Consider this Buenos Aires’s response to Vienna’s New Year’s Day concerts. But instead of waltzes there are tangos, of course. Daniel Barenboim, who was born and raised in Argentina, leads the Buenos Aires Philharmonic at this open-air event, recorded live on New Year’s Eve at the foot of the grand obelisk that stands smack in the city’s centre. Avenida 9 de Julio, Buenos Aires’s main artery – and, reportedly, the world’s widest thoroughfare – was closed to traffic, and the camera often lingers on the street thronged with thousands of portenos sweltering in a heatwave.

The programme is wide-ranging, drawing on classic tangos by Carlos Gardel and Julio de Caro as well as by examples of tango nuevo by Astor Piazzolla. The arrangements (by Jose Carli) are opulently textured and richly coloured, which gives a glittering sheen to music that is, at essence, roughly hewn. Nevertheless, the orchestra plays with gusto for Barenboim, even in well flogged warhorses like Piazzolla’s Adios Nonino, which is played with incendiary passion. A pair of appearances by veteran tanguero Leopoldo Federico and his crackerjack orquesta tipica – a traditional “large” tango ensemble (this one consisting of five bandoneons, four violins, piano, bass and cello) – offer a welcome change of aural scene. Other guests include dancers Mora Godoy and Junior Cervila, who move with slinky elegance, and Carlos Gari, who sings Naranjo en flor in a crooning kind of verismo. And how better to express the tango’s bloody heart and yearning soul?