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Tiểu sử của Astor PiazzollaỞ Bao Khanh có rất nhiều AlbumAstor Piazzolla: Chronology of a RevolutionText: Jorge Pessinis & Carlos KuriEnglish translation & page design: Francisco LuongoMusic and Graphics selection: César Luongo Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was born on March 11, 1921 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, only child of Vicente “Nonino” Piazzolla and Asunta Mainetti. In 1925, the family relocates to New York City until 1936 with a brief return to Mar del Plata in 1930. In 1929, when Astor is 8 years old, his father gives him his first bandoneon which he had bought at a pawn shop for 19 dollars. Astor studies the bandoneon for one year with Andrés DÁquila and he makes his first record, Marionette Spagnol; a phonograph disk (non commercial) at the Radio Recording Studio in New York on 11/30/1931. In 1933 he studies with the Hungarian pianist Bela Wilda, disciple of Rachmaninov, and of whom Astor would later say “With him I learned to love Bach”. Shortly thereafter, he meets Carlos Gardel who becomes a good friend of the family and with whom he takes part in the movie “El Dia Que me Quieras”, playing a brief part as a newspaper boy. This feature film plays a monumental role in the history of Tango. In 1936, he returns with the family to Mar del Plata, Argentina for good, where Astor begins to play in some tango orchestras. It is here that he makes his second grand discovery (after Bach with Bela Wilda), when he listens to Elvino Vardaro’s sextet on the radio, Elvino would later become Astor’s violinist. That alternative way of interpreting Tango deeply touches him and he becomes an admirer of Elvino. Astor’s love for Tango, and especially for that style of Tango, touches him deeply and gives him the courage to move to Buenos Aires in 1938. He was only 17 years old. He plays on some second rate tango orchestras until 1939, when he realizes his dream of playing bandoneon within one of the greatest tango orchestras of that time; the Anibal Troilo orchestra. “Pichuco” was one of the best bandoneon players, and Astor always considered him one of his masters.Astor feels the need to advance musically, and already being the arranger of the Troilo orchestra, he begins his musical studies with Alberto Ginastera in 1941, and later in 1943, he studies piano with Raúl Spivak. In 1942 he marries to Dedé Wolff and from this marriage he has two children: Diana in 1943 and Daniel in 1944. His works are too advanced for the time and Troilo edits them so as to not scare off dancers. In 1943, he begins his “classical” works with the “Suite para Cuerdas y Arpas” and in 1944 he leaves Troilo’s orchestra to lead the orchestra which accompanies singer Francisco Fiorentino, he plays with Firoentino until 1946, when he forms his first orchestra, which is later dissolved in 1949. With this orchestra, with a similar formation to the other orchestras of the day, he begins to develop his creative impulses with his works and orchestrations with a big dynamic and harmonic content. That tango, of the young and daring director, more modern and different, begins to incite the first controversies among traditional tangueros. In 1946 he composes, “El Desbande”, considered by Piazzolla as his first formal tango, and shortly thereafter he begins to compose musical scores for movies. In 1949 he feels the need to disband the orchestra and part with the bandoneon, and almost abandons tango altogether. He searches for something else, a different destiny. He continues to study Bartok and Stravinsky, he studies orchestra direction with Herman Scherchen, he listens to lots of Jazz. His search for a style becomes obsessive, he longs for something that has nothing to do with tango. Everything was a mess and Astor decides to drop the bandoneon to dedicate himself to write and pursue his musical studies. He is 28 years old. Between 1950 and 1954 he composes a series of works, clearly different from the conception of tango at the time, and that further define his unique style: Para lucirse, Tanguango, Prepárense, Contrabajeando, Triunfal, Lo que vendrá. In 1953 he presents the work “Buenos Aires” (three symphonic pieces) – composed in 1951 – for the Fabien Sevitzky competition. Piazzolla wins the first prize and the work is performed at the Law School in Buenos Aires by the symphonic orchestra of “Radio del Estado” with the addition of two bandoneons and under the direction of Sevitzky himself. It is a full-blown scandal, at the end of the concert there is a generalized fist-fight due to the strong reaction of some members of the audience that consider it an