Astor Piazzolla
Astor Piazzolla (March 11th 1921 with Mar del Plata - July 4th 1992 with Buenos Aires), player of bandonion and Argentinian Type-setter . According to many specialists, he was the most important musician of second half of the 20th century for the Tango. “Large Astor” studied the harmony and the contemporary classical music and with the large compositrice and leader Frenchwoman Nadia Boulanger (1887 - 1979). In its youth, he played in an orchestra and made arrangements for the player of bandonion and type-setter Aníbal Troilo. When it started to launch out in innovations in the tango (bearing on the rate/rhythm and the harmony), it undergoes very critical sharp on behalf of the “tangueros” of the “Old guard”.
When the orthodoxe “tangueros”, in the years 1950 and 1960, affirmed that what it did “was not tango”, it answered by formulating a new definition: “It is the modern music of Buenos Aires”. For its disciples and the amateurs of his music, his music is that which represents best the contracted rate/rhythm but melancholic person of the Argentinian capital become an immense metropolis. The personality of Piazzolla, disrespectful, impassioned until intolerance, comprised without any doubt these two elements, which it sometimes mixed in certain pieces.
Biography
Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was born at Mar del Plata, at the time where this city of the coast Atlantique, with 400 kilometers in the south of Buenos Aires was a fishing port and had not become an aristocratic seaside resort yet. At the three years age, it leaves with his parents to New York in the Greenwich Village.When Astor is eight years old, his/her father, impassioned Tango, offers a Bandonéon to him. The child is disappointed, it would have preferred roller skates like all the children of the district. Later, Astor will affirm that if his/her father had offered a Saxophone to him he would have probably become musician of Jazz. One day that he played in the court of his building, Astor discovers Jean-Sebastien Bach: it is the Pianiste Bela Wilda, former student of Rachmaninoff, which studies nine hours per day. The music of Bach impresses so much Astor which he wants to take of the courses with Bela Wilda.
In 1936, the Piazzolla family turns over to Mar del Plata. Astor, then adolescent cannot what make its life. Sometimes he plays of the bandonion, but without conviction, because it is not still interested in the tango. A concert of the violonist Elvino Vardaro with its Sexteto tīpico , with Mar del Plata, the fact of changing opinion: Astor discovers a new manner of playing the Tango which impassions it. Immediately, it forms its first unit, the Cuarteto Azul , by copying the style of Elvino Vardaro.
In 1938, at seventeen years, it decides to become professional Bandonéoniste and settles with Buenos Aires. During one year, he plays in poor Orchestre S. Every evening, it goes to the Germinal - the Broadway of Buenos Aires - where celebrates it bandoneonist Aníbal Troilo plays with its Orquesta tīpica . When one of the bandoneonists falls ill, Astor requires of his/her friend the violonist Hugo Baralis, who belongs to the orchestra, to present it to maestro. As Astor knows all the repertory by heart, it is committed the evening even in the orchestra, one of best of the time. Aníbal Troilo had sometimes to make him remonstrances so that it is confined in the strict borders which were those of the orchestra.
At that time Argentina is one of the richest countries of the world and people want to forget the misery of the Thirties, they want to have fun and go to dance. The ballrooms multiply, there are thousands of orchestras of tango in Buenos Aires and a little everywhere in the country.
Each orchestra has its style. As in the jazz, everyone plays same the pieces but with particular arrangements. The orchestra of Anibal Troilo uses very elaborate arrangements with a melody style characterized by the extraordinary play of the bandoneonist at the same time Soliste and Leader.
Very quickly, Piazzolla starts to write arrangements for this orchestra, and to compose of the tangos. But the young bandoneonist is not satisfied with this night work. He wants to be a “truth” Compositeur of Classical music. He takes courses with the type-setter Alberto Ginastera and assists each afternoon with the repetitions of the Symphony orchestra of the Colōn theater.
In 1944, it gives up the orchestra of Troilo and directs that which accompanied the famous singer Francisco Fiorentino. From there, Piazzolla starts to release the support with its creativity. Little time afterwards, it creates its own orchestra. Among the pieces which he interpreted at this time, five are detached, written its hand, and of which one carries the title, undoubtedly intentional, of “Prepárense” (“you Prepare”).
Of the beginning of the year 1950, he seriously thinks of giving up the tango to devote himself to the classical music.
In 1954, it can finally carry out its dream: it receives the first price of composition Fabien-Sevitzky and obtains a purse to go to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger which teaches to him the art of the string quartet. At the end of her year of studies, Nadia Boulanger criticizes the lack of personality of her compositions and asks him what it did before coming to it. Piazzolla reveals to him that it was bandoneonist and that it wrote tangos. She asks him to play one of her compositions. He plays Triunfal . She congratulates it and advises to him to follow the traces of Bartók and Stravinski which had taken as a starting point the popular Musique of their country to create a music based on their musical roots.
The words of Nadia Boulanger upset so much Astor Piazzolla which it starts to work like one had. The following years, it works out its own style of music which it will name tango nuevo . But it will still be necessary for him to fight a long time before being universally recognized. In Paris, in 1955, it will record approximately 16 pieces, for the majority written by him, with the cords of the Orchestra of the Opéra of Paris, Martial Solal and Lalo Schifrin with the piano and itself with the bandonion.
