2 частина історії танго
2 частина історії танго
2 частина історії танго
Piazzolla formed his Octeto Buenos Aires in 1955, which marked a turning
point in his musical development. With this octet, he created the musical genre
known as nuevo tango, which synthesized his influences and education during his
developmental years. The ensemble consisted of two bandoneones, two violins, cello, bass,
piano, and electric guitar. This instrumentation, which in the liner notes is
attributed to hearing Gerry Mulligan’s Octet, resembles that of the sexteto típico of
the guardia nueva, but includes the addition of the cello and the electric guitar, a
completely new instrument to the genre. Piazzolla described his musical intentions for the octet
in the liner notes. He
wrote: “The sole purpose of the Octeto Buenos Aires is to renovate popular tango, to
maintain its essence, to introduce new rhythms, new harmonies, new melodies, new
tone colors, and forms.” In essence, he incorporated classical composition
techniques along with jazz harmonies and improvisational practices with traditional
tango. For example, he used polytonal chords (a la Stravinsky) at the end of “Anone”
by combining D Major and Ab Major. In the liner notes, he attributed the style of the
waltz at the end of “Haydee” to Ravel. Both “Marrón y azul” (Brown and Blue) and
“Tangology” (The Study of Tango) contained long passages of improvisation,
specifically in the electric guitar. He also incorporated string techniques from the
escuela decareana such as lija and tambor. Notably, all of the pieces on this
recording are tangos, but the album features the works of the early tangueros such as
“Los mareados” by Juan Carlos Cobián and those by contemporary musicians such as
“A fuego lento” by Horacio Salgán and “Marron y azul” by Piazzolla. Piazzolla’s innovative
interpretations of the tango created much controversy
in Argentina. The tango world divided into “piazzollistas” and “anti-piazzollistas.” Azzi and
Collier remark in their biography: “A particular bone of contention was the
octet’s blasphemous inclusion of the electric guitar.”113 Azzi even mentions that
Horacio Malvicino (the electric guitarist) received death threats. Piazzolla equated
the public’s reception to changing religions: “In Argentina, you could change
anything, except the tango. It was like converting to another religion. As if, from
being a Christian, I’d become a Buddhist or Muslim.” With this controversy, the
octet did not achieve great financial success and Piazzolla quickly disbanded it;
however, this ensemble established nuevo tango as a genre.
The Development of nuevo tango (1958-1970)
Like his father, Piazzolla hoped to achieve greater success in New York, and,
in 1958, he relocated with his family (including his wife, Dedé, and his two children,
Diana and Daniel) to New York. During this short-lived migration, Piazzolla’s father
died and in his honor he composed one of his trademark pieces, “Adiós Nonino.”
This piece remained in Piazzolla’s performing repertoire throughout his life and was
performed by almost all of Piazzolla’s subsequent ensembles. There are over thirty
recordings of it. During this New York period, he also formed a jazz-tango quintet,
which unsuccessfully merged versions of “Triunfal” and “April in Paris.” In 1960, Piazzolla and
his family returned to Buenos Aires and he formed his
second major ensemble the Quinteto Nuevo Tango. This ensemble consisted of
bandoneón, violin, piano, electric guitar and bass, an instrumentation that Piazzolla re-
established during the late 1970s. The recordings of the first Quinteto feature
classic tangos by musicians of the guardia nueva as well as the 1961 album, Piazzolla
interpreta a Piazzolla, featuring only Piazzolla’s compositions. The latter included
the first recording of “Adiós Nonino” as well as “Decarisimo,” a tribute to Julio De
Caro.
While the instrumentation of the first Quinteto remained the same, the
members of the ensemble changed throughout the 1960s. In its initial form, the group
included idolized figures from Piazzolla’s past such as Elvino Vardaro, the violinist
to whom he wrote the fan letter at the age of seventeen, and bassist “Kicho” Díaz of
Troilo’s orchestra. Other notable members included Horacio Malvicino (electric
guitar) of the Octeto Buenos Aires, Oscar López Ruiz (electric guitar), Jaime Gosis
(piano), and Antoino Agri (violin). Each musician brought his own distinct style to
the first Quinteto. Aslan, in his thesis, described Vardaro’s playing as a derivation of
De Caro’s, specifically with the use of portamento and a delayed, but fast vibrato.
Díaz also played in the style of the escuela decareana, which, by the 1960s,
incorporated Pugliese’s emphatic arrastre known as “yumba.” Furthermore,
Piazzolla, in his memoirs, recalled that he composed and arranged specifically for the
musicians in his group. When discussing Gosis’s role within the in ensemble, he
recalled: Gosis’s history with me has a secret. He had played with Pedro
Maffia, and I knew what music he liked. So I started writing things for
piano as if it were a bandoneón. Gosis caught on quickly. He played
the piano with a sound I really never heard anyone else get. In this quotation, Piazzolla was
referring to the deep and rich tone color of Gosis,
which is in contrast to the more percussive style of Pablo Ziegler of the later quintet.
