Astor Piazzolla: Biography, Career, and Legacy

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The Life History
Piazzolla’s Contribution
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The great Astor, an outstanding Argentine composer of the twentieth century, went down in history as the “great transformer of tango,” a true exponent of the music of Buenos Aires and the creator of the nuevo tango style. This musician made the whole world pay attention to the Argentine tango and fall in love with it – all this is Astor Piazzolla, a revolutionary and classic of Argentine music of the twentieth century. The tango became the symbol of the musician’s creativity, the first association at the mention of his name.

The Life History

Biography

He was born exactly 100 years ago in the Argentine city of Mar del Plata in a family of hereditary immigrants from Italy. At the age of 8, the boy receives a fateful gift from his father – the first bandoneon in his life – a kind of manual harmonica. From now on, Astor will never part with him. The father welcomes his son’s craving for music, encouraging public performances at which the young Astor successfully demonstrates his achievements. At the same time, the boy learns bandoneon from Andreas D’Aquila and takes lessons from Bela Vilda, a Hungarian pianist (a student of Rachmaninoff).

The Origin

The bearer of this Italian surname, a descendant of immigrants, the only child of the couple Vincente Piazzolla and Asunta Manetti, was born in Mar del Plata, a suburb of the capital. The boy was born with a defect – dislocation of the hip joint. It took a series of operations to get the right leg into the correct position, but it remained shorter than the left one forever. Perhaps this is due to the unusual pose when playing the bandoneon – standing and leaning his foot on a chair. Piazzolla created the genre of the so-called “tango nuevo” – an independent instrumental piece (Páez 16). He made a revolution in this genre, bringing it from the salons and cafes of Buenos Aires to the concert stage. Therefore, fans of the traditional Argentine tango equated him with an apostate who defiled the “purity of the creed.” And he, without ceasing, thought about his place in the history of music and his influence on the general process of decline and revival of tango.

National Heritage

Piazzolla did with the tango what Strauss did with the waltz. He turned dance music from folk into high art and made it sound on the world stage, performed by symphony orchestras without losing a drop of original energy or free sensuality. On the one hand, an Argentine from the port, full of the spirit of his controversial homeland. On the other hand, he is a man of peace, an emigrant for several generations, not bound by a passionate love for national heritage. Paradoxically, the true exponent of the music of Buenos Aires, whom he is considered everywhere, was almost an outcast in Buenos Aires itself.

Musical Career

In 1931, the young musician met the legendary Argentine singer and composer Carlos Gardel and his work. The boy fell in love with tango forever. At the same time, his remoteness from his homeland freed him from traditional reverence, allowing him to create freely and experiment with directions. At the age of 17, Piazzolla returned to Argentina and began a musical career as a bandoneonist. By chance, he gets into the country-famous Anibal Troilo Orchestra. He performs in the most famous concert halls of Buenos Aires, perfecting his bandoneon, playing, and studying with Maestro Troilo.

A Meeting with Rubenstein

In 1940, the next significant meeting in the composer’s life took place. He meets Polish and American pianist Arthur Rubinstein. Astor shows the virtuoso his works. This leads to a meeting with the Argentine composer Alberte Hinaster. Piazzolla studied composition with the maestro for six years, plunging deeper into the world of symphonic music and academic performance, and in 1943 took piano lessons from Raul Spivak. At this time, he created the first classical works. In 1955, the composer created “Octeto Buenos Aires” to work on his ideas (Ritter 24). He continues experimenting with arrangements, taking a lot of acute attacks up to threats of physical violence, the rejection of recording studios, and newspapers’ hysteria.

Adios Nonino

In 1958, the Piazzolla family moved to America. There Astor gathers his quintet, trying to combine tango and jazz. The musician gets acquainted with famous jazz performers from the teams of Glenn Miller and Tom Dorsey, collaborates with the legendary Dizzy Gillespie, creates new arrangements, and tries to conquer the audience with unusual interpretations of tango. But he is ahead of time; his music is too complicated for America. In 1959, the composer’s father, Vicente Nonino, died, and Astor created one of the most beautiful works in his memory – the play “Adios Nonino,” and returned to his homeland.

The Great Tango

In the 70s, the composer’s team was in demand worldwide; the audience fell in love with the original manner of performance. The musical elite accepted Astor into their ranks. Now recognized legends of jazz and classical music are looking for his company. In 1982, in honor of the legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, Astor wrote “The Great Tango” for piano and cello. Mstislav Rostropovich played “The Great Tango,” written in his honor by Piazzolla, in New Orleans in 1990 and 1994, on the stage of the Colon Theater in Buenos Aires in honor of the memory of the great musician (Ritter 24). In 1985, finally, the recognition of fellow citizens came to the composer – Astor Piazzolla was named an honorary resident of Buenos Aires, and Argentina bowed to the maestro’s talent. The great composer died on July 4, 1992. He was never able to recover from a massive stroke suffered two years earlier. Thanks to his unique creativity, the composer has forever inscribed his name in the golden list of the best composers in the world.

Piazzolla’s Contribution

Libertango

Today Astor Piazzolla is most represented by Libertango. This tango was written at the most difficult moment of life – the creative devastation after parting with his beloved woman Amelita Balter. “Libertango” is just one of the most striking examples of the popularization of Argentine tango in Piazzolla’s work. Each performance of “Libertango– is a kind of creative synthesis of the composer and performers. Moreover, the composer has put tango on a fantastic level of beauty with his music. According to Piazzolla, tango in the second half of the 20th century should receive a “new” development, and its form should have a concert performance, almost next to classical music. Moreover, a website has been created in honor of the great composer, which helps promote the national artistic heritage with the help of a cultural impact strategy. The Astor Piazzolla Foundation is developing a scholarship system so that new Argentine talents can hone their technique with the most prestigious teachers in advanced national and international institutions. The financial assistance program is supported by individual support from qualified teachers who guide the pedagogical process and expand the potential of young people.

The Soul of Music

It was thanks to Piazzolla, who introduced the bandoneon into the orchestra, that the music of Argentine tango received that piercing, aching sound that attracted so many fans to it. Thanks to Astor, tango began to be perceived as serious music, and symphonic orchestras began to play his works. The rhythms of tango and its intonations permeate all his works, woven into the polyphonic fabric, into the complex musical language of the twentieth century (Reyes 14). In Piazzolla’s work, tango ceases to be just a dance. Like Chopin’s polonaises and mazurkas, the tango in his works becