Escualo 5

REVIEW by „Aachener Nachrichten“ 

With vibrating energy

Thrilling: a Piazzolla evening with Escualo 5 at Accordate

By Thomas Beaujean

Aachen. Fiery, groovy rhythms and sweet-sentimental melodies: This is also available in the Accordate chamber music series, at least when the Escualo 5 heated up to the audience in the well-filled Coronation Hall of Aachen City Hall in a Tango Gala with music by the Argentinean Astor Piazzolla.

The ensemble, which is named "Escualo" (shark) after the title of a piece by Piazzolla, is made up of the five musicians Rudens Turku (violin), Débora Halász (piano), Franz Halász (guitar), Philipp Stubenrauch (double bass) and Alexander Kuralionok (accordion) together, which corresponds exactly to the instrumental line-up of the formation with whom Piazzolla worked from 1960 and for which he wrote countless compositions. 

The performance of the five “Escualos” impressively demonstrated just how stirring, but also how compositionally substantial these pieces by the creator of Tango nuevo can be. All of them virtuosos on their instrument, perfect in their interplay, showed themselves in their interpretations of rousing temperament. 

Sometimes aggressive, and sometimes extremely lyrical beauty 

The immediate sequence of harmoniously hard, sometimes downright aggressive passages with percussive elements and glissandi and then again captivatingly lyrical parts inspired by the typical tango melancholy with touchingly beautiful melodies was demonstrated here in an almost exemplary manner. The fact that the sequence of pieces was loosened up by different instrumental arrangements gave this unusually exciting evening an additional color. The double bass player Philipp Stubenrauch was able to set special highlights, on the one hand letting his instrument sing like a cello with a captivatingly beautiful tone, and on the other hand, the body was treated so much like a percussion that one had to fear for the existence of the instrument. The other four delighted the audience no less with their perfect and energetic game. 

In the wide selection of twelve pieces listed in the program, there were several fugues that underlined Piazzolla's adoration for Johann Sebastian Bach. Joints in the style and rhythm of the tango nuevo: that has its own charm. They identify the composer as a solid counterpoint. How this exciting evening broadened the view of the stylistic diversity of Piazzolla's tango world in a very enlightening way. 

They presented the frantic applause of the audience with two encore. 

AZ / AN from May 9th, 2017