Some extraordinary claims are made for this disc such
as ‘Tango for Four has mixed a potent tango cocktail that can easily
intoxicate someone used to milder fare, but once the initial dizziness
gives way, this new tango dimension becomes irresistible’. Well not
to this reviewer it doesn’t! I find it all thoroughly resistible and
unerringly, mind-numbingly dull after a couple of tracks. Familiar tangos
by Finnish and Argentinian composers? Familiar?? The group (you can
read the instruments they play at the top of this review, and, yes,
matchbox is not a typographical error for mandolin) ‘is
an ensemble dedicated to spontaneity and freedom in making music. Structure,
key and tempo are the only features agreed in advance…The result is
a sort of fusion tango, deftly combining classical, pop and jazz to
name but a few genres’. Now if that doesn’t make for sad reading, what
does? That the group can play their instruments well enough is not to
be disputed, but what a waste of a violinist who seems to have done
fairly well at various competitions and has a 1702 Matteo Goffriller
violin, and leads the Sinfonia Lahti. The rest of the group are also
wasting their talents. There are 12 tangos on this disc, all of them
pretty interchangeable, some extremely dull improvisations, and ghastly
harmonic shifts as opposed to modulations in the worst tradition of
pop music. If this is what is called cross-over music then the signalman
should not change the points, but rather let this train of tangos go
straight ahead into a tunnel. There was a debut album which is still
available, but let us hope that this the Last Tango in Helsinki.
Christopher Fifield
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Jaakko Kuusisto (violin)