Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine writer and poet, loved to wander the streets of his birthplace, Buenos Aires. He wrote “Buenos Aires is the next street, the one I’ve never walked; it is all that’s been lost and all that’s to come; it is what lies beyond, the things we do not understand yet love.”
This short trio reflects the contradictions of this beguiling city – its dark corners as well as its intoxicating exuberance. The piece is influenced by the colorful music of Astor Piazzolla, a friend of Borges. In 1965 Piazzolla and his band set some of Borges' poems to music, resulting in the great recording El Tango.
Borges wrote: “Las calles de Buenos Aires ya son mi entraña - My soul is in the streets of Buenos Aires.” This music seeks to transform these images, as Borges said, “into symbols, into music, into something that can last into man’s memory.”
WINTER 2018 THE FLUTIST QUARTERLY
"Murray Gross’ Las Calles de Buenos Aires has an equally dramatic opening, featuring Yang’s beautiful piano playing. In this work, Gross suggests Argentina in several ways. Open fourths and fifths in the piano and between flute and clarinet suggest the openness of the Argentinian plains, while jet whistles in the flute part create wind. There is just enough tango rhythm to ensure that the listener doesn’t forget the subject. This stunning work is both abstract and not, both suggesting and outright stating its point and its purpose."
