Astor Piazzolla

Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla (Mar del Plata, March 11, 1921 – Buenos Aires, July 4, 1992) was an Argentine bandoneon player and composer considered one of the most important musicians of the XX and one of the most important tango composers in the world.

His works revolutionized traditional tango into a new style called nuevo tango or avant-garde tango, incorporating elements of jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneon player, he used to perform his own compositions with a variety of ensembles. In 1992, the American music critic Stephen Holden described Piazzolla as "the most important composer of tango music in the world".

He was born in Mar del Plata, but from a very young age he grew up in the metropolis of New York, where his father gave him a bandoneon, which he began to play at an early age. He took classes with Alberto Ginastera and won the Fabien Sevitzky Competition, with which he was able to finance a trip to Europe to study harmony, classical and contemporary music with the French composer and conductor Nadia Boulanger. In his youth he played and made orchestral arrangements for the bandoneonist, composer and conductor Aníbal Troilo. When he began to make innovations in tango in terms of rhythm, timbre and harmony, he was highly criticized by the tangueros of the “old guard”, orthodox in terms of rhythm, melody and orchestration..

When in the 1950s and 1960s the traditional tangueros —who considered him "the killer of tango"— decreed that his compositions were not tango, Piazzolla responded with a new definition: "It is contemporary music from Buenos Aires." Despite this, in Argentina radio stations did not broadcast his works and commentators continued to attack his art. For years, tangueros and music critics considered him a disrespectful snob who composed "hybrid" music, with outbursts of dissonant harmony.

Yes, it is true, I am an enemy of tango; but of tango as they understand it. They still believe in the little man, not me. They believe in the lighthouse, not me. If everything has changed, you must also change the music of Buenos Aires. We are many who want to change the tango, but these gentlemen who attack me do not understand nor will they ever understand it. I'll move on, despite them.

Ástor Piazzolla, 1954.

In the last years of his life he was vindicated by intellectuals, jazz players and rock musicians from all over the world, as well as by new referents of tango, and in the XXI is considered one of the most important Argentine musicians in the history of his country. He also composed music for nearly 40 films.

Biography

Early Years

Ástor Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer in 1970.

Astor Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina in 1921, the son of Vicente Piazzolla and Asunta Manetti (both born in Mar del Plata, sons of Italian parents). The name Astor did not exist at the time and his father gave it to him in homage to his friend Astor Bolognini, a motorcycle racer and first cellist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1924 the family moved to New York, United States, Astor lived a large part of his childhood in that city, and learned his third language, English, since he knew Spanish and Italian. Sidelined from sports as a result of a malformation in one of his legs, in 1927, feeling nostalgic for his native Argentina, Astor's father bought him a used bandoneon at a pawnshop for $18. Astor's father also had a fondness for music, and in fact played a similar instrument, the accordion. It was useless to pretend to find a bandoneon master on the banks of the Hudson and the kid, on his own, dedicated himself to persuading the bellhops to give up all their secrets to his fingers. Isn't it said out there that Blaise Pascal invented geometry by himself? ?».

The Piazzolla family decided to return to Mar del Plata briefly, and there an Italian immigrant, Libero Paolini, who played in the Munich confectionery, taught him the first chords. Then he changed teachers and it was Homero, Libero's brother, who taught him some rancheras, waltzes and polkas. And although he did not play tangos, Homero told his father that "the kid has talent" and although he still has an American style, he is a "tanguero with soul", to which the father replied "I already knew that, maestro". But the time in which the family settles in Mar del Plata is short and they return to New York. At the time Astor was eleven years old.

There, Vicente managed to put himself under the protection of Nicola Scabutiello, owner of an important hair salon on the West Side and several clandestine pool halls. Astor would say of those years:

Somehow, I owe it to those first years in New York. That was the world you saw in The Intocable: poverty, solidarity among peasants, dry law, Eliot Ness, mafia... Anyway, I was very tormenting, I didn't like the school very much—I was bluffed [of the lunfardo "screw"] from several—and I was walking down the street a lot. That atmosphere made me very aggressive, gave me the hardness and the resistance necessary to confront the world and, above all, the bataholas that twenty-five years later I was going to raise my music.

One day in front of his window he heard from a neighboring house something that caught his attention, someone at a piano was interpreting Johann Sebastian Bach, it was a Hungarian to whom Piazzolla attributed the status of a student of Rachmaninov, whose name was Bela Wilda. «We talked about jazz, about cannelloni, about friendship, about the need to study six and even eight hours a day to achieve perfection. With him I learned the true love of music." This is how in 1933 he took classes with Bela Wilda, of whom Piazzolla also pointed out: "With him I learned to love Bach." He also studied with Terig Tucci. He made his debut in a school festival in 1932 in a small theater on 42nd Street, for which Astor composed a tango that he called "Paso a paso hacia la 42", but which his father renamed "La catinga".

It was a violent neighborhood, because there was hunger and sprouting. I grew up watching all that. Gangs who fought each other, robberies and deaths every day. Anyway, 8th Street, New York, Elia Kazan, Al Jolson, Gershwin, Sophie Tucker singing at the Orpheum, a bar that was in the corner of the house... All that, plus violence, plus that exciting thing that New York has, is in my music, are in my life, in my behavior, in my relationships.

Astor Piazzolla.

He was devoted to Agustín Bardi and Eduardo Arolas, and considered Julio De Caro and the violinist Elvino Vardaro as innovators in tango, as well as admiring Osvaldo Pugliese.

Piazzolla making canillita with Carlos Gardel in The day you love me1935.

Piazzolla met Carlos Gardel in Manhattan in 1934, when he brought him a present made by his father. Gardel liked the young man very much and he found it useful to do his shopping in the city, since he knew the city very well, in addition to being fluent in English, a language that Gardel was totally unaware of. The following year the singer invited him to participate in the film he was shooting at the time, The day you love me, as a young newspaper vendor. Off camera, Piazzolla taught Gardel how to play the bandoneon, and Gardel told him: «You're going to be something great, kid, I'm telling you. But you play tango like a Galician». To which Piazzolla told him "I still don't understand tango", and Gardel replied: "when you understand it, you won't leave it". Gardel invited Piazzolla to join him on his tour of America, but his father decided that He was still very young, for this reason, his place was taken by the Argentine boxer José Corpas Moreno. This early disappointment turned out to be great luck, since it was on this tour that Gardel and his entire band lost their lives in a plane crash. In 1978, in an imaginary letter to Gardel, Piazzolla would joke about this fact:

... I'll never forget the night you offered a barbecue at the end of the filming. The day you love me. It was an honor of the Argentines and Uruguayans who lived in New York. I remember Alberto Castellano had to play the piano and I the bandoneon, of course to accompany you singing. I had the crazy luck that the piano was so bad that I had to play alone and you sang the songs of the film. What a night, Charlie! There was my baptism with tango.
First tango of my life and accompanying Gardel! I'll never forget. Soon you left with Lepera and your guitarists to Hollywood. You remember you sent me two telegrams to join you with my bandoneon? It was the spring of 35 and I was 14 years old. The old people didn't give me permission and the union either. Charlie, I saved myself! Instead of playing the bandoneon I'd be playing the harp.

Piazzolla was seventeen years old when he was still embarrassed that his friends knew that he played the bandoneon. In France, much later, he would hide it in the closet. That tension between the shameful presence and his desire to make her acquire a new citizenship card is present from very early on. The bandoneon begins to take on a new meaning with another casual listening, that of the violinist Elvino Vardaro, of whom Piazzolla said: "I discovered a different way of playing tango".

