Astor Piazzolla formed his first quintet in 1960, adding piano, guitar, violin and double bass to his bandoneón. It disbanded by the early 1970s, yet a few years later he put together a new quintet that he worked with into his final years. The Quinteto Astor Piazzolla was formed some 20 years ago at the behest of the composer’s daughter, and – not surprisingly – their performances are polished and stylistically solid. Still, naming an ensemble after an artist who was such a force of nature and is not that long gone practically begs for comparisons to be made.

On several selections, the Quinteto Astor Piazzolla do indeed live up to the eponym. In the lyrically alluring Romance del Diablo, for instance, they avoid cloying sentimentality by providing rhythmic backbone as well as tenderness, just as Piazzolla did on his 1965 ‘Concert in New York’s Philharmonic Hall’ album. And they brood darkly in the Retrato de Alfredo Gobbi – a portrait of the venerable tango violinist – in a way that echoes Piazzolla’s 1970 recording from the Teatro Regina in Buenos Aires. In general, however, the Quinteto Astor Piazzolla miss that whiff of danger that makes Piazzolla’s own performances so riveting. In Piazzolla’s hands, Milonga para tres (from the terrific 1987 ‘Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night’ album) conjures a desolate streetscape in the wee hours of the morning; the new recording evokes a brightly lit jazz club. And where the late tanguero barreled breathlessly through Chin chin live at Montreux in 1984, leaping perilously from one bar to the next, this new version moves at a steadier pace, favouring swaggering confidence over desperate urgency.

It’s not necessary to slavishly imitate Piazzolla in order to do justice to his music, of course. The Neave Trio play José Bragato’s arrangement of the well-known Primavera porteña (the first of Piazzolla’s Four Seasons) significantly faster than Piazzolla himself, but how thrilling it is. Indeed, the way they barrel ahead has a wild energy similar to that blistering performance of Chin chin from Montreux. Verano porteño is similarly electrifying, and I like how in Otoño porteño the Neave seem to be trying to project a bigger, more symphonic sound. It’s stylistically appropriate too, I think, as I often sense Piazzolla doing just that with his various ensembles.

The songs that make up the remainder of the Neave’s programme are slightly less persuasive. Carla Jablonski’s handsome mezzo-soprano fits snugly between the violin and cello, and she wisely avoids any hint of the operatic, singing in a light, parlando style that sometimes brings Weill to mind, especially in her declamatory version of Los pájaros perdidos. But some songs, like El gordo triste and Yo soy Maria, simply require more bite. The harmonically sophisticated arrangements by Leonardo Suárez Paz (son of Fernando, violinist in Piazzolla’s second quintet) are superb, as is his sardonic Milonga de los monsters – an unlikely yet happy marriage of Prokofiev and tango nuevo.