indignity to include bandoneon in the “cult” setting of a symphonic orchestra. One of the prizes he won at this composition contest was a scholarship from the French governement to study in Paris (where he goes in 1954), with Nadia Boulanger, considered the best educator in the world of music at the time. At first, Piazzolla tries to hide his tanguero past and his bandoneon work, thinking that his destiny is in classical music. This situation is quickly remedied when he opens his heart to Boulanger and he plays his tango “Triunfal” for her. From then on he receives a historic recommendation: “Astor, your classical pieces are well written, but the true Piazzolla is here, never leave it behind” After this episode, Piazzolla returns to tango and to his instrument, the bandoneon. What was once a choice between the sophisticated music or tango, now would be sophisticated music and tango, but in the most efficient way: to work the structure of sophisticated music with the passion of the tango. In Paris, he composes and records a series of tangos with a string orchestra and he begins to play the bandoneon while standing up, he puts one leg on a chair, a trait that would characterize him on the music scene (Most bandoneonists play sitting down). When Piazzolla returns to Argentina (1955) he continues with the strings orchestra and he also forms a group, the Octeto Buenos Aires, which is the beginning of the contemporary tango age. With a makeup of two bandoneons, two violins, double bass, cello, piano, and an electric guitar, he produces innovative works and interpretations which break away from classic tango, he breaks away from the original mold of an “orquesta tipica” and creates chamber music instead, music without a singer or any dancers. He continues his personal revolution and continues to generate hatred among the orthodox tangueros, becoming the target of very mean criticism. He does not sway and keeps going on the path which he more than ever deems his own, but the media and record labels make it an uphill battle. In 1958 he disbands the octet and the strings orchestra and he goes back to New York City to work as an arranger. Between 1958 and 1960 he works in the US, where he experiments with Jazz-Tango with negative results and where, because of the death of his father in October 1959, he writes while in New York his famous, “Adiós Nonino”. Upon his return to Argentina, he creates the first of many famous quintets, playing New Tango (bandoneon, violin, bass, piano, and electric guitar). The quintet was Piazzolla’s most beloved formation; the musical synthesis that best expressed his ideas. In 1963 he premieres under the direction of Paul Klecky: “Tres Tangos Sinfonicos” (Hirsch Prize) and in 1965 he makes two of his most important records: Piazzolla at the Philarmonic Hall New York, which has the works he played at a concert at the hall with the quintet in May 1965; and “El Tango”, of historical value, a product of his friendship with Jorge Luis Borges. In 1966 he leaves Dedé Wolff. In 1968 he begins an extensive collaboration with the poet Horacio Ferrer, with whom he composes the “operita” Maria de Buenos Aires; beginning a new style: the tango song. Around that time he begins dating the singer Amelita Baltar. In 1969, with Horacio Ferrer, he composes “Balada para un loco”, presented at the First Iberoamerican Music Festival, where he receives second place. This work turned out to be his first popular hit, premiered by Amelita Baltar with Piazzolla himself conducting the orchestra. In 1970 he returns to Paris where, with Ferrer, he composes the oratorio “El Pueblo Joven”, the premiere of which was in Saarbuck, Germany in 1971. That same year he forms the Conjunto 9, acting in Buenos Aires and in Italy where they tape many shows for RAI. This group was like a dream for Piazzolla: the picture-perfect chamber music formation he had always wanted and for which he composed his most elaborate music, but the economic impossibility of keeping the group together led to its dissolution. In 1972 he plays at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires for the first time, sharing the bill with other Tango orchestras. In 1973, after a period of great productivity as a composer, he suffers a heart attack which forces him to reduce his artistic activities. That same year (1973) he decides to move to Italy where he begins a series of recordings which span 5 years, the most famous being “Libertango”, a work that is widely accepted in the European Community. During these years he forms the “Conjunto Electronico”: an octet made up of bandoneon, electric piano and/or acoustic piano, organ, guitar and electric