The first attempt to put together a Piazzolla group was to make a bellows duet with Calixto Sallago, trying to make some adaptations of pieces by Sergei Rachmaninov. The "translations" of the classical repertoire that Piazzolla listened to may be analogous to what in popular literature, the publishers Claridad or Thor made of Dostoeysky or the great European novelists; the same ones that Roberto Arlt read. Piazzolla later associated with Gabriel Clausi, a former member of Julio De Caro's orchestra, and later linked up with Francisco Lauro's group. She would go from his room to the Novelty cabaret in Corrientes and Esmeralda, with an occasional stopover at the cinema or billiards, recounted those days: "Libero took care of me, but I got bored walking around the city aimlessly." From his first wanderings among musicians, he was struck by how their lives were: "he could not understand why musicians had to live in such miserable places." Piazzolla did not intend at first to have the standard of living of Francisco Canaro, but he did wish to have his fortune. The most important radios would dispute it in the future. He came to sign contracts with very favorable conditions for him with the most important record labels. The magazine Sintonía would present him as "owner of regal price cars".

He took sides mainly with Julio De Caro, but he was also an admirer of Pedro Maffia, Pedro Laurenz and Aníbal Troilo whom, for his eighteen years, he saw as too distant. His daughter Diana recounted that one afternoon he began to walk through Corrientes, and when she reached the height of 900 -near Novelty- he read a sign on the door of Café Germinal announcing the debut of the Anibal Troilo orchestra. Suddenly, he heard someone playing the tango "Comme il faut" by Arolas on the piano.

Study with Ginastera and join the Aníbal Troilo orchestra

Alberto Ginastera was the first professor of Piazzolla, in turn, Piazzolla was his first student.

On July 3, 1940, the pianist Arthur Rubinstein arrived in Argentina. When Piazzolla found out about it, he went to the Álzaga Unzué Palace on Arroyo street where the musician had lived for two months. The pianist himself opened the door and received his guest, who brought him a sketch of a piano concerto. The pianist played a part, and asked the young man if he wanted to study seriously, so much so that Rubinstein took the trouble to call Juan José Castro, the Argentine composer and conductor, advising him that he would be his tutor. But finally Castro referred him to Alberto Ginastera who lived in Barracas, with whom he took classes between 1939 and 1945. Ginastera urged him to go to symphony orchestra rehearsals. At that time, Buenos Aires was relatively neutral during World War II, so important musicians arrived, not only Rubinstein, but also Erich Kleiber, Walter Gieseking, Aaron Copland and Manuel de Falla, who settled in Alta Gracia, Córdoba. The far port was in considerable synchrony with other theaters in the world that were left standing. The concerts of the Symphony Association and the Philharmonic Association, in the Teatro Presidente Alvear, Politeama, Gran Rex theaters and naturally, in the Teatro Colón and the "Friends of Music" cycles, in the Broadway and Metropolitan theaters, allowed access to a significant repertoire.

From that moment he decided to stay in the Germinal, thus being able to find a cafe where he could listen to tango and not a cabaret, from there he would meet Troilo. "I looked at him as if he were God," he would comment to Speratti years later. He spent several hours in the Germinal learning everything he heard. His repeated presence caught the attention of the violinist Hugo Baralis, who one day came to meet the boy. About Piazzolla he said: "He moved his hands, his legs, he was very restless." From there they became friends around 1939.

One day Baralis told him that one of the bandoneonists had been absent because he was ill, to which Piazzolla convinced him to replace him in the position, Baralis, not very sure, told Troilo, and after a test to Piazzolla, Troilo asked him He said: "That suit doesn't fit, kid. Get a blue one, you'll make your debut tonight.” As an anecdotal fact, Piazzolla had taught him what he knew about Gershwin: “leave those things to the Americans,” pianist Orlando Goñi told him. According to Piazzolla, he knew all the tangos by heart, he made his debut in the orchestra in December 1939, not long after Troilo's first recordings for the Odeón label, «Commo il faut» and «Tinta verde», recorded on the 7th of March 1938. "It was another baptism of fire" said Natalio Gorin, the other comes from his debut in Manhattan. As he recalls: "He earned well with Troilo", he would remember those nights at Tibidabo, which was more than a cabaret, it was a musical center in the city. An indisposition of Argentino Galván, Troilo's official arranger, allowed him to take that place. Piazzolla was in charge of “Azabache”, a candombe that Troilo was to present in Ronda de Ases the Radio El Mundo contest and which, however, he never recorded afterwards. He had to give an account of his own register of tango in the score. Piazzolla passed the «Azabache» test, the tango won the contest and opened the door to new commissions.

His peculiar mischievous personality was adopted, according to the biographers Fischerman and Gilbert, as a defense mechanism, against possible ridicule for limping (Piazzolla had one leg smaller than the other) that he could suffer in the environment where he made his music. Troilo nicknamed his young bandoneonist the "Gato" (in lunfardo at that time it referred to a person who lived at night), but he was far from being a person who lived at night. “He wanted to live another kind of life. I did not accept that that, the tangueros, was my destiny. He wanted out of all that. And I think that this intention, that anxiety, saved me", said the same, who made the decision to begin an engagement with Odette María Wolf, eighteen years old and a painting student, who introduced him to the novelties of cubism, surrealism and abstract art, in addition to teaching him another environment. Piazzolla and Odette María Wolf were married in October 1942 and went to live in an apartment house in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Monserrat. Their children Diana (1943) and Daniel (1944) were born from the marriage.

Piazzolla toco and made arrangements for the orchestra of Aníbal Troilo.

The tango «Inspiración» from 1943 is the first arrangement made by Piazzolla and recorded by the Troilo orchestra with classical harmonies. An abundance of chromaticism can be perceived in passing, in the pizzicatos on the strings and in the baroque Trill (music) trills on the piano. The handling of voices is limited. Troilo apparently erased or dictated the precepts of tango correction, but, at the same time, he approved and valued certain arrangements. "Inspiration" with that arrangement, although partially erased, was one of the hits of his presentations, and he also re-recorded it every time he had a new contract with a record company. He recorded it for the first time for the RCA record company in 1943, and then for TK in 1951, and for Odeón in 1957. There is a version recorded by Piazzolla with his own orchestra in 1947, in which version there are larger acciaccaturas on the strings and the orchestrator. a greater contrapuntal ease was allowed, but within the limits established by the convention. Contrary to the installed myth, a large part of the tango public -in addition to the musicians- valued Piazzolla's arrangements. The volume of the orchestrations made for Troilo while he was in his orchestra and the fact that, in 1951, he was chosen to arrange "Responso", the elegiac theme composed by Troilo for the death of Homero Manzi, give a good proof of the appreciation that he had from Piazzolla.

In 1944 he left the Aníbal Troilo orchestra. Regarding the anecdote of the "eraser", Piazzolla would say years later: "Of the thousand notes I wrote, he erased seven hundred...". However, Troilo sought a balance between making new innovations, but without going down paths that were too complicated for his orchestra, taking into account that not everyone was prepared to play the complex music that Piazzolla wrote. The questions were more technical than of another order. They forced the musicians to read, to study, and "they began to annoy me... they broke my exercises," Piazzolla recalled on some occasion. Years after his departure, he would always strongly criticize the fact that Troilo never got off the ground. A "comfortable" place to entertain popular dances, to assume the role of conductor of a great tango orchestra "to be heard", was for Piazzolla a "betrayal".

