Piazzolla and Me

I got into Astor Piazzolla's music by mistake (or, more precisely, by serendipity). It was a Saturday afternoon after a nap, that I turned the TV on and saw a rather attractive girl hitting her violin with a stick, while the rest of a symphonic orchestra was graciously playing. The scene was rather strange, but the music rapidly captivated me. Soon after that piece, the director started to explain the differences between Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Piazzolla's Estaciones Porteñas. Even if I was still sleepy, I managed to realize that the percussive rhythm of hits on the violin was only one of the many hints on how Piazzolla understood the spirit of seasons in the city of Buenos Aires.

After hearing Piazzolla's four seasons for the first time, I became an avid listener and follower of his music. I've accumulated a lot of albums of him and his bands, as well as of performances other musicians have done. I can truly say that Piazzolla's is one of the most inspiring things that have come to me. A whole range of feelings come to the outside thanks to Piazzolla compositions. His music is both catchy and profound; happy and deeply sad at the same time. The melodies are complex but somehow it feels you can relate to them very easily. Sometimes I get tired of "modern music", and then I return to any Piazzolla album and then everything makes sense again. My favorite, without a doubt, is Libertango, which I recommend to everyone.

Piazzolla lived a very passionate life. Not surprisingly, the several stages of his artistic life were intimately related to the circumstances of his personal life. Born in 1921, at the age of four, Astor and his family moved from Argentina to New York, where he grew up and lived till he was 16. It was in NY, at the age of 9, where he got into the Bandoneon, and developed a passion for it and for Tango music. In 1937 he returns to Buenos Aires, and joins the most important Tango group of his time. He managed to interact with famous performers and composers, soon detecting a sense of disgust with the traditional Tango style. In 1954 he decides to study piano in Paris, under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger, who encourages Piazzolla to follow his very own style in Tango compositions. At this point it might be useful to remark that the many cultural influences of Piazzolla (he was an Argentinian with Italian ancestors, grown up in New York and formed as pianist in France) were fundamental in creating in him a very clear sense of uniqueness in his art.

Until 1958, the life of Piazzolla was essentially devoted to develop his new style in Buenos Aires, where his new ideas were not welcomed by those radical defenders of "true Tango". In that year, he and his family (wife and two kids) go to New York to start a new life. It is in 1959, with the death of his father that one could say that the first period of Piazzolla ends. Indeed, such an event marked Astor in such a profound way, that after that his musical and personal life took a very diverse path. The sadness caused by the death of his father was Piazzolla's main inspiration to compose "Adios Nonino" (Goodbye Nonino), a sort of Tango requiem for his late father. (Astor's kids called their grandpa "nonino", a word derived from the Italian "nonno", which means "grandfather".) Adios Nonino is one of the most popular compositions of Piazzolla.

After that, Piazzolla not only starts a new artistic period, with he also starts a new life. Indeed, he left his family to pursue new artistic and personal adventures. Some say that Nonino's death suddenly removed any moral yardstick in Astor. He then starts a new relationship with a young singer, and along with Horacio Ferrer, creates "Maria de Buenos Aires", the first Tango opera. Perhaps the most famous piece of this rather positive period (both artistically and personally) for Piazzolla is "Balada para un Loco" (Ballad for a madman).

After that period, around 1975 Piazzolla forms the Electronic Octect, one of the most interesting expressions of his so-called "new tango." The group includes elements and performers from Jazz, percussions and synthesizers; these two last components being clearly unconceivable from the traditional Tango perspective. This is a rather short period (around 2 years). It is worth mentioning that in his personal life this is a sweet period, as he gets very close to his son Daniel, who is part of his band.

A third and final period is again determined by the irruption of a new woman in Astor's life. This is around 1976, where he meets and marries his second wife. They move to Paris, where he continues in his artistic and personal evolution, getting close to performers such as Richard Galliano. In fact, during this period Piazzolla continues with his musical experimentation, composes soundtracks for movies and tours around the world. In 1990 he collapses in Paris, being in coma for twenty-three months, and finally dies in Buenos Aires in 1992, leaving behind an splendid legacy to contemporary music.

It is always interesting to wonder about the lives of extremely talented people as Piazzolla. Some say he was an extremely selfish person, kind and warm in the everyday contact with family and friends. He also was a rather contradictory and inflexible person regarding social and political aspects. In fact, Piazzolla was known to sympathize with Videla's dictatorship in Argentina. In the musical aspect --the one that should interest us the most-- he was the most rigorous of the directors while being the most adventurous of the improvisers. He accepted no mistakes from his musicians, but was enthusiastic enough to take any "reasonable" contribution that would enrich the pieces.

Needless to say, discovering Piazzolla's life and music is a long yet extremely rewarding process. At the beginning, it's no easy to get a grasp of what he tries to convey with the music. It is certainly worth listening, specially nowadays when one hears all kinds of crap, supposedly called music.