bass, drums, synthesizer and violin, which was later substituted for flute or saxophone. Later, in 1975 Jose A. Trelles is incorporated as a singer with a formation that alternates between Argentinean and European musicians. This group had nothing to do with the previous ones, and many considered this change as an approach to jazz-rock: but according to Piazzolla, “That was my music, it had more to do with tango than with rock” In 1974 he separates from Amelita Baltar. That same year he records with the saxophonist Gerry Mulligan a great record: Summit, with an Italian orchestra. The music that Piazzolla composes for this disc is characterized by the exquisite melody of the bandoneon and the saxophone on top of a rhythmic base. Aníbal Troilo dies in 1975 and Piazzolla composes the “Suite Troileana” in his memory, a work in four parts, which he records with the Conjunto Electronico, with A. Agri playing violin. In 1976 he meets who would be his last wife, Laura Escalada. In December of the same year he plays an extraordinary concert at the Gran Rex theater in Buenos Aires, where he presents his work, “500 motivaciones”, written especially for the Conjunto Electronico. In 1977, he plays another memorable concert at the Olympia in Paris, with a similar formation as before, but with musicians with roots closer to rock. This is the last time he has an “electric” group. Piazzolla regrettably stops making reference to Chick Corea’s international sound and even though the Conjunto Electronico makes good music, he doesn’t consider it the real Piazzolla. In 1978, the second incarnation of the quintet is born, the one that would make Piazzolla world renowned. He also restarts his dedication to chamber music and symphonic works. The next ten years are the best for Piazzolla as far as his popularity is concerned. He intensifies his concerts all over the world: Europe, South America, Japan, and the United States. During a period which lasts until 1990 he does a series of concerts mostly with the quintet, and also as a symphonic solo performer and as a chamber musician; and in his final years with his final group, the sextet, and with string quartets. There are many live recordings of the numerous concerts, many of them on CD. This in some way proves what is frequently said: Piazzolla’s music does not exist unless he plays it; him playing the music is a testament to the style, which we could define as the aesthetics of a musical state of mind. In 1982 he writes “Le Grand Tango” for cello and piano, dedicated to Russian cellist, Mtislav Rostropovitch and premiered by him in 1990 in New Orleans. In June of 1983 he puts on one of the best shows of his life: he plays a program dedicated to his music at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the big scenario of classical music in Argentina. For the occasion he regroups the Conjunto 9 and he plays solo with the symphonic orchestra directed by Pedro I. Calderón, playing the beautiful “Concert for bandoneon and orchestra.” In 1984 he plays with the singer Milva at the Bouffes du Nord and in Vienna with the quintet where he records a live album “Live in Wien.” In 1985 he is named an exceptional citizen of Buenos Aires and he premieres the concert for bandoneon and guitar : Homenaje a Lieja, under the direction of Leo Brouwer at the Fifth International Belgian Guitar Festival. In 1986 he receives the Cesar prize in Paris for the score of the film “El exilio de Gardel” and with Gary Burton he records “Suite for Vibraphone and New Tango Quintet”, live at the Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland. In 1987 he records with the St. Luke’s orchestra directed by Lalo Schifrin, the “Concert for bandoneon” and “Three Tangos” for bandoneon and orchestra. The concert which takes place in 1987 in New York’s Central Park in front of a massive audience, is a rejuvenating experience for Piazzolla. The city where he spent his childhood, where he became mesmerized by the music of Bach and Jazz, and where he failed in 1958, finally pays attention to his music. The records released in the US in the late 80s document his life: Tango Zero Hour, Tango Apasionado, La Camorra, Five tango Sensations (with the Kronos quartet), Piazzolla with Gary Burton, etc. In 1988, a few months after recording what would be his final record with the quintet (La Camorra), he undergoes a quadruple bypass. Shortly thereafter, early in 1989, he froms what would be his last group: the New Tango Sextet of unusual characteristics: two bandoneons, piano, electric guitar, bass and cello. With this group, in June of 1989 he plays at the Teatro Opera in Buenos Aires in what would be his last concert in Argentina