Beginnings of his professional career

He was a member of the short-lived Quinteto Azul and also in Mar del Plata a group under his direction, with clear timbre characteristics based on the group directed by Elvino Vardaro. By 1938 he already had a reputation for being a great instrumentalist. He had joined the formations of Francisco Lauro and Gabriel Clausi, until he was called by Aníbal Troilo to join his ensemble as a bandoneonist and arranger, while he continued studying various disciplines with Alberto Ginastera. In 1944 he disassociated himself from Troilo's group, Piazzolla went with Francisco Fiorentino's group, and that singer allowed him to print his name as a significant addition, it was the orchestra "of" Astor Piazzolla that accompanied him. They made their debut in Villa Urquiza at the end of 1944, recording twenty-two songs and two instrumentals. Piazzolla composed "En las noches" and "Noches largas" for the occasion. A short time later, and on the advice of his wife, he deleted the "y" becoming "the typical orchestra of Astor Piazzolla" and only his name is printed on the poster announcing it. «Those who followed me preferred to have a coffee and listen: dancing was secondary». He made his debut at El Marcito, one of the numerous cafes where tango was played from noon until after midnight with the only obligation to consume a coffee whose value varied with the time of day. By the end of the 1940s there were several places left to listen to tango at affordable prices: the cafes El Nacional, Marzotto, Tango Bar, La Ruca, La Richmond. In the neighborhoods were El Imperio (where Osvaldo Pugliese played), the café la Victoria, the cafés in Boedo and San Juan or on Avenida San Martín and Fragata Sarmiento. And the milongas of Palermo, like La Enramada.

During 1946 to 1949 he worked for the Odeón label with his independent orchestra, in those recordings his vocalists were Aldo Campoamor, Fontón Luna and Héctor Insúa. After dissolving his formation, he dedicated himself to making arrangements for orchestras such as José Basso's, Francini-Pontier and especially for Aníbal Troilo's. Are you in Colón?" A very famous anecdote is when they played the tango “Copas, amigos y besos” by Mariano Mores. «It was so long, so complex that the cabaret women charged us and went out to dance on the dance floor on tiptoe, as if it were classical music». The arrangement didn't work that he had to modify it. "I think that was the first step to leave Florentino: he didn't like audacity either." of excellent-level orchestras and singers that were active during those years speak of tango as a true commercial phenomenon, comparable, in its appearances, with that of the great swing orchestras in the United States.

By the 1950s, contrary to what is usually considered, Piazzolla was far from being resisted as a composer and orchestrator. He was someone who, without being a member or director of any orchestra (he dissolved his own a few years before) composed and arranged professionally, on request, for the most prestigious ensembles. According to Roberto Pansera, once he was heard to say «I am going to compose two tangos a year. With four recordings a year I live". measure» for orchestras of others. In the 1950s, Piazzola is also the author of music for films and also tries to gain prestige in the "classical world", trying to premiere his works for orchestra and chamber music, to which he rigorously places opus numbers, even when they are Try exercises at the request of your teacher. And that specialized place also corresponds to a model learned with Alberto Ginastera: the composer situated above the contingencies of the world and who should not be interested in who is the one who pays, as long as he respects his art.

Among those who have written about Piazzolla, he is the only one who notices the fundamental importance of the tangos composed at the beginning of the 1950s –«Prepárenense», «Contrabajenado», «Lo que venir», «Triunfal», and in particular "To show off" the piece that opens the series, is the writer and journalist Julio Nudler; "Before, it was not very clear what Piazzolla wanted," Nudler once said. The performance of "Para Lucirise" (own authorship) for example lasts almost four minutes, a considerable length for the commercial standards of the time.

Regarding the controversy with the tangueros of the «old guard», Lalo Schifrin recounted that:

We were eating and he told me that he was sad and indignant with the tangueros who did not recognize him - in his merits) and continued to insist on the subject. Astor, you shouldn't care what they say. What if you do is tango or not. It's not your problem: what you're doing is Piazzolla.

Lalo Schifrin.

Fabien Sevizky Competition

Piazzolla said he would not participate in a concert for the Eva Perón Foundation, but his absence was not for ideological reasons, he had dissolved the orchestra. The same formation with which in 1948 he recorded a song tailored to the First Five-Year Plan and whose lyrics gave an account of the Peronist euphoria: «I am lucky to be Argentine / live in the most beautiful and happy homeland» sang Alberto Montan Luna in "República Argentina", a waltz composed by Santos Lipesker and Reinaldo Yiso and arranged by Piazzolla.

In 1952, the year after the death of Eva Perón, the publishing house Saraceno published her Epic..., the work was based on texts by Mario Núñez, author of the «Sonnet at the hands of Eva Perón » included in the same bartender about Peronism in which Mende Brun participated. The piano transcription of Epopeya... was made by Piazzolla himself. It was exhumed by chance in the National Library. The discovery was made by a group of Argentine musicologists, including Pablo Fessel, in 2003. «I never thought it would reappear. I thought it was among his works that he destroyed because he didn't like them... I remember how he disowned her," Diana Piazzolla told the newspaper Clarín . Nuñez recounted on that occasion the daughter "was a friend of Papa and adviser to Perón" and was the one who commissioned it "Dad wanted to make a hymn, but in the end he did not like it and did not let them use it or release it."

The Fabien Sevizky composition competition is considered a turning point in Piazzolla's career. In times of censorship and an ideological rigidity that was implacable against figures such as Jorge Luis Borges, Libertad Lamarque, Osvaldo Pugliese, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and even Hugo del Carril himself, it is worth considering that this award could have been awarded to anyone who had a minimal blemish on your file. The Prize was organized by Radio del Estado, which since 1946 had been subjected to a strict supervision policy. According to Diana, Astor's daughter, her father sent the score to the contest that was being held in Indianapolis, where Sevitzky conducted his symphony orchestra, however the competition did not go beyond the borders of the Argentine capital, and not only Ginastera was part of the jury, who also helped his student to retouch the composition that he would later judge, but Luis Gianneo, who had been part of the group of "notables" that awarded Elsa Calcagno in 1953. Piazzolla was the winner with Buenos Aires (three movements symphonic). The prize consisted of a sum of money (not very large, but enough to travel to Europe in cargo ships), and the execution of the work under the tutelage of the maestro who had given its name to the competition. The musician Leopoldo Federico was one of those chosen to interpret it on August 13, he said about that day:

We went to his hotel one day, with Piazzolla, and the director asked us to take our interventions. In one of these essays, the director asked the row of violins who could do the part of the lyja, a little violin that scratched the rope, achieved a chicharra sound. "Ah, they pulled her out of the cabaret," I remember one. Another one wanted to touch her, but it was wrong. Piazzolla corrected it all the time. And so we get to the premiere, giving tumbos. In the fourth beat, part of the orchestra was anywhere. The problem that the bandoneonists had was the waiting compass. Some of them were also irregular. We were not accustomed to such changes in rhythm or to playing with a director who, on the other hand, was unknown to us (...) We trusted the other players. They told us, "Wonder, listen to what we do." But what they did was wrong. Even Abelardo Alfonsín and I realized that.

Leopoldo Federico.

In conversations with Speratti, Piazzolla said that "the work was very popular, but it caused a scandal, because the academics were outraged when they saw the bandoneons". Sevitzky himself called him at the end of the work, to come out and say hello, Piazzolla with some shyness went up on stage and observed that the audience was fighting in a big brawl, to which the director consoled him by saying "don't worry It's good publicity." The version of the "pitched battle" is only remembered by Piazzolla. >Buenos Aires Musical. The composition was never recorded by Piazzolla.

Nadia Boulanger

The classes he took with Nadia Boulanger in Paris drastically changed the musical style of the composer.

She taught me to believe in Astor Piazzolla, that my music was not as bad as I believed. I thought it was a trash because I played tangos in a cabaret, and it turns out that I had a thing called style.

Astor Piazzolla.