Of return to Buenos Aires, it creates a bandonion and string orchestra. It is surrounded of the best soloists and musicians of tango of the city. Elvino Vardaro Jaime Gossis Jose Bragato are important vectors of the music of Piazzolla at that time. One will find these names later. With this orchestra it shows all its skill in the writing for cords. Its repertory comprises a half of compositions, among which “Tango LED ángel” (Tango of the angel) and “Very minutos idiot the realidad” (Three minutes with reality) " melancolico Buenos Aires " " lo that vendre" (what will come) (premonitory?), while it reinterpreted certain partitions created by other type-setters (Sensiblero, Fuimos, Cachila, Cumparsita).
It founds its famous byte with Mario Francini and Hugo Baralis (violin), Leopoldo Federico (bandoneon2), Atilio Stampone (piano) Jose Bragato (violoncellist), Vasalo (Double bass) and Horacio Malvicino (electric guitar). This group is a revolution! It is made up only of large leaders of orchestras of the time what gives an additional legitimacy to this project. Piazzolla introduces the electric guitar, and the chorus bebop of Malvicino bring a color of most modern to the unit. There still one finds resumptions of tango of the time (negracha, has fuego lento, los mareados) and of the compositions of him or the members of the group (cabulero, Marron there Azul, Ballet tango). It records three discs with this formation.
Piazzolla: does he play of the tango or not? it is the great question which will be put from there.
In 1958, it goes again to New York; it tries to operate a fusion between tango and jazz which fails and which it criticizes highly thereafter.
It goes back to Buenos Aires in 1960, and creates another formation, the Quintet “Nuevo Tango” (him with the bandonion, Elvino Vardaro then Simon Bajour with the violin, Jaime Gossis with the piano, Jorge Lopez Ruiz with the electric guitar and Kicho Diaz with the double bass). With this group, it creates tangos like “decarissimo”, “Adiós Nonino”, “Buenos Aires Hora Cero”, “Muerte LED ángel”, which are, among its compositions, the most recorded and interpreted in the following decades. This quintet is the perfect formation for Piazzolla. It finds there a balance which galvanizes it and inspires it. During the Sixties he will write the major part of his work. Piazzolla is also an extraordinary interpreter and a team leader the most inspired of. Its writing is without concession and its music is detached more and more from the popular tango: indeed, contrary to the tangos of the previous decades, they are very difficult to dance.
In 1965, the quintet plays New York with two novel members Antonio Agri with the violin and Oscar Lopez Ruiz with the electric guitar. It creates the continuation del Angel (introduction, milonga, muerte and resureccion).
This same year, it records tangos made up on poems of the writer Jorge Luis Borges with the singer Edmundo Rivero and the actor Luis Medina Castro. It is a disc worship in the history of the Tango, even if Borges is not very packed by the result.
Then, Piazzolla joins the poet Horace Ferrer, with whom it creates the most known tangos of his repertory: “Chiquilín de Bachín” and “Trotted para a loco”. To the whole beginning of the year 1970, Piazzolla leaves in Italy. They write together the Maria operetta of Buenos Aires which does not have any success. It binds with Amelita Baltar which is the egery of all these songs, more inspired by the variety than by the tango.
Piazzolla assembles a new unit the nonetto with which it records two discs. It turns to Europe. The battery appears at that time in its music. He writes to the “concierto nacar por this little nun and orchestrates” (concerto grosso).
He goes up into 74 the conjunto electronico with organ, low electric, flute, keyboard. Esthetics is turned towards the pop music. It is the least interesting work. In the years which follow, it composes of new tangos with success (Libertango, Amelitango, Suite trolienne and light) and approaches the jazz again, by a made up disc with the saxophonist Gerry Mulligan.
From 79 to 88, Astor Piazzolla joins again with its quinteto of before with Pablo Ziegler with the piano, Hector Console with low, Oscar Lopez Ruiz then Horacio Malvicino with the guitar and Fernando Suarez Paz with the violin. Success is fulgurating. It multiplies the rounds abroad. The orders of writing flow (films, continuations for flute and guitar, Acconcagua concertos and Hommenaje has Liege, quartet furnace for tango (kronos four-bit byte) and the sonata the great tango for Rostropovitch). But Astor Piazzolla is not really conscious of this recognition. It will fight until the end against its detractors whereas the tango nuevo receives finally the consideration which it deserves.
In 1989, it sets up its last group, Sextet “Nuevo Tango”, of unusual composition which points out the octeto Buenos Aires: two bandonions (him and Daniel Binelli), a piano (Gerardo Gandini), a double bass (Hector Comforts or Angel Ridolfi), an electric guitar (its old accomplice Horacio Malvicino) and a violoncello (Jose Bragato then Carlos Mozzi). The music is dark and resolutely contemporary.
In 1990, right before an brain attack from which it will not go back - it dies in Buenos Aires two years later - Astor Piazzolla entrusts to Natalio Gōrin: I listen to tango since age the eight years and I recognize that some of these large musicians influenced my music. I respect them because they found a style clean. When one creates, it is necessary to have its own style. Without style, there is no music.
External bonds
- Fundación Piazzolla
- Biography of Astor Piazzolla
- Biography of Astor Piazzolla, on musicargentina.com
- Unit Astoria
- Tangos of Piazzolla