In 1965, the first Quinteto traveled to the United States and Brazil as a part of
an Argentine cultural tour promoted by the government. While touring, the ensemble
gave memorable performances at Philharmonic Hall in New York. Robert Shelton, a
New York Times critic, emphasized the hybridity of the ensemble’s style by
describing the quintet as a cross between a 1920s ballroom dance band, a Chico
Hamilton-Fred Katz modern jazz combo, and a classical quintet that plays chamber
music and bossa nova.118
In contrast to the Octeto Buenos Aires, Piazzolla employed poets and singers
to work with the first Quinteto. In 1965, Piazzolla collaborated with the celebrated
Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges to make the record El tango: Jorge Luis
Borges—Astor Piazzolla.
119 Despite their frequent differences in opinion, Piazzolla
had much admiration for Borges and respected his literary talents. The composer,
however, had a more fruitful artistic partnership with his lifelong friend Horacio
Ferrer. Their collaboration, also featuring singer Roberto Goyeneche, produced a
famous recording of “Balada para un loco” and “Chiquilín de Bachín” in 1969.
Notably, the works of Borges and Ferrer are a contrast to the works of Discépolo from the
previous generation. Both wrote in a modernist literary style, and
specifically Ferrer’s works identify with surrealism. During the 1960s, Piazzolla and Ferrer also
undertook the major project of
creating a tango operita. This large-scale work, titled María de Buenos Aires,
features the protagonist María personifying the life of the tango and more broadly the
history of Buenos Aires. This work starred Piazzolla’s girlfriend at the time, Amelita
Baltar, in the title role. As with the Octeto Buenos Aies, Piazzolla assumed
tremendous economic distress in order to produce this work. He stated: “I sold an
apartment and a car to put it [María de Buenos Aires] on stage and was left with
nothing. It was a total loss. But I enjoyed myself, and that operita I wrote with
Horacio Ferrer was among the most important pieces I’ve ever composed. It was
colossal for its time.”
From a compositional perspective, the work does not have a
dramatic story line, but is rather a compilation of dance forms including waltzes,
tangos, and milongas as well as a large fugue in Act I, “Fuga y misterio.”
The Experimental Phase (1971-1978)
After returning from an extended vacation in Europe in 1971, Piazzolla
formed his new ensemble, a nonet, which he called Conjunto 9 (Ensemble 9). This
group, financially supported by the City of Buenos Aires, consisted of bandoneón,
piano, electric guitar, percussion, two violins, viola, cello, and bass. The nonet
uniquely included percussion, which was very uncommon in tango orchestras. With
this addition, Piazzolla experimented with a style that resembled jazz or rock more
than it did tango.
In the new style, the percussionist divided the beat in such a way that the tango swing and strong
arrastres, which were prevalent in the tangos at the
end of the guardia nueva, were lost. The overall sound of the nonet was very lively,
as demonstrated in the piece “3x4.” Piazzolla, however, was very fond of this
ensemble; he referred to it as a “big dream.” He recorded a two-album record set
with this group, titled, Música popular contemporánea de la ciudad de Buenos Aires,
Vols. 1 and 2. Despite Piazzolla’s affection for the ensemble, the group disbanded
after two years due to the withdrawal of government funding.
Following his heart attack of 1973, Piazzolla began a new series of artistic
endeavors including working with Gerry Mulligan and forming an electronic octet.
Like Vardaro, Mulligan was an icon of Piazzolla’s past; specifically, he had been an
inspiration in forming the Octeto Buenos Aires. In 1974, Piazzolla began filling his
artistic vision by recording Summit with the cool-jazz legend. This album features
new compositions including “Twenty Years Ago” and “Twenty Years After” in honor
of Piazzolla’s first and second experience with Mulligan. The style of this album is
truly a fusion of both Mulligan’s and Piazzolla’s style (specifically, Piazzolla’s style
of Conjunto 9) but it does not feature improvisation to the same extent as in
Mulligan’s non-tango previous works. In 1975, Piazzolla entered into an electronic phase and
formed a new octet.
This ensemble consisted of bandoneón, piano, bass, electric guitar, percussion, organ,
synthesizer, and flute/saxophone. Notably, Piazzolla’s son Daniel played synthesizer
in this ensemble. In contrast to the other groups, this octet’s repertoire featured a tremendous
amount of improvisation. The sound of this ensemble resembled popular
rock of the period more than tango.124 During a sold-out concert at the Teatro Gran
Rex in Buenos Aires, Piazzolla had an epiphany to return to the tango of his first
Quinteto. Gorin writes in the postscript of Piazzolla’s memoirs: “For that concert he
wrote “500 motivaciones,” a tune he played that night for the first and only time, a
piece in which not even the bandoneón, also for the first time in his life, could
connect him with the tango feel.”