Nadia Boulanger was a very important piece in his career, since until his meeting with her, Piazzolla was debating between being a tango musician or a classical music composer. Boulanger encouraged him to continue with tango, but if up to that moment everything was either tango or classical music, from then on it would be tango and classical music. Piazzolla traveled to Europe with two tickets and barely any money, hence the fact that he traveled on the Cuiracero, a cargo ship. Presumably the funds were those won in the contest, although the musician said that he received a scholarship from the Argentine government, but there is no proof of this, and the "scholarship" is often confused with the money won in the contest. He arrived in Amsterdam On September 24, 1954, after traveling forty-five days, he did not immediately go to France, but spent a few days in Holland. Piazzolla told Speratti that he was "demoralized, hesitant, he abandoned himself to the city, he toured its streets looking for". Several aspects of Piazzolla's relationship with Nadia Boulanger are not very clear, including how the Argentine musician came into contact with Boulanger, nor who recommended it to him. According to Simon Collier and María Susana Azzi, Alberto Ginastera himself recommended that Piazzolla contact someone, but they did not specifically specify who. Natalio Gorin affirmed that the bandoneon player confessed to him that: «I almost took classes with Olivier Messiaen». On the other hand, her daughter Diana said that her father, recently arrived in Paris, found out that Boulanger was giving classes very close to where he was staying.

From 1954, when he studied with Boulanger, Piazzolla's music changed radically. But to be accepted as a student he had to show him some of what he had composed, it is not clear which piece he taught him, either, since on the one hand, according to Diana, it was the Sinfonietta, while Collier and Azzi assert that it was the Three Symphonic Movements of Buenos Aires. Piazzolla's biographers agree that that Boulanger noticed the lack of something in his music, what Piazzolla years later called "sentiment". One day before Boulanger's inquiries about what music he made in Buenos Aires, with some shyness he confessed that he composed tangos and played the bandoneon, then it was there when he asked him to play one of his tangos on the piano, Piazzolla played "Triunfal" and before finishing it, her teacher took her hands to tell her: «Never give up on this. This is his music. Here is Piazzolla". He studied eleven months with Boulanger, but at the same time he formed a string orchestra with musicians from the Paris Opera, with Lalo Schifrin and Martial Solal alternating on piano, and recorded the album Two Argentineans in Paris (1955) with songs like "Picasso", "Luz y sombra" and "Bandó". In Paris he discovered that his tango "Prepárense" written in 1952 was part of the repertoire of the tango orchestras of France. The royalties helped her finance his stay. In a letter to José Gobello dated December 16, 1954, Piazzolla said: "It seems unbelievable to see tango being danced as much in Paris as people like, not only the past tango, but the new tangos." Of the classes, Astor would say: "I was A little less than a year with Nadia, studying a lot, especially four-part counterpoint, which drove me crazy. I think that once I cried from the anger because it was very difficult ». Her daughter Diana stated that her father and Nadia saw each other at least three times a week, each meeting lasting at least three hours.

In many articles, interviews and even on the back cover of an Octet album, Piazzolla claims to have listened to saxophonist Gerry Mulligan's Octet in Paris in 1954, being impressed by their improvisation and the looseness with which the musicians played. However, research by Diego Fischerman and Abel Gilbert suggests that this is impossible: just as Piazzolla was residing in Paris, Mulligan was on tour outside of France, further stressing what Piazzolla once told Gorin: «Never believe what I tell journalists», it is possible that the bandoneon player created a story in his likeness, when what happened is that he only heard Mulligan on records.

In Paris, in addition to studying, he composed, arranged, rehearsed and recorded a series of tangos, «Picasso», «Luz y sombra», «Tzigane», «Río Sena», «Chau París» and «Marrón y azul». The recordings, their discussions, his wife, and the two-week vacation with Edouard Pecaurt suggest that the study time was no longer than four months.

The Piazzolla in these French, or to some extent French, tangos is not very different from the one he wanted to stop being: the short clashes of second in pizzicato of the beginning of «Nonino» refer more to his studies in Barracas with Ginastera than to a new apprenticeship, and «Guardia Nueva» sounds more to homage and reelection of the past than to a possible vision of the future. If that Piazzolla writes «to the Piazzolla» at the end of the forty. And he almost copied himself pushed his pedagogue, it is something that only in many cases of this story, are complementary, or even more enlightening than the facts.

Jorge Sánchez Ezequiel.

Piazzolla embarked in Hamburg on the ship Yapeyu bound for Montevideo and took with him a photo of Boulanger, in which they both pose together.

Octet

Of course, there was everything I had learned in my classes, especially Stranvinsky, Bartok, Maurice Ravel and Prokofief; but there was also the most canyengue vein, more aggressive and cut from tango and the milonga of a Pugliese, the refinement of a Troilo and a Alfredo Gobbi that, towards the end of the 40s was, for me, the most interesting tanguero.

Astor Piazzolla.

After returning from Paris, in 1955 Piazzolla formed the Octet of Buenos Aires willing "to ignite the fuse of a national scandal" and "break with all the musical schemes that governed Argentina." There he used all the knowledge he he had acquired years before with Alberto Ginastera, and the new ones with Nadia Boulanger. After seeing Gerry Mulligan's group, Piazzolla included in his new group some phrasing and instrumental handling that were typical of jazz, as well as introducing the concept of swing and counterpoint, the latter more of classical music.. A discordant element was the inclusion of the electric guitar within his Octet, a not very common instrument at that time. The solo guitar did not have a great history in music in general. Possibly Piazzolla listened to some of the records published by Delaunay (who hired him to record some records with the Vogue label) and from there he also met Mulligan, Barney Kessel and Jimmy Raney, from where he not only based himself on the idea of including the electric guitar, but in giving it a contrapuntal role. According to guitarist Horacio Malvicino, at first Piazzolla had in mind to use a vibraphone (which he used in the Quintet he formed in New York in 1959), but since there was no Such an instrumentalist in Argentina, he opted for the electric guitar. The group had no director, but rather proposed to make tango "as it feels". It did not have a singer except in a few exceptions, and there was no acting at dances.

The group was made up of Piazzolla himself and Leopoldo Federico on bandoneons, Enrique Mario Francini and Hugo Baralis on violins Atilio Stampone on piano, Horacio Malvicino on electric guitar, José Bragato on cello and Hamlet Greco on double bass, (who would later become replaced by Juan Vasallo). He would remember that first post-Paris formation: «We were eight war tanks [...] We seemed to come out of the ERP... eight guerrillas on stage!... each one, instead of an instrument, it seemed that it had a bazooka". Piazzolla was accused of being "the assassin of tango".

Piazzolla wanted an instrumentalist that improvised and in the tango there were not. There was no Vibrafonista either, so he thought about the guitar, found out and came to listen to me at the Bop Club.

Horatio Malvicino.

The first presentation was at the Faculty of Law at the end of 1957. The group recorded two albums with difficulties: one of medium duration, with six songs released by the Allegro label in 1956 and called Progressive Tango, and another long-playing one edited by Disc Jockey in 1957 entitled Modern Tango. Both materials have very few original compositions by Piazzolla, but a new arrangement of "Marrón y azul" appears on the second of the two albums. In Progressive Tango there was only one piece by Piazzolla, «Lo que venir», which until then had only been recorded in 1954, with explicit Debussyan arrangements in the initial theme (arrangements that would disappear in later versions). The original recording dates from July 1954, a month before the trip to Paris, and so on his return from Europe he returned to the same subject. He also recorded the theme with the same format that he had used in Paris, strings, piano and concert bandoneon, which he would repeat the following year in Montevideo. The composer also made other arrangements for orchestras such as Aníbal Troilo's, who recorded it in 1957 for the Odeón label. A salient feature, on the other hand, is the French motif that, in the octet version, opens the piece with three successive entries, by Francini, Baralis and Bragato, separated from each other by chords by the entire group. In the recording with string orchestra, piano and bandoneon, this motif is just a brief introduction, after which the “rhythmic” theme immediately enters. The version written for Troilo is the one that offers the most differences. There the lyrical tango theme, which in the Octet arrangement was just the harmonic pretext for the electric guitar improvisations, occupies first place and not second place, and the French motif appears fleetingly as its conclusion, functioning as a bridge towards the theme. rhythmic. There, on the other hand, there is a clearly accentuated countersong in four times, which hides (or puts in a more digestible framework for the general public) the additive rhythm of the main voice.