and he begins an extensive tour throughout the US, Germnay, England, and Holland. Towards the end of 1989 he dissolves his group and continues playing solo with string quartets and symphonic orchestras. Until August 4, 1990, in Paris, when he suffers a stroke. After almost 2 years of suffering the consequences of this incident, he dies in Buenos Aires on July 4, 1992. His opus, comprising more than 1000 works, a characteristic career and an undoubtedly Argentinian flavor, continues to influence the best musicians in the world of all generations. For example, the violinist Gidon Kremer, the cellist Yo-Yo-Ma, the Kronos Quartet, the pianists Emanuel Ax and Arthur Moreira Lima, the guitarist Al Di Meola, the Assad brothers, and numerous chamber music and symphonic orchestras. A career characterized by his aesthetic power and his unique style, almost in a league of its own. His music is unmatched; when we listen to it we are obligated to question the roots and say, “This is Piazzolla”. It is all about the “language” he created, which is unique and can be identified as his and only his. With hetergenous and rebellious elements (Jazz, classical music, experiments in sound) he produced a unique music under the drastic pulse of his Tango.

 

interview Astor Piazzolla: A sad, current and conscious tangoIn his last visit to Chile, in July, 1989, Piazzolla offered this interview. It is one of the last testimonies about his own musical poetics. The tango no longer exists, he used to say. It existed many years ago, until 1955, "when Buenos Aires was a place where people wore tango, walked tango, where there was a smell of tango all over the city. But not today. Today that smell is more likely to come from rock or punk. The current tango is just a nostalgic and dull imitation of those times. The tango is like [then President Raul] Alfonsin: dying." Not Piazzolla's tango, of course: "My tango does meet the present." That Sunday, Piazzolla was sparkling, happy, just awakened from a nap after a sumptuous dinner of seafood and "these great wines that you have," at the Mercado Central (Central Market) in Santiago. He was wearing red pyjamas, and didn't want photos taken. But he did want to talk. He wanted to tell how he started in the art of composing, how he loved music and how he defended his; how Nadia Boulanger, his master at Paris, helped to discover that his style was in the tango, and not in the 'European-style' music he wrote until the fifties. How he was upset ("me da mucha bronca") to be known just for the 'Balada para un loco' (Ballad for a mad man). "Once a lady asked me: 'Maestro Piazzolla, beside the 'Balada...' what else have you written?' And I wanted to kill this woman..." He wanted to tell how he was full of commissions: a string quartet, a guitar quartet, a wind quintet, all for American players. "I'm like a music supermarket," he joked. How his life could be seen as a single tango, a very 'porteno' (from Buenos Aires) and sad tango. "Not because I'm sad. Not at all. I'm a happy guy, I like to taste a good wine, I like to eat well, I like to live, so there wouldn't be any reason for my music to be sad. But my music is sad, because tango is sad. Tango is sad, dramatic, but not pessimistic. Pessimistic were the old, absurd tango lyrics. "THEN, WHY DON'T YOU STUDY?" When he was a boy, living in New York, he began to study the bandoneon and had the opportunity to play--at 13--with Carlos Gardel, the legendary tango singer. As an adolescent, he came back to Mar del Plata (Argentina) and after some frustrating Accounting studies, he decided to devote himself entirely to music. He was deeply in love with it and he knew that his decision was final: "The music," he said, "is more than a woman, because you can divorce a woman, but not music. Once you marry her, she is your foreverlasting love, and you go to the grave with her." During this time he worked playing his bandoneon "in every cabaret of Buenos Aires" and also began to compose. He dared to introduce himself to the pianist Arthur Rubinstein--then living in Buenos Aires--and showed him a piece of his own. "It was such a terrible work," recalled Piazzolla, "that I said that I had composed a 'piano concerto', but I had written no part for the orchestra." Nevertheless, he insisted Rubinstein read it, and "as he played at the piano, I realized the stupid thing I had done. He played some bars and looked at me. And he suddenly says: 'Do you like music?'. 'Yes, maestro', I answer. 