After that concert, Piazzolla returned to the
quintet instrumentation and began rearranging his previous works.
Artistic Pinnacle (1978-1990)
In 1978, Piazzolla formed the second Quinteto, through which he achieved his
greatest international success. Consisting of the same instrumentation as the previous
ensemble, this group toured the world for eleven years and created two notable
albums, Tango: Zero Hour (1986) and La camorra (1989), as well as numerous
recordings of live performances such as those in Central Park and at the Montreal
Jazz Festival. Piazzolla aficionados and the bandoneonista himself often cite Tango:
Zero Hour and La camorra as the pinnacle of his career. Stylistically, Piazzolla returned to his
tango roots and his earlier conception of
nuevo tango. Whereas, with previous ensembles of the 1970s, he was exploring the
use of percussion as well as the styles of rock and jazz, Piazzolla fundamentally
derived the musical characteristics of the second Quinteto from the tango genre. He incorporated
the style, sound, rubato, and yeites of Gardel, De Caro, Troilo, and
Pugliese. However, he did not ignore his previous classical or jazz experiences. He
included counterpoint, for example, in the “Fugata” from La camorra, as well as
embellishments in a Baroque style such as turns and mordents. He incorporated small
sections for improvisation and chords reflecting jazz harmonies such as the opening
ninth chord in “La camorra I.” In addition, the quintet had a notable performance and
recording session with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton at the 1986 Montreux Jazz
Festival.
As with the first Quinteto, the personnel of the second Quinteto contributed to
the overall style of the ensemble. It featured Piazzolla (bandoneón), Fernando Suárez
Paz (violin), Pablo Ziegler (piano), Horacio Malvicino (electric guitar), and Héctor
Console (bass). Almost all of these musicians had their foundations in tango with the
exception of Ziegler, who had studied both classical and jazz piano, but played in a
jazz idiom. As evidenced by the Octeto Buenos Aires, Malvicino also had strong jazz
influences. Furthermore, many of the musicians, namely Piazzolla, Suárez Paz,
Ziegler and Console, additionally had training as classical musicians. Thus as an
ensemble, the musicians were able to interweave elements of tango, classical, and
jazz to negotiate an overall style that defined nuevo tango.
In the midst of touring the world with the second Quinteto, Piazzolla also
completed four other major projects. His first was the writing of the film score to El
exilio de Gardel, for which he won the César Award for Best Film Music in 1986.
He recorded his Concerto for bandoneón and orchestra in 1987. Also in that year, he
and Ferrer revived an unsuccessful French version of María de Buenos Aires. Due to the revised
production of the operita, which resembled French Grand Opera more
than the original conception, Piazzolla deemed the revival a disaster. Furthermore,
in 1988, Piazzolla recorded the score to the Broadway show Tango apasionado with
the album, The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night. Unfortunately, the momentum of the
second Quinteto ended in 1988 when
Piazzolla had quadruple bypass surgery. Following the surgery, he undertook two
smaller projects: the Sexteto and a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet. Piazzolla
created a deeper sonority with the Sexteto by replacing the violin with the cello. He
also added a second bandoneón, which had not occurred since the Octeto Buenos
Aires. Azzi and Collier assert that Piazzolla introduced the second bandoneón to
reduce his strain and fatigue after the surgery; however, it should be noted that
Piazzolla performed with the same vigor and was never pleased with the addition. The other
major transformation between the second Quinteto and the Sexteto was the
role of the piano. Piazzollla hired Gerardo Gandini, an Argentine composer who also
had studied with Ginastera, to play piano with the ensemble. Piazzolla gave Gandini
great artistic freedom, which is evidenced by the use of tone clusters in “Tanguedia
III.” The Sexteto never recorded an album; however, one may listen to live
performances of the ensemble on posthumously released CDs such as The Lausanne
Concert (recorded in 1989 and released in 1993). Piazzolla’s final artistic endeavor was the
album, Five Tango Sensations
performed and recorded with the Kronos Quartet. This work resembled Sette Sequenze, which
was written for a German string ensemble in 1983. Notably, this
is the second piece that Piazzolla composed for the quartet. Previously, the ensemble
had recorded “Four, For Tango,” on the CD entitled Winter Was Hard. Stylistically,
Five Tango Sensations is a study in Piazzolla’s extended string techniques with the
incorporation of gestures such as lija and tambor.
Postscript
Piazzolla suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1990 and passed away on July 4,
1992; however, his legacy has endured to the present day. Musicians of his second
Quinteto, such as Suárez Paz and Ziegler, have recorded his pieces with new
ensembles, in addition to composing their own works in the nuevo tango tradition. In
Buenos Aires, almost all tango concerts feature at least one work of Piazzolla. In the
United States, his music has been an inspiration to classical and jazz musicians alike.
Thus, the remainder of this thesis is a discussion of how to approach a performance of
Piazzolla’s music in the present.