It can be considered that Piazzolla was the first tango theorist, introducing a new reading system, more related to his New York apprenticeship than to the genre itself, from which he selects some names –De Caro, Vardaro, Orlando Goñi, Maderna, Troilo, Salgán and Pugliese, where the music must be listened to, and not danced. The introductory notes written by Piazzolla, in his topic-by-topic analysis and as if he were talking about the work of another or an already canonized record, they imitate the style of the texts of concert programs and of the classical music critics of that time. About "Haydee" he notes on the back cover of the album.

Composed in 1935 and taken to the album by the Octeto of Buenos Aires in 1957. The first part (Romantic) begins with chords of fourth juxtapositions (...) After the waltz in the manner of Ravel, he returns the subject to the first part, finishing the tango with a ralling on the accord Sol mayor – Re mayor (Sol-Re). the only purpose of the Octeto Buenos Aires is to renew the popular tango, maintain its essence, introduce new rhythms, new harmony, melodies, Timbre (acoustics) and forms... we do not intend to make music called "culta".

His intention was to make popular music with all the attributes of seriousness –program notes included- of classical music, and in particular, with its same predominant functionality. He never intended the Octet's music for the dance. This opposition between the two functions had already been raised by Piazzolla himself in relation to the arrangements for his orchestra in 1946, when he spoke of "playing for people to listen" and of composing pieces such as "Villeguita" and "Se armó" for this purpose. ». There was a certain "deification" on the part of the author of the difficulty that would be repeated in the notes written for the Octet's record, as when he describes the work of the bandoneons and says: "They are almost always playing chords of four, five and even six notes each ("The Marne"). Also variations on the themes in quintuplets, sixtuplets and even seventuplets of fusas today in disuse due to technical difficulties (Anone)». The other bandoneon player in the group, Federico, has recounted that it was precisely this difficulty that made the best tango musicians want to play with Piazzolla, since there was a certain privilege in belonging to those groups where "it was difficult to write".

While Piazzolla directed the Octet, he worked with a string orchestra at Radio El Mundo with which he obtained part of the money that his group did not provide. The musician tells that at the beginning of 1955 and based on Boulanger's recommendations he wrote a number of new tangos, which he recorded together with a piano and the strings of the Paris Opera. The project, fostered by Yves Baquet, an executive from Editions Universelles that Piazzolla went to see with a recommendation from Eduardo Parula —the representative of that firm in Buenos Aires— was embodied in a series of single discs, 45 and 33 RPM for the Festival, Vogue and Barclay labels, which included a total of sixteen songs. Later, in Buenos Aires, he published some recordings for the TK and Odeón labels, and in Montevideo for Antar/Telefunken with his own songs (in addition to "Lo que vendrada", a new version of "Marrón y azul") and arrangements of other people's songs (" Vanguardista" by Bragato, and "Negracha" by Pugliese, among others). The culmination of that period are two albums, both repeating the French format (strings, piano and bandoneon). One, of medium duration (it was a 10-inch record), was released in Montevideo, according to some sources it was recorded in that city with the strings of the Sodre Symphony (Official Broadcasting Service of the Uruguayan State) and was titled What will come. There, in addition to the same orchestration of that piece that Piazzolla had recorded in Buenos Aires a year before, it appeared, along with other tangos ("Miedo", by Vardaro, Aroma y García, Jiminez, "Sensiblero", "Noche de amor", by Franco and Rubinstein, "La cachila" by Arolas, and sung by Jorge Sobral, "La tarde del adiós" by López and Lambertucci and "Yo soy el negro" by Piazzolla and Gorostiza), the first recording of "Tres minutos con reality". The other record was recorded in Buenos Aires under the name Tango en HI-Fi and is also included there. The rhythm is the same as in the French recordings, although the Montevidean recording includes percussion, in particular a xylophone in «Tres minutos con la realidad» that further accentuates the similarity between the bridge towards the lithic theme and the Bartok of Music for percussion, strings and celesta.

In that text, the bandoneon player also spoke, albeit with a certain tone of complaint, of what, however, is one of the best virtues of that group and of those that followed it: the need for containment. "The difficult sonic balance of the Octet took two years to achieve, and much remains to be discovered," he explained. In each arrangement you learn more about this orchestral formation. Let us bear in mind that there is a tremendous imbalance due to the lack of strings, since for two bandoneons, piano, guitar and bass, at least six violins, viola and cello would be needed, but adjusting to the two violins and cello, it is necessary to write to these are in unaccustomed tessituras». What emerges, however, is a true lesson about this profession, learned more in practice and by listening than with the teachers of the academy, which, despite Piazzolla's claim to the contrary, is one of his trademarks:

For example, when I include rhythmic effects and want to achieve strong sonorities, I use the two violins almost always in the severe thesis and the cello, most of the time, within the same tesitura as the violins, especially in the unisonsounds (“Neotango”, “El Marne” and “Arrabal”). For mild and melodic effects use the normal (Anone) thesis. The double strings are used for greater harmonic soundness (two violins, cello and bass in the second part of "Moron and blue"). Also the counterpoint between the strings gives greater beauty to the original themes (Arrabal only violin). For the percussion effects also the strings intervene: the first violin imitates the drum, the second the lija, the cello the box and the bass hit with the palm of the hand behind the instrument achieves the effect of the pump (Moron and blue).

In «Lo que venir», regardless of the notable differences that would exist between the version of the Octet and the later ones, many of the stylistic traits that would be central to Piazzolla's future production appear –that incisive theme, with asymmetrical accents, strongly rhythmic, which would become almost a factory hallmark: the role given to soloists. A salient feature, on the other hand, is the French motif that, in the octet version, opens the piece with three successive entries, by Francini, Baralis and Bragato, separated from each other by chords by the entire group. In the recording with string orchestra, piano and bandoneon, this motif is just a brief introduction, after which the “rhythmic” theme immediately enters. The version written for Troilo is the one that offers the most differences. There, the lyrical tango theme —which in the Octet's arrangement was barely the harmonic pretext for the electric guitar improvisations— occupies first place and not second place, and the French motif appears fleetingly as its conclusion, functioning as a bridge towards the rhythmic theme. There, on the other hand, there is a clearly accentuated countersong in four times, which hides (or puts in a more digestible framework for the general public) the additive rhythm of the main voice.

The Quintet

In 1955 he returned to Buenos Aires where he formed a string orchestra with Argentine musicians, in which Jorge Sobral sang (for this group he composed Tres minutos con la realidad, a work that synthesizes tango and music by Stravinsky and Bartók) and the famous Octeto Buenos Aires, a group considered to be the initiator of modern tango, both for its instrumentation (it included an electric guitar for the first time in a tango group), and for its harmonic and contrapuntal innovations (chords with 13.as augmented, sixtuplets and fugues).

In 1958, he dissolved both formations and went to the United States, where he recorded the only two albums of what he called jazz-tango (which are currently very difficult to find).

