This 2-CD set presents the tangos of Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth, performed by pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico.
Heitor Villa-Lobos once said, “Nazareth is the true incarnation of the Brazilian soul.” Ernesto Júlio de Nazareth (1863-1934) was a Brazilian pianist who began composing in the 1870s, nearly two decades before North American ragtime developed. He introduced Afro-Brazilian rhythms to European musical genres. The result was a piano music that bounces with offbeat accents employing alluring syncopations. His music is a poetic invitation into an urban, pioneering landscape of Rio de Janeiro.
Christina says: “I feel a particular affinity for the tangos of Ernesto Nazareth, which combine the sensual world of the Argentine tango with the quicker Brazilian dance forms. Nazareth’s music features those hypnotic and mesmerizing tango dreams of a bygone era.”
Christina Petrowska Quilico, the internationally known Canadian pianist, turns her elegant and perceptive musicianship to the music of this great composer. She plays with both joy, and attention to the deeper aspects of Nazareth’s fine sensibility. Her performance confirms how Nazareth’s natural talent to combine Brazilian dance rhythms in new ways transformed his piano works into classics of Brazilian music. The twenty-four pieces on this recording cover a wide range of motifs. From the cunning Escovado to the danceable and most famous Fon-Fon, the beauty of Petrowska Quilico’s piano brings a distinctive touch to all these Brazilian music gems.
