The idea of bringing together Eastern European folk dances and tango nuevo is a sound one. Astor Piazzolla, tango nuevo’s founding father, surely heard similar folk dances as a kid growing up in New York City’s East Village, and one can discern their echoes – however faint – in his music. On this brief programme, violinist Zachary Carrettin and pianist Mina Gajic´ interweave a set of Seven Balkan Dances for solo piano by Serbian composer Marko Tajčević (1900 84) with a half-dozen contemporary takes on tango nuevo by Ray Granlund (b1975).

Tajčević’s set reminds me of Bartók’s well-known Romanian Folk Dances, although I find Tajčević’s dances somewhat less pithy as well as less strikingly memorable. That said, they’re charming enough and Gajic´ imbues them with plenty of colour and character. I have mixed feelings about Granlund’s tangos, however. He’s clever enough, certainly. TangoNometría, for example, employs metres unusual for a tango, such as 5/8 and 5/4, which give the music a playful unpredictability, and yet even when the metric ground is shifting like quicksand, he manages to project an unwavering lyricism. He has a good ear for piquant harmony, too, and his peculiar harmonic sensibility means that these tangos are no slavish retreads of Piazzolla as one hears in so much modern tango nuevo.

The trouble, I think, is that as fertile as Granlund’s invention can be, I felt my mind wandering towards the end of nearly every tango. If these five- or six-minute works were a minute or two shorter, I believe they’d make a much stronger impression. Carrettin and Gajic´ play them all with gusto, in any case, so the programme is enjoyable enough. And, despite my criticisms, Granlund demonstrates that there’s still plenty of life left in tango nuevo, even three decades after Piazzolla’s death.