October, 2010 Review of Piazzolla Videos

There were 971 videos of Piazzolla’s music posted on YouTube in the month of October, 2010, an increase of 74% over the same month in 2009. 548 (56%) of the videos were performance videos featuring live performances. The others were videos which used Piazzolla’s music as a sound track for photo or video montages. I highlighted my journey through these many videos in this blog.

Forty-five percent of the performance videos were in the classical mode, 13% in jazz, 14% in nuevo tango and 28% in pop.

Here are the most frequently performed pieces this month (Libertango was the most frequently played – 30% of the total; the others follow in order):

1. Libertango
2. Oblivion
3. Adios Nonino
4. Histoire du tango – Bordel 1900
5. Invierno Porteño
6. Verano Porteño
7. La muerte del ángel
8. Chiquilin de Bachin
9. Balada para un loco
10. Milonga del ángel

The top three on this list seem to be fairly stable month-to-month but the bottom seven change every month.

The performance videos came from 54 different countries. Argentina posted the most videos: 92. The top ten posting countries are listed in order here:

1. Argentina
2. Italy
3. USA
4. Japan
5. Spain
6. Russia
7. Germany
8. France
9. Brazil
10. Canada, Netherlands, Ukraine (tie)

There were twenty-one Piazzolla originals posted. Thirteen of these have been previously posted but the others appeared on YouTube for the first time. They included seven segments of a documentary film and a version of the original Libertango played by Piazzolla and studio musicians, including his son Daniel and his producer, Aldo Pagani. . There was also an audio-only interview with Piazzolla which I believe is new to YouTube.

Quality of performance varied from excellent to bizarre. Because of its historical importance, my favorite of the month was the Piazzolla original performance of Libertango.

The choice for most bizarre this month is an instructional video on the harvesting of underwater spaghetti which uses Gotan Project's version of Cité Tango as a sound track.

I have put a table with links to all 971 videos as well as some more information on the videos on the October, 2010 link in my Piazzolla on Video website.

Best video of the month:


Most Bizarre video of the month:


To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.

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