Tango argentinoand Astor Piazzolla

There is already plenty to read and discover about tango. Let me introduce it in my own way.

My first encounter with tango was through the music of Astor Piazzolla. This was before 2000, when his tango nuevo style was only just reaching us, and performers were competing over who had played it first and who played it best.

This music is original and makes a powerful impression on the concert platform. Yet that initial impact soon fades, and a whole evening devoted to it can become rather uneventful.

Since tango is first and foremost a dance, there was nothing for it but to try dancing it myself… I came to feel at home in the style and learnt a great deal; dance has remained part of my life ever since. Among other things, it led me to the roots that shaped Astor and inspired his own music.

The traditional Argentine tango on which Astor drew has a very distinctive character. In my view, it is almost impossible to recreate today. Why? At the turn of the twentieth century, music schools trained performers in quite a different way from those of today. Add the particular musical environment of Argentina, and the differences become even greater. Put together an ensemble of players who hold their instruments differently and have a different sense of intonation and rhythm, and the resulting sound is something we can scarcely reproduce today :) even if we follow the score to the very last note.

These and other observations prompted me to start making arrangements with one aim: to share my own understanding of tango with our listeners. Many arrangements and transcriptions followed, from a solo line with accompaniment to orchestral versions, for ensembles including the Bona Fide Tango quintet, the Suk Chamber Orchestra and the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.

With the quintet in particular, we play at tango dance evenings known as milongas. Milonga is also the name of a folk dance from Argentina, with roots in candombe. Candombe is a music and dance tradition that developed in Uruguay among the descendants of formerly enslaved Africans around the turn of the nineteenth century.

Performing Astor Piazzolla’s music is a process of constant, never-ending development. Astor himself was an outstanding bandoneon player. His style, tango nuevo, which drew on traditional tango as well as jazz and European musical influences, is likewise impossible to imitate. As I came to realise, attempting to do so is neither worthwhile nor meaningful.

Through Piazzolla and his classic quintet — bandoneon, violin, guitar, piano and double bass — I also became interested in the playing of his regular violinists, Antonio Agri, Fernando Suárez Paz and others. I realised this would be a long journey. Meeting bandoneon players who had worked with Astor, Rodolfo Mederos and Juan José Mosalini, helped me enormously in understanding how to approach the music.

‘Learn to play your instrument well, learn the written parts, and play the music as you feel it. It will never be exactly what you hear on the recordings, but that does not matter. It is your tango. And that is what earns you a place on the tango concert stage.’
A paraphrase of Juan J. Mosalini’s words.