Search - Fernando Otero :: Vital

Argentine pianist, composer and bandleader Fernando Otero's new album from World Village, Vital, is a meditative yet emotionally refractive set of eleven modern chamber music pieces, redolent of new-style tango, twentieth century atonality, sharp-edged downtown jazz, and other sounds Otero picked up at home and on his travels. The opening duet for piano and violin, 'Nocturno,' is a limping waltz that appears to depict an insomniac's midnight musings; it leads seamlessly into two succeeding yet unrelated movements. 'Siderata,' scored for six players including a bandoneon, Argentina's emblematic squeezebox, is an exercise in silliness, like the uneasy peace that so often precedes a difficult decision. Between them, the violin and bandoneon achieve a small universe of sonic color on 'Noche Illuminata,' while 'Fin de Revision' contradicts its title by continuing to mutate and evolve until the final, wheezing exhalation.