Notes for: July 15, 2008
The Argentine tango is a style of song and dance music rather than a specific dance or dance rhythm. It originated in the poor slum areas outside Buenos Aires in the late 19th century and has since remained the most popular Argentine song and dance style. While it comes in many varieties, its common characteristics are syncopated rhythmic patterns within a 2/4 meter, abrupt rhythmic and dynamic contrasts, and an accompaniment pattern in which all beats are sharply accented and occasionally interrupted by sudden pauses.
Traditionally, the dance is for couples in tight embrace and is characterized by almost violent movement. When sung, the lyrics reflect the origin of the tango among the urban poor -- pessimistic, fatalistic and often intensely negative in tone. The original performance groups were solo voice with guitar accompaniment, and trios with violin, flute, and guitar or bandoneón (a small accordion of German original but a favorite instrument in Argentina).
In recent years, the leading figure in the composition of tangos has been Astor Piazzolla, who was born in Mar del Plata, not far from Buenos Aires, but brought up in New York. Piazzolla learned the tango style and the bandoneón at an early age, but broadened his musical education to include study with Alberto Ginastera, Argentine’s leading classical composer. He also went to France to study with Nadia Boulanger, the great Paris teacher whose other pupils included Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Virgil Thomson, and Roy Harris.
With this enrichment, Piazzolla introduced what became known as nuevo tango, absorbing into the traditional style such diverse influences as jazz, the dissonance of contemporary classical composition, and even Italian opera. He also added a harp and percussion instruments to the traditional tango orchestra and introduced the electric guitar into smaller ensembles. At the same time, he maintained the tango’s roots in the working-class dance halls and water-front nightclubs of Buenos Aires.
In addition to his own ensemble, Quinteto Tango Nuevo, Piazzolla experimented in adapting the tango to other instrumental media. Thus, he composed for solo bandoneón and symphony orchestra, string quartet, solo piano, solo guitar and guitar duet, and various other instrumental combinations.
This evening we hear three Piazzolla tangos arranged for flute, cello and piano by Pablo Zinger, a Uruguay-born pianist and conductor, now living in New York City. As an associate of Piazzolla, Zinger was influential in the development of the nuevo tango style and its continuation after Piazzolla’s death.
Libertango: Composed in 1954 after Piazzolla had returned from Paris to Buenos Aires, this was one of the earliest demonstrations of the composer’s nuevo tango style. “I was determined more than ever before,” he said, “to treat the tango as absolute music. While based on the melodic, harmonic and above all, the rhythmical qualities of the tango, it is free from the socially defined context of its origins at the beginning of this century.” Originally a duet for guitar and piano, it is one of Piazzolla’s most popular pieces in various arrangements, one of which is a well-known recording by cellist Yo Yo Ma.
Milonga in Re: A milonga is an Argentine place or event where the tango is danced, and by extension the music itself; re is D major. Piazzolla originally composed this piece as a duet for violin or cello and piano, and dedicated it to the French jazz violinist Stéphane Grapelli, whom he had met in Paris. The piece features a slow, introspective solo for the violincellist over a more moving piano part, with steadily increasing intensity.
La Muerte del Angel (The Death of the Angel): This is the climactic piece Piazzolla provided for his incidental music for a 1962 play by Alberto Rodriguez Muñoz in which an angel heals the spirits of the residents of a shabby Buenos Aires neighborhood. The angel is killed in a knife fight, but is then resurrected.
Piazzolla composed the piece originally for bandoneón, violin, piano and acoustic and electric bass; he then used it in two suites of Angel-related music and performed it independently. It begins as a three-voice fugue, based on a fast, jagged theme passed dissonantly among the instruments. It is interrupted by a contrasting central section simultaneously sentimental and unsettled. The fugue theme returns, but is no longer treated contrapuntally, ending in exciting string glissandi.