In 1959, during a performance in Puerto Rico, together with Juan Carlos Copes and María Nieves, he received the news of the death of his father, Vicente Nonino Piazzolla. Ástor returns to New York, where he lived with his family, and there he composed «Adiós Nonino», his most famous work, which would retain the rhythmic section of the previous tango «Nonino», plus a heartfelt farewell elegy, which would become a synonym of Piazzolla over the years. The death of Ástor's father brought some collapses in the life of the family: his marriage until then with Dedé went into crisis and they separated, while the relationship with their children also suffered. seriously diminished, and cannot be totally fixed.

Dad asked us to leave him alone for a few hours. We got into the kitchen. First there was absolute silence. At the time, we heard the bandoneon playing. It was a very sad melody, terribly sad. He was composing "Farewell Nonino".

Daniel Piazzolla.

In 1990, during an interview he stated that: «The number one tango is 'Adiós Nonino'. I proposed a thousand times to make a better one and I couldn't". More than 170 versions of "Adiós Nonino" by different musicians have been recorded.

Piazzolla and his orchestra are presented in Canal 13, 1963.

Frustrated by the attempt at jazz-tango, he returned to Buenos Aires in 1960 and formed the group that would definitively define his musical style, which would be the basis of later groups and to which he would return every time he he felt frustrated by other projects: the Nuevo Tango Quintet, formed in its first version, by Piazzolla on bandoneon, Jaime Gosis on piano, Simón Bajour on violin, Kicho Díaz on double bass and Horacio Malvicino on electric guitar.

With this group he would release Adiós Nonino and all the compositions that shaped his style and would be the most remembered: Las Estaciones (Verano Porteño, Porteño Autumn, Porteño Winter and Porteño Spring), the Angel Series (Introduction to the Angel, Milonga del Angel, Death of the Angel and Resurrection of the Angel), The Devil Series (Tango diablo, Vayamos al diablo and Romance of the Devil), Revirado, Fracanapa, Clambre, Buenos Aires Time Cero, Decarísimo, Michelángelo ´70 and Fugata, among others. That last piece is based on the work of the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

Consecration

In 1963, he formed the New Octet, for which he composed Introduction to "Heroes and Tombs", with lyrics by Ernesto Sabato. In that year he also won the Hirsch Prize for his «Series of symphonic tangos», premiered under the direction of Paul Klecky.

Pino Presti created and touched the bass line Libertango.

In 1965, together with the Quintet, an orchestra formed ad hoc, and with the voices of Luis Medina Castro as reciter and Edmundo Rivero as singer, he recorded the album El tango, which contains songs with lyrics by Jorge Luis Borges, including Hombre de la esquina rosada, a suite for singing, recitation and twelve instruments. Precisely in that year, Piazzolla received 754,000 pesos (a high sum for the time) from royalties from SADAIC. The quintet's albums sold reasonably well, which allowed him to negotiate non-abusive conditions with the labels. for him.

In 1966 he separated from Dedé Wolff and in 1967 he began his collaboration with the Uruguayan/Argentine poet Horacio Ferrer, with whom he composed the opera María de Buenos Aires, which would premiere the following year, with the singer Amelita Baltar. On the other hand, Piazzolla began a sentimental relationship with Baltar that would last five years.

In 1969, Piazzolla and Ferrer composed the successful Balada para un loco, which would bring sudden popularity to Piazzolla.

In 1970 he returned to Paris where again together with Ferrer, he created the oratorio El pueblo joven, premiered shortly after in 1971 in Saarbrücken, Germany. The following year he was invited for the first time to appear at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, together with other important tango orchestras. Also in 1972, Piazzolla composed, for his Ensemble 9, the «Concierto de Nácar, for nine tango players and philharmonic orchestra», the first antecedent of his later symphonic works for bandoneon.

Ástor Piazzolla in 1975.

In 1973 he suffered a heart attack that forced him to reduce his activity, so he settled in Italy, where he remained recording for five years. During those years, he formed the Electronic Ensemble, an octet made up of bandoneon, electric or acoustic piano, organ, guitar, electric bass, drums, synthesizer, and violin (which was later replaced by a transverse flute or sax). The formation was made up of renowned Italian musicians such as Pino Presti on electric bass and Tullio De Piscopo on drums. Later, Ástor would incorporate singer José Ángel Trelles into the octet.

In 1974 he separated from Amelita Baltar, and that same year he recorded, together with an orchestra of Italian musicians, the albums Summit, with Gerry Mulligan, and Libertango, whose success made him known in Europe. The following year, the Buenos Aires Ensemble recorded his work Tangazo for symphony orchestra.

In 1975, after the death of Aníbal Troilo, Ástor composed a work in four movements in his memory which he called Suite Troileana, which he recorded together with the Electronic Ensemble.

The following year, he meets Laura Escalada, who would be his permanent wife. In December of that year he presented his work 500 motivations together with the Conjunto Electrónico at the Gran Rex theater in Buenos Aires. Months later he would offer another concert at the Olympia in Paris together with a formation similar to the one he played in Buenos Aires, which would be his last presentation together with an electric formation.

Last years

Bandoneon Double A used by Piazzolla.

From 1978 he returned to work together with the Nuevo Tango quintet and resumed composing symphonic works and chamber pieces.

In 1982 he wrote Le Grand Tango, for cello and piano, which was dedicated to the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

In 1984 he played with the singer Milva at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris, France, and in Vienna, Austria, with the Tango Nuevo Quintet where he recorded the live album Live in Wien. He played in Berlin, Germany, and at the Vredenburg theater in Utrecht, The Netherlands, where VPRO-tv director Theo Uittenbogaard made recordings and allowed him, to his great pleasure, to play in the context of the extremely enlarged live screening. of his bandoneon. For many, this was the best performance and sound recording of this episode in his career.

During the presentation of the 1984 concert in Utrecht, Astor Piazzolla said:

"This is our Buenos Aires music today. We've been playing this music with this band since 1960. When we started this music in 1960, people didn't understand music. Today, 25 years later, this music is not yet understood. This is not a joke, this is the truth. But there are many young people who understand us. It is the young who think and look to the future. But people who always look back will never understand my music or the music of others. I'm just interested in the future. I believe in the future of my country Argentina and in the future of the new tango. If you love our music, we love you. If you don't like our music, we love you too."

In 1985 he was named Distinguished Citizen of Buenos Aires, obtained the Platinum Konex Award as the best avant-garde tango musician in Argentine history and premiered in Belgium his Concierto for Bandoneon and Guitar: Homage to Liège. In 1985 he gave the group "Nuevos aires" his score "500 Motivaciones" which was performed in Rooms A and B of the General San Martín Cultural Center in his tribute to being named "Illustrious Citizen of the City of Buenos Aires".

In 1987 he traveled to the United States, where he recorded live in Central Park with the St. Luke's Orchestra, conducted by Lalo Schifrin, his works Bandoneon Concerto and Three Tangos for Bandoneon and Orchestra. During this stage in the United States he also had the opportunity to record Tango Zero Hour, Tango apasionado, La Camorra, Five Tango Sensations (with the Kronos Quartet) and Piazzolla with Gary Burton among others.

In 1988 he underwent heart surgery in a quadruple bypass and at the beginning of the following year he would form his last ensemble, the Nuevo Tango Sextet made up of two bandoneons, piano, electric guitar, double bass and cello.

On August 4, 1990, he suffered a cerebral thrombosis while in Paris, falling in the bathroom of a Parisian apart-hotel. He was hospitalized with a stroke from which he did not recover. He was transferred to Buenos Aires on August 12, where he died two years later on July 4, 1992 at the age of 71. His remains are buried in the Jardín de Paz cemetery, in the town of Pilar.