'Then, why don't you study?'" The Polish pianist called his friend, the Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera, and told him that he had a young man that wanted to learn. The next morning, Ginastera, then beginning to present the works that would make him famous, had his first pupil in front of the piano; and Piazzolla, his first composition teacher. "It was like going to your girlfriend's house," remembered nostalgic Piazzolla. "He revealed to me the mystery of the orchestra, he showed me his scores, made me analyze Stravinsky. I entered the world of 'The Rite of Spring', I learned it note by note..." The lessons lasted six years. Piazzolla began to compose "like a lunatic": --I made myself a "self-genius". I had bad feelings about the tango, I had abandoned it. Instead, I was a composer of symphonies, overtures, piano concertos, chamber music, sonatas. I threw up a million notes per second. --And how was the music of Piazzolla in that...? --Wait!, wait! Now comes the story. Then I wrote and wrote, for ten years... One day, in 1953, Ginastera called to tell me that there was a Prize competition for young composers. I didn't want to enter it, because among the participants were the 'great' of the moment, but finally I sent a work called 'Sinfonietta'. When it was premiered, the critics gave me the prize for the best work of the year. And the Government of France granted me a scholarship to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris Nothing was the same in Piazzolla's life after that moment. Because he had to go to Paris to be told by a French woman who he was. --When I met her, I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. She started to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: 'It's very well written'. And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball. After a long while, she said: 'Here you are like Stravinsky, like Bartok, like Ravel, but you know what happens? I can't find Piazzolla in this'. And she began to investigate my private life: what I did, what I did and did not play, if I was single, married, or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent! And I was very ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician. Finally I said, 'I play in a 'night club'. I didn't wanted to say 'cabaret'. And she answered, 'Night club, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn't it?' 'Yes,' I answered, and thought 'I'll hit this woman in the head with a radio...' It wasn't easy to lie to her. A "TANGUIFICATED" FUGUE She kept asking: --"You say that you are not pianist. What instrument do you play, then?" And I didn't want to tell her that I was a bandoneon player, because I thought, "Then she will throw me from the fourth floor". Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own. She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand and told me: "You idiot, that's Piazzolla!". And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds. Nadia Boulanger made him study 18 months--"that helped me like 18 years"--just four part counterpoint. "After this," she used to tell him, "you will write a string quartet correctly. You will learn here, you really will..." --She taught me to believe in Astor Piazzolla, to believe that my music wasn't as bad as I thought. I thought that I was something like a piece of shit because I played tangos in a cabaret, but I had something called style. I felt a sort of liberation of the ashamed tango player I was. I suddenly got free and I told myself: "Well, you'll have to keep dealing with this music, then." --Nevertheless, you didn't want to abandon the tonal system, like so many composers of your generation... --Oh yes, absolutely... --he thought for a while and recalled again his master--. Nadia didn't like contemporary music. I remember she told me once: "One of my students invited me last night to a premiere of one of his works [he was the then very young Pierre Boulez]. Fortunately in the second part they played Monteverdi!" Just this!--he laughed--. That's how she was: categorical. I was really frightened of her, because she knew absolutely everything. I was about to come back to Buenos Aires and I sent her one of the records I had made. She wrote me a very beautiful letter telling me that she had already heard my music on a radio program and that she was proud of me. --And you, do you have students to feel proud of? Are there musicians who consider themselves to be your disciples, following your style? --I say: Let everyone to do it for themselves. If they write like me, the worse for them. If they can follow this style of tango, this life-style that I do with music, then O.K. But my main style is to have studied. If I had not, I would not be doing what I do, what I've done. Because everybody thinks that to do a 'modern tango' is to make noise, is to make strange