Juan José Mosalini Orchestra

Juan José Mosalini, is one of the major masters of modern tango. A French resident for the past thirty years, his creative and instructive work has reached out across Europe and a large part of the world. As a founder of prestigious chairs of the Bandoneon, where he has developed illustrious learning programmes in technique and style, maestro Mosalini receives disciples from all over the world in Gennevilliers‘s Edgar Varèse music academy. One of his most remarkable facets is that of conductor. Over the years of Tangos long history the conductors place has been occupied by many talented musicians: Troilo, De Caro, Canaro, Fresedo, Di Sarli, Salgan, Piazzolla, Mores. Garello, Piro and many others.
Tango’s cultural, but also spontaneously emotional nature which blossoms within a particular aestheticism, its interior and bohemian character allow the conductor a richness and diversity of styles; variety of rhythms, assertion of melody but also unpredictable detours, as precise as they are multiple, and the dynamics, a delicate treasure of nuances; all this constitutes the expression of the Tango bands instruments and makes a classical language of this musical art.
I rate Juan José Mosalini with the very best of our time, up there with the excellent musicians that he himself has formed in this language; he has the gift of bringing out a particular expression, born of the affirmation of a personal style that unites all the instruments as· one entity, the band itself In this latest recording we discover versions of pages such as “Norteño” by Emilio Balcarce and “Tres minutos con la realidad” by Astor Piazzolla (I was in the studio with Astor for the first recording of this piece in 1958), to give just two examples, where very different character of the music are respectfully exalted, as much as in the virtuoso passages, which are plentiful, as in the passages where the heart seems to slow down in order to contemplate with blood-red eyes Tango’s metaphysical inner self. There are other jewels on airs by Maffia, Mores, Trantino, Gardel, Troilo and one anthological piece, “Selección de Tangos de Julio de Caro”, an arrangement by Argentino Galván for Anibal Troilo’s band.
As well as for all the other marvels of this superb album, I would like to thank my good friends Mosalini and Sandra Rumolino, for their interpretation of my tango, “Balada para mi Muerte” whose music was written by Piazzolla. For me, Mosalini is a candidate for the bandoneonist’s Parnasus, which is no small feat. With this judgement, which is not born from friendship, and with my affection, which does not stem from admiration, I can tell you that what we are listening to here is a first-rate Tango and a very classy record.
Horacio Ferrer, in Buenos Aires, it was already the XXI century