In his last ten years he wrote more than 300 tangos and some fifty film scores, among which are: Henry IV by Marco Bellocchio, Lumière by Jeanne Moreau, Armaguedon by Alain Delon, Sur, El exilio de Gardel by Fernando Solanas. In February 1993, Piazzolla was nominated posthumously for the 1992 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles for Oblivion in the Best Instrumental Composition category.

Style

One of Piazzolla's main rhythmic inventions has to do with a displacement of the accent inside the milonga and with a particular syncopation effect, which derives in its form from 8 pulses grouped in 3+3+2 and which introduces a principle of ambiguity in the closed metric of tango. This is one of the most characteristic features of the musician. Until Piazzolla, the rhythmic of the tango did not present variations in the metric but in the tempo, in the changes of speed in the course of the interpretation; with Piazzolla the rhythmic of the tango is enriched in the composition itself, in the writing. The use of asymmetric groupings, of the 3+3+2 type, connects Piazzolla's music with Bela Bartok: the Hungarian musician had discovered this type of grouping in the folklore of his region. Unlike what happens with other performers, irregular groupings are used by Piazzolla with great regularity, as a rather stable pattern that gives tango a completely new propulsion. Piazzolla's music connects with these rhythmic groups from his particular reworking of the milonga. It could be thought that in Piazzolla the milonga is always heard, be it in its slower forms or in its variants. Two things that were highly characteristic of tango were excluded at one point by Piazzolla: dancing and singing, in fact, the polyphonic nature of Piazzolla's orchestration expelled the singer.

The concept of his Octet is already related, with the sound of Julio De Caro's sextet from 1926 and with the group that had united this violinist with Elvino Vardaro, Los Virtuosos. But the final touch, that urgency with which the music sounded, that feeling of execution at the limit of technical possibilities (the aesthetic correlate of the "dangerous life" of American blacks and the "commitment" of French existentialists)), came from jazz. And it could be thought that they returned to jazz if one takes into account that this music played, above all, for their audience and in places where Piazzolla shared the stage with "Mono" Enrique Villegas, with the brothers Rubén and Leandro "Gato" Barbieri and with Sergio Milhanovich, two by Jim Hall, Art Farmer, Bill Evans and Stan Getz. The form and treatment, however, are notably far from anything he had done up to now within the popular field. It was about putting an instrument in that mold (a stylized tango orchestra, with strings, bandoneon and piano concertantes) a classical content (his composition exercises from the Ginastera period). «Tres minutos con la realidad» is more of a kind of mini-«Rhapsody» sifted by Bartok (the title chooses to make explicit a tension between reality –actuality– and the world of tango. This tension appears represented, by a On the one hand, due to the additive rhythms at the beginning, the piano solo à la Bartok from Ginastera's Piano Sonata –already ancient resources in the universe of classical composition but extremely novel in the context chosen by Piazzolla–, which would be speaking of that reality traversed by the present, a gesture, a pulsation that, with some variations: the rhythms would gradually become more predictable and regular musically to the city, taken as a subject, and that would end up identifying Buenos Aires, too, for others, even its detractors.

In “Se armó” by José Staffolani and Pedro Maffia, one of the arrangements recorded by Piazzolla's orchestra in 1947, the glissando that I could have heard on Ravel or in the cinema bursts forth. In his own "Pigmalion", where he shows a minute of instrumental introduction "Villeguita" from 1948 in which he presents the 3+3+2 rhythm with a much looser handling of counterpoint and harmony, that style that seduces Graphic News stands out.. Everything is highlighted by the extraordinary setting of the “Del 46” orchestra, where Atilio Stampone, Hugo Baralis and Leopoldo Federico were also present, and which also included Roberto di Filippo, a bandoneonist who was fundamental for Piazzolla in the construction of his own way of playing.. Piazzolla years later saw an intention to change in his arrangements at that time but, at the same time, he recognized that he was still not clear about what he wanted. In 1948 he dissolved the orchestra, in his opinion, it was too advanced for the time.

Influences

Among the contemporary musicians whom Piazzolla was inspired by and admired are Alfredo Gobbi and, fundamentally, Osvaldo Pugliese. The latter with his compositions Negracha, Malandraca and La yumba anticipated what Ástor would later do. Basically in Piazzolla's music the rhythmic marking is based on the tango Negracha composed by Pugliese in 1943 and recorded in 1948. There was always a relationship of respect and mutual admiration between them. Pugliese made versions of tangos by Piazzolla as Heaven in the hands in 1951, Brown and blue in 1956, Nonino between 1961 and 1962, Verano porteño in 1965, Balada para un loco in 1970 and Zum in 1976. Piazzolla in turn recorded from Pugliese: Recuerdo in 1966 and Negracha in 1956. They shared a recital together at the Carré theater in Amsterdam, on June 29, 1989. They closed the recital by playing together their most popular hits: La yumba and Goodbye Nonino. Both in a previous interview expressed their mutual admiration and respect and regretted the fact that this recital was not held in Argentina.

Among the influences of European music, we can also mention Johann Sebastian Bach (from the Baroque period) whose influence is clearly marked in terms of the development of harmonic patterns, fugues and the use of counterpoint, as well as to Bela Bartok (contemporary). According to drummer José Luis Properzi, his music also has points in common with the work of Americans George Gershwin and Brian Wilson.On the other hand, he had great admiration and personally knew Igor Stravinsky.

Legacy

Piazzolla, far from the possibility of generating a collective movement, seems, in that sense, much more to Jorge Luis Borges than what could be assumed. Both instituted reading systems, invented their genealogies and created from arbitrary cuts. Both generated unique and unrepeatable styles (even imitable) from partial encyclopedias and biased readings. One, Borges declared himself conservative and was, however, revolutionary. The other, Piazzolla, although it declares the revolution, also achieved it from a conservative program and from the resistance to the course of classical music since 1950.

In 1995 the Konex Foundation awarded him the Konex Honor Award for his incalculable contribution to music in Argentina.

In 1996, on June 13, 14 and 15, a tribute devised by Eliseo Álvarez was held at the Teatro Ópera in Buenos Aires under the name “Astortango”. Prominent Argentine musicians and musicians from all over the world performed in this show, interpreting the works of maestro Piazzolla, among them were Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Hermeto Pascoal, Jairo, Gerardo Gandini, Fernando Suárez Paz, Horacio Malvicino, Juan Carlos Cirigliano, Rodolfo Mederos, Julio Pane, Néstor Marconi, Raúl Luzzi, Arturo Schneider, Daniel Binelli, his son Daniel and his grandson Daniel "Pipi" Piazzolla.

In 1993, the Pesaro Music Association, by the will of Maestro Hugo Aisemberg and other cultural personalities of Pesaro, founded the Astor Piazzolla Center.

In 2008, the international airport of Mar del Plata, his hometown, was named "Astor Piazzolla International Airport" in his memory.

Starting in 2007, the London-based quintet Fugata Quintet was formed, with musicians graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London, united by their common passion for Piazzolla and his Nuevo Tango. Its very name is derived “from the second movement, “Fugata”, from the Tangada-suite 'Silfo y Ondina' by Astor Piazzolla. It is an acknowledgment of the quintet, whose character and origin are primarily classical, wishing to reflect the composer's own classical origins, and his frequent use of classical compositional forms and techniques in his many notable works for quintet." Formed by the musicians Antonis Hatzinikolaou (guitar), Anastasios Mavroudis (violin), Zivorad Nikolic (accordion), James Opstad (double bass) and Anahit Chaushyan (piano), they have been carrying out important dissemination work in London in recent years of Piazzolla's work, with successful live performances and recordings devoted exclusively to his work in such prestigious venues as the Royal Albert Hall, the Southbank Centre's Purcell Room, or The Forge, as well as broadcasts through the BBC Radio 3, having recently released an acclaimed double album featuring music by the Argentine composer. Among the composers who have been inspired by Piazzolla, Osvaldo Golijov and Daniel Binelli stand out.

