A Los Maestros: 20th Century music for Bandoneon and Guitar

Description

A los maestros is a tribute to two musical ensembles that have marked the history of guitar and bandoneon. They are the Aníbal Arias (1922-2010) and Osvaldo José Montes (1934-2014) duo and the Juanjo Domínguez (1951-2019) and Julio Pane (1947) duo.
Four very important maestros who have dedicated their careers mainly to the tango repertoire, creating versions of the highest artistic level.
It is precisely these versions that Alessandro Deiana and Fabio Furia have decided to reinterpret, combining them with their personal musical taste and providing a new reading, through their own touch and musicality.
The guitar and bandoneon duos played a very important role in the affirmation and evolution of tango, although the first real important publication was the one recorded by Anibal “Pichuco” Troilo and Roberto Grela by RCA Victor de Argentina in 1966.
The idea behind the project is based on an evident temporal delimitation, deriving from the choice of compositions belonging to the period between the age of the Guardia Vieja and the Edad de Oro. However, it was preferred to sort the pieces not by a chronological criterion, but to create a musical path capable of generating a feeling of growing musical expressiveness in the listener.
Many of the pieces presented here, starting from a strong popular connotation, have crossed the boundaries of tango, landing in the most prestigious concert halls through the performance of the most important interpreters of classical, opera and jazz music.

The Tango: Origins and Evolution

For a contextualization of this recording a brief overview on the evolution of tango may be required.
The term tango is polysemantic: a dance, a song, a musical genre and an exclusively instrumental piece. It was born between 1860-1890 among Arrabales, the suburbs and the poorest one, of the twin cities, Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
Having already acquired the famous embrace we know today, this dance was present both in the brothels and in the courtyards of the conventillos (public houses), where Italians, Spaniards, Poles and other immigrants shared lively crowded districts.
Due to its origins and the sensuality of its steps, tango was considered an immoral dance, a marginal dance, relegated to the most popular areas of the urban suburbs. Things changed when in the 20s of the twentieth century the tango arrived in Paris, becoming a fashionable dance in the aristocratic circles of the French capital. Following the Parisian successes of this new dance, tango fever breaks out among the elites of Buenos Aires, who until then had not shown any interest in a dance considered immoral and popular .
The evolution of tango is generally divided into five phases: Guardia Vieja, Guardia Nueva, Edad de Oro, Tango Nuevo and Renacimiento del Tango.

The phase of the Guardia Vieja develops from the late nineteenth-century origins until 1920. In this period the tango asserts itself as an autonomous genre, differentiating itself from the previous genres that revolved around Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The main protagonists of the early days of tango are Angel Villoldo (1861-1918), Roberto Firpo (1884-1969) and Francisco Canaro (1888-1964). In this first phase very few tangos are sung: the tango of the Guardia Vieja is above all a music whose primary purpose is to accompany the dance.
Musically it presents itself with an elementary musical structure and with a style shared by all the authors and performers: quite long melodies often characterized by arpeggios and therefore not very suitable for the introduction of lyrics, repeated musical sections without any variation and brief modulations to the nearby tones. Thanks to the development of audio technology, the first phonographic recordings of tangos played by small orchestras appear already in this first phase; the most important example dates back to 1910, thanks to Vicente Greco (1888-1924) and his Orquesta Típica Criolla.

With the Guardia Nueva (1920-1935) the tango matures significantly, acquiring stylistic connotations that are more varied and musically interesting, characterized by instrumental solos, dialoguing sections between violins and bandoneón and the use of the characteristic rubato of the melody appears, i.e. variations in the speed of the rhythmic trend.
Already in the early 1920s, with the bandoneonist Osvaldo Fresedo (1897-1984) and the pianist Juan Carlos Cobián (1888-1953), the individual instruments began to have a predetermined role within the ensemble, trying to enhance their characteristics. The sextet by Francisco De Caro (1898-1976) consisting of 2 bandoneons, 2 violins, double bass and piano in 1923, became the model of the Guardia Nueva orchestra.
In the same years the first figures of singers specialized in tango were born. Carlos Gardel (1890-1935), both for his vocal and compositional qualities, and for the paradigmatic nature of his biography, is the most brilliant example of this.

The Edad de Oro (1935-1955) represents the moment of greatest splendor for tango: the orchestras increase its numbers, reaching twelve elements (four bandoneón, four violins, sometimes viola and cello, piano and double bass), the arrangements become refined and composed in detail.
In this period, many dancers are fascinated by faster musical tempos with a very clear rhythmic pattern, preferring playing styles such as those proposed, for example, by the orchestra conducted by Juan D’Arienzo (1900-1976). The simpler musical style of D’Arienzo, despite the numerous criticisms received from the most progressive part of the musicians of the time, contributes to the formation of a new audience for the benefit of the whole world of tango.
Around the 1940s, numerous new musical formations appeared in contrast with the style of D’Arienzo. These orchestras, more open to experimentation, represent the evolution of De Caro’s stylistic line. Among the others we remember the formations of Alfredo Gobbi (1912-1965), Osvaldo Pugliese (1905-1995), Pedro Laurenz (1902-1972), Lucio Demare (1906-1974) and above all Aníbal Troilo (1914-1975), whose orchestra is considered the most important of the period.
After 1955, when President Perón was overthrown by a military coup, there has been a period of crisis in the tango. The fall was accelerated by the introduction of mass culture products, including musical ones, imported from the United States.

A new energy to the tango is given by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) who, since the 1960s, has been working on the development of the Tango Nuevo. This path results in the publication of the album Libertango in 1974. The rhythmic characteristics intrinsic to this new style lead to a real revolution of the tango and its destination: from music mainly intended for dance, it becomes music mainly for listening.
Another break with tradition is the introduction of electric instruments (guitar and electric bass) and drums, borrowed from the typical jazz line up. Various musical formations were born around the Tango Nuevo and a movement linked to dance also developed in the 90s, starting from the analysis of individual movements, deconstructing traditional dance.

The Renacimiento del Tango develops from 1983 following the international success of the Argentine Tango show, a musical work staged by the director Claudio Segovia (1933) and by the musician Hector Orezzoli (1953-1991) which was performed to great acclaim in Paris and Broadway and then resumed all over the world. The enormous success of the work has stimulated the revival of interest in the world of tango, with the opening of schools and dance halls all over the planet, decreeing that tango belongs to the heritage of all humanity, as certified on 30 September 2009 by UNESCO.

Samuele Francesco Mazza © 2021