TANGO (2000)

TANGO, one of Žuraj’s earliest compositions, is a virtuoso caprice for melodic instrument (versions exist for flute, clarinet, violin and viola) and piano. Drawing on the familiar rhythmic characteristics and arabesque melodic idiom of the Tango, the work has a free, rhapsodic form, with a dramatic introduction subsiding into a calmer main theme with a slinky, almost serpentine melody wending its way over a tango accompaniment. There follows a contrasting middle section, which frees itself from the rhythms of the tango accompaniment and takes on a driving character with rhythmic patterns at times redolent of other latin-american dances such as the rumba, but in the end always just eluding definition. Following this, the serpentine melodic strains of the opening return, before the driving rhythms of the middle section take over in a frenzied coda that brings the work to a close.

The orchestral version of the work is dominated by chordal figures in woodwinds and especially brass, and liberal use of soloists to create almost chamber-musical contrasts. Appropriately, the principal melodic lines are dominated by the flute.

Alwyn Tomas Westbrooke