Discography

Studio Albums

• Tango Symphony (1955)
• Tango Progresivo: Octeto Buenos Aires (1956)
• Modern Tango also called simply Octeto Buenos Aires (1957)
• What will come (Antar PLP 2001. 1957)
• Tango in Hi-Fi (1957)
• An Evening in Buenos Aires (1959)
• Take Me Dancing! The Latin Rhythms of Astor Piazzolla ' his Quintet (1959)
• Piazzolla interprets Piazzolla (1961)
• Piazzolla or No? Bailable and apiazole (1961)
• Our time (1962)
• Contemporary Tango - Astor Piazzolla and his new octeto (1963)
• Tango for a city - Astor Piazzolla and his quinteto new tango (1963)
• 20 years of vanguard with their ensembles (1964)
• Concert at the Philarmonic Hall in New York (1965)
• The Tango with Edmundo Rivero and texts by Jorge Luis Borges (1965)
• History of the Tango Vol. 1: The Old Guard (1967)
• History of tango Vol. 2: The Romantic Age (1967)
• Goodbye Nonino - Astor Piazzolla with his quinteto (1969)
• Pulsation - Astor Piazzolla and his orchestra (1970)
• Amelita Baltar interprets Piazzolla and Ferrer (1970)
• In person solos of Piazzolla with recited from Ferrer (1970)
• With soul and life (1970)
• The white bike Amelita Baltar with Piazzolla (1971)
• Concert for quintet (1971)
• Contemporary popular music of the City of Buenos Aires Volume 1 (1971)
• Contemporary popular music of the City of Buenos Aires Volume 2 (1972)
• Libertango (1974)
• Summit - Summit with Gerry Mulligan (1974)
• Piazzolla and Amelita Baltar (1974)
• Il pleut sur Santiago (1975)
• Lumière - Suite Troileana (1975)
• Armaguedon (1977)
• Olympia 77 (1977)
• Persecuta (1977)
• Travel of Weddings (1977)
• World Cup 78 or Piazzolla 78 (reissued on CD as Chador(1978)
• Biyuya (1979)
• Thèmes originaux (1979)
• Hell so feared (1979)
• Back - Astor Piazzolla with his quinteto (1982)
• Aconcagua - SWF Rundfunkorchester (1983)
• Oblivion (1984)
• The Exile of Gardel (1984)
• New tango: Hora Zero (1986)
• Double-A Sadness (1987)
• The New Tango with Gary Burton (1987)
• The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night (Tango Passionate) (1988)
• South (1988)
• La Camorra: The Solitude of Passionate Provocation (1989)
• Five Tango Sensations (1989) with the Kronos Quartet.
• Symphony Bandoneon (1990)

Filmography

Documentaries about Piazzolla

• Piazzolla, shark years (2018), directed by Daniel Rosenfeld.
• Burn me like this (Piantao) (1997)

Performer

• Very good. (1972) dir. Fernando Ayala and Enrique Olivera
• Argentine Tango (1969) dir. Simon Feldman
• Prisoners of one night (1962)

Movie music

• The man on Saturday of Leopoldo Torres Rios (1947)

  Subject: "The Devande" by Orchestra of 46.

• With the same colors of Carlos Torres Rios (1949)

  Symphony Orchestra

• Steel solids of Carlos Torres Rios (1949)
• Heaven in the hands by Enrique de Thomas (1949)
• Stella Maris of Homer Carpena (1953)
• Academias de idiomas en Buenos Aires by Enrique Cahen Salaberry (1954)
• Marta Ferrari of July Saraceni (1955)

  Orchestra

• Continent white by Bernard Roland (1955)
• The bitter stems of Fernando Ayala (1955)
• A hard widow of Fernando Ayala (1957)
• Continent white of Bernard Roland (1956)

• Orchestra

• Violence in the city (1956)

  Orchestra

• Saturday night, cinema by Fernando Ayala (1959)

  Orchestra

• Fifth National Year (1960)
• The furia of Vlasta Lah (1960)
• The End of the World (1963)
• Those who will see God by Rodolfo Blasco (1963)
• Paula captivated by Fernando Ayala (1963)

  Some of the themes belong to what was recorded by the Fifth in 1962.

  Item: Paula captivated (A. Piazzolla and Gómez)

• With taste of rage of Fernando Ayala (1965)
• The crazy conventillo girls of Fernando Ayala (1966)
• The fiaca of Fernando Ayala (1968)
• Pulsation of Carlos Páez Vilaró (1969)

  Items:

  Pulsation Nro.1

  Pulsation Nro.2

  Pulsation Nro.3

  Pulsation Nro.4

  Pulsation Nro.5

• With soul and life (1970)
• When a city wakes up (1975)
• Lumière of Jeanne Moreau (1975)

  Items:

  Soledad

  Death (mort)

  Love (L'Amour)

  L'Évasion

• It rains on Santiago of Helvio Soto (1975)

  Electronic set:

  Violin: Antonio Agri

  Trova: Carosello (Italy)

  Subject: "Press" (Salvador Allende)

  Uomo del sud

  Items:

  Salvador Allende

  Fight in the Factory

  La maison de Monique

  Bidonville

  II pleut sur Santiago

  Jorge.

• Wedding travel (o) Honeymoon) of Nadine Trintignant (1975)

  Items:

  The felure

  Bruno and Sarah

  The fixed idea

  The family

• Servante et Maîtresse (1976)
• Armaguedon of Alain Jessua (1976)

  Items:

  Luis Carrier

  Armaguedon

  Just, always alone.

  Les halles

  Saint-Cloud Park

  Front of the mirror

  Ostende Channel

  Song for a sad man

  Panic in the theater

  Final

• Cadaveri eccelenti by Francesco Rosi (1976)

  Items:

  Jeanne and Paul

  The penultimate

• What's autumn? by Dadid José Kohon (1977)
• Hell so feared of Raúl de la Torre (1979)

  Fifth

• Back by David Lypszyo (1982)

  Fifth Tonodisc

  Items:

  He always returns to Buenos Aires (letra: Eladia Blázquez)

  Two friends

  Alfredo and Beatriz

  Caminata

  Theme of love

  Aerial view

  The pie

  Process

  Sexoman

  Failure

  The magicians

• The intruder (1982)

  Fifth

  Items:

  A. Intrusa (part.1)

  Milonga

  Celsius

  Malambo

  Dawn

  Intruse (part.2)

  Eduardo and Juliana (part.1)

  Thought

  Mirror

  Eduardo and Juliana (part.2)

  Moon moon

  Facon duel

  Intruse (part.3)

  End jealousy

• Are we? (1982)

  Fifth

• Winter Quartiles of Lautaro Murúa (1984)

  Fifth

• Enrico IV of Marco Bellocchio (1984)

  Items:

  Oblivion

  Enrico IV

  Ave Maria

  Cavalcata

  Remembrance

  Tanti anni premium

• The Exile of Gardel by Fernando Solanas (1985)

  Items:

  Duo de amor

  Tango-Tango (Solanas)

  Sons of Exile (Castiñeira de Dios-Solanas)

  Solo (Fernando Solanas)

  The tangos of exile (Castiñeira de Dios-Solanas)

  Absences

  Tanguedia I

  Tanguedia II

  Tanguedia III

• South of Fernando Solanas (1988)

  Items:

  Back to the South (Piazzolla-Solanas voice: Roberto Goyeneche)

  Return to love

  Sadness, separation

  Dreams

• Twelve monkeys by Terry Gilliam (1995)

  Items:

  Suite Punta del Este