooth, seductive melody that develops
from one tiny musical idea. The bossa nova is even more sultry owing much of its mellow, laidback character to the fusion of cool jazz and Brazilian rhythms in the 1950s and Sambossa is
suave, romantic and pure cool. In P de Moleque Machado returns to the samba, the carnival
dance genre renowned for its huge percussion bands. The percussion might be gone, but the
rhythmic subtleties remain.
Brazilian composer Andr Victor Correa began his career as a music professor. In 1936, he became
the director of a jazz band, acquiring the familiar name Andr-the-Saxophonist.
Andr de Sapato Novo, another example of the enduringly popular choro, dates from the last
years of Correas life and is probably his best-known piece. Its enigmatic title leaves us wondering
whether this is a serenade of the choro tradition. Perhaps... surely any girl would fall for a boy with
new shoes. Then again, as guitarist Timothy Kain suggests, maybe theyre dancing shoes, which
would make this samba-choro a display as well as an invitation. The music bears this out, playing
with the idea of a low held note in the flute that skips up to ever new and more virtuosic variations.
And in this transcription for flute and guitar the shoes must, of course, be two-tone. Irresistible!
Yvonne Frindle
Recording Producer & Editor Ralph Lane OAM
Recording Engineer Dennis Fox
Cover and Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd
ABC Classics Robert Patterson, Martin Buzacott, Hilary Shrubb, Natalie Shea, Laura Bell.
Recorded 14-16 May 1997 in the Eugene Goossens Hall of the Australian Broadcasting Corporations Ultimo
Centre, Sydney.
1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed in Australia and
New Zealand by Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright
reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this record without the authority
of the copyright owner is prohibited.

476 4230