thoughts, and no, that's not true! You have to go a little deeper, and you can see that what I do is very elaborate. If I do a fugue in the manner of Bach, it will always be "tanguificated". --These two elements in your music produce a strange phenomenon: it is heard on the radio, in popular programs, but also at the concert halls... --Well, with Gershwin the same happens. Villa-Lobos [the Brazilian composer] is today so popular... Even to hear Bartok now is not a strange thing. --Yes, but you don't hear Bartok on a popular radio program... --But see what happens with Bartok. When in an American thriller there is a terror or violent scene, they put the 'Music for strings, piano and celesta' or Stravinsky's 'The Rite'... or Mahler. They are no longer 'contemporary', because when we talk about Bartok, we talk about the twenties... --And how do you feel with the music written after those times? --I don't feel a contemporary musician like me can feel Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky or even Penderecki or Lutoslawski. But Xenakis, for instance, I don't feel him. I respect him, of course, like I do with Brown, Boulez... The other day we were rehearsing and I said: 'If we put that chord, we will sound like contemporary music', and Gerardo Gandini [the Uruguayan pianist and composer who worked with him then] protested: 'Hey, what do you have against contemporary music?'. 'Nothing,' I answered,'it's just that a strange thing would happen.' And contemporary music is a strange thing. It's like someone who is discovering a vaccine for AIDS or for cancer. It is there, but it isn't. --You mean it is at an experimental stage? --Yes, but the vaccine is not ready yet, can't be sold yet. For me the contemporary music is there, but it is not on the market yet. --By the way, since you mention the market. There are a lot of contemporary composers that split music in two categories: the commercial and the non-commercial. Don't you worry about the fact that they usually put yours in the first category? --No, absolutely not. I would be offended if they said that my music is light, trivial. My music is a popular chamber music that comes from the tango... well, there are a lot of ways to define it. If I were a composer of contemporary music, I couldn't use it for making the music I make. I can go to a poly-rhythm, to bitonal or tritonal chords, but I can't go beyond, because I must keep some swing, some sense of rhythm at the base. Then, in the 'upper', I adorn it with music. --In the harmony is the 'audacity', then? --In the harmony, in the rhythms, in the counter-tempi, in the beautiful counterpoint that two or three instruments can make... And you don't always have to make it tonal, you can go to atonality also. That's why Gandini and I can work together. --Is that the reason for the problems that your music has had in Argentina, because of these 'strange' elements you introduced in tango? --Yes, but the Presidents change, and they say nothing... Bishops change, soccer players, anything, but not the tango. The tango is to be kept like it is: old, boring, always the same, repeated. --Was the change that you made with the tango meant to make it more European? --No, I don't think so. Thanks to the fact that my music is very 'portena', from Buenos Aires, I can work over the world, because the public finds a different culture, a new culture. --Don't you think that the critique that was applied to Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos would be applicable to you? I mean that he made his music more European to be liked by a European public? --No, that is silly. I think Villa-Lobos is 100 percent Brazilian. His chamber music is excellent, and totally Brazilian. Because if Brazil has anything, it is popular music. We don't have anything like that in Argentina. They [Brazilians] make a more intuitive music, we are more 'cold', maybe. --More rational... --Yes... If you go to Brazil, and a 9-year-old boy takes a guitar he will never make a perfect major chord. No, a Brazilian boy makes a 9th chord, an 11th chord and with such a special swing... We don't have that. An Argentinian guy plays a zamba, a chacarera [both typical folklore songs] and comes with a G minor, D mayor 7, and good-bye. He doesn't go beyond that. --How much of European and how much of 'Porteno' can be found in your tango? How much of Stravinsky or Bartok and how much of Gardel, to put it that way? --A critic from the New York Times once said an absolute truth: all the 'upper thing' that Piazzolla makes is music; but beneath you can feel the tango. 1989 Gonzalo Saavedra - the author thanks David Taylor for his aid in translating this interview