Tango di Tango (1992)

Concert Overture for Orchestra

Duration:  8 minutes
2+pic.2+ca.2+bcl.2+cbn/4331/timp.3perc/hp.pf/str
May be performed with Piñata and Hot Buttered Rumba
in a three-movement Latin dance suite under the title Trilógica
Version for violin, accordion and piano available

Commissioned by the San Antonio Symphony

Premiere Performance:   October 1, 1992; San Antonio Symphony;
Christopher Wilkins, Conductor

Tango di Tango is based on a theme from Rodríguez’ widely-performed one-act comic opera, Tango (1985) for tenor and chamber ensemble.  In the opera, the tenor impersonates a tango dancer, then a newscaster and then a Cardinal as he describes the rise of the scandalous tango through actual news clippings and sermons of 1913-14.  In this instrumental version, a theme from the opera is developed in the manner of a Baroque chaconne, with twenty eight-bar variations rising up the whole-tone scale to a frenzied climax before it dies away. 

Reviews:

[Tango is] a light-hearted piece by a very serious composer, and as such may well prove to be one of the musical treasures of our time.
                       Wayne Lee Gay, Ft. Worth Star Telegram

“Rodríguez ... has moved from youthful modish dissonance to a more popular style with technical facility and stylistic assurance.  His music is definitely accessible, rather what Astor Piazzola, the classically inclined Argentine tango master, might compose were he bolder about breaking the boundaries of the tango form.
                       John Rockwell, New York Times