Libertango - A Double Charango Version

In the never ending quest to find Libertango played on a different instrument, we bring you a version played on a double charango.

The charango (sometimes written charankel) is a ten string instrument arranged in five double courses which originated in Bolivia but has spread through much of South America. The original charangos used the shell of a quirquincho (armadillo) but that creature is now endangered and such instruments are deemed illegal. Current instruments are all wood with a carved, bowl shaped back to mimic the shape of the original. The normal charango has a single neck, but just like guitars there are custom instruments which have double necks like the one in the video. If you need a charango to complete your stringed instrument collection, I note they are available a number of places on the web including a nice selection here.

The instrumentalist is unidentified but he is clearly fluent with the instrument. While he spends most of his time on the treble side neck, pulling an occasional chord root from the left, he does play across both necks and the bass side neck is used for more than open chords. He gets a lot of music out of the instrument with his own jazz interpretation of Libertango. The ending is really hot.

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Silvana Deluigi - Balada Para Un Loco

Many a singer's ship has sunk on Balada para un loco. It's more than a song, it's a performance and like any performance, the audience needs to be captured and made to believe that they are part of an altered reality. Silvana Deluigi does this better than anyone since Amelita Baltar who introduced the song to the world in 1969 in Luna Park. There have been nearly 80 performances of Balada para un loco on YouTube in 2009. Most of the singers should be embarrassed by their performance - they are either emotionally vapid or totally manic. Very, very few manage to capture the "loco" spirit and give an uninhibited, believable performance and even fewer of those manage to hit all the notes on pitch. Ms. Deluigi shows them all how it should be done in today's video. There is a fine combo backing her but it is Ms. Deluigi's show all the way.

Silvana Deluigi was not known to me before this video but I intend to become much more familiar with her work. She was born in Argentina and studied classical singing in Buenos Aires before moving to Paris to study acting. It was not until she was 28 that she began to seriously sing tango. She performed in Paris with the group Tango 676 and released several CD's including Loca and Live con 676 Tango. She has released a new CD this year, Yo!,produced by Kip Hanrahan, which has received positive reviews. I think we will see more of her in the future - at least I hope so.

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Raúl Lavié

Raúl Lavié was one of the leading singers of tango during the entirety of Piazzolla's career. Piazzolla admired his work. The Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, reports that Lavié was Piazzolla first choice as male vocalist for the premiere of the operita Maria de Buenos Aires but he was touring and unavailable. He sang with Piazzolla at least once in the 1970's but the only time he appeared regularly with Piazzolla was in 1984 when he toured Japan and Latin America with Piazzolla. Today's video of Lavié singing Balada para mi muerte with Piazzolla's Quintet on Argentine television comes from this period.

Lavié is, in some ways, the Frank Sinatra of Argentina. He is a very talented singer with a booming but nuanced voice and a mastery of phrasing. Like Sinatra he moved beyond singing to become an actor, appearing in more than 15 films and an equal number of television series. Today, at age 72, he still performs and you can see him in the MaderoTango show in Buenos Aires.

Balada para mi muerte is one of a trio of "ballads" with lyrics by Horacio Ferrer written in 1969. You can find the lyrics here. Balada para mi muerte was made famous by Milva - it was the first Piazzolla song recorded by Milva - but its popularity has never approached that of another ballad of that trio, Balada para un loco.

Sadly, Lavié never recorded an album with Piazzolla. The only media documenting them together are today's featured video and a video from the same broadcast where he sings El Gordo triste. A YouTube search will help you find Lavié singing many other Piazzolla cancion, but no others with Piazzolla himself providing the accompaniment.

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Christmas

Piazzolla did not write music for Christmas, but this video of Milva singing Piazzolla's Ave Maria seems very appropriate.

May you and your family enjoy the holidays.

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Triunfal - A Defining Moment

In the previous post, we learned how Sinfonia Buenos Aires, provided Piazzolla his passage to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. Today's video of Triunfal played by Tanguisimo Quinteto helps tell the next chapter of that story. Piazzolla shared his classical works with Mme. Boulanger and she was not impressed. Finally, she convinced Piazzolla to share with her one of his tangos. He played Triunfal for her on her piano. To quote from the Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, "At the eighth bar she stopped him, took him by his hands, and told him firmly: 'This is Piazzolla! Don't ever leave it!'" Fortunately for us, he took her advice.

Triunfal was written between 1951 and 1953 - an awkward period in Piazzolla's musical life. He had left Troilo's orquesta, although he still occasionally appeared with them, and given up his own orquesta. He was free-lancing as an arranger and had begun his career as a composer of soundtracks for movies. He wrote a number of almost traditional tangos during this period including Triunfal, Prepárense and Contratiempo. While these are essentially traditional tangos, you can hear increased emphasis on the 3-3-2 pattern and hints of complex chords which ultimately became key parts of the nuevo tango style.

Tanguisimo is based in Buenos Aires and consists of Carlos Morbidoni - violin, Pablo Mitilineos - guitar, Cesar Garcia - piano, Renato Venturini - Bandoneon, and Santiago de Ines on contrabass. All five of these young musicians are excellent and they have a very authentic sound. They perform early Piazzolla as it should be played. If you enjoy this version of Triunfal, be sure and check out their version of Retrato de Alfredo Gobbi

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Sinfonia Buenos Aires

Perhaps the most important composition in Piazzolla's career is Sinfonia Buenos Aires - a fragment of which is featured in today's video. It is also one of the very least played Piazzolla compositions. This is the first video of a live performance of the Sinfonia to appear on YouTube and, I believe, only the second time it has been performed in the U.S. in the last five years. What you will see in the video are some fragments of a rehearsal of the piece by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Giancarlo Guerrero in the Laura Turner Concert Hall in the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

The reason the Sinfonia is important is that it was this piece which led to Piazzolla winning the Fabian Sevitsky Prize in 1953 which, in turn, provided him a one year scholarship to France to study with Nadia Boulanger. It was Ms. Boulanger who convinced Piazzolla to abandon dreams of becoming a classical composer and to apply his talents to tango. The result was nuevo tango which provided fame, and eventually some fortune, to Piazzolla.

The piece itself was composed in 1951 while Piazzolla was studying composition with Alberto Ginastera and is officially, Opus 15. As discussed in the Azzi/Collier book, Le Grand Tango, the piece was controversial in its debut - leading to fist fights in the audience. Piazzolla was reminded of a similar greeting to the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and was convinced that all publicity was good.

Were it not for the history associated with the piece, it would be forgettable - full of bombastic percussion and thematically vague - it tires me to listen to it. There is only one recording of the full work that I am aware of, a performance by the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen on the Chandros CD, Astor Piazzolla: Symphonic Works, Volume 2. Both volumes of this collection are very well done and provide important examples of what Piazzolla's music was like prior to his study with Boulanger.

The performance for which the orchestra is rehearsing in today's video was carried out on November 21st - about a month ago. Let's hope video was made of the performance and that the full performance will become available on YouTube.

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Odair Assad and Fernando Suarez Paz

Today's video finds two of the more accomplished performers of Piazzolla's music joined in a delightful performance of Bordel 1900 from the Histoire du tango suite. The piece was originally written for flute and guitar but works, perhaps even better, on the violin and guitar combination of this video which originally appeared on Japanese television.

The guitar part is covered by Odair Assad - a member of the famed Assad Brothers from Brazil for whom Piazzolla wrote the Tango Suite for two guitars. And the violin part is covered by Fernando Suarez Paz from Piazzolla's second quintet. The Histoire du tango suite is a favorite of classical musicians but what you hear in today's video is different. Both of these musicians know tango and instinctively add the rhythmic and ornamental flourish that adds a nuevo tango flavor. A recent article in Teen Strings by violinist Caeli Smith provides some insight into the challenges that Piazzolla's music offers the classically trained violinist. She spotlights Suarez Paz as her guide to proper tango technique. There are several examples of exactly the things she discusses in this video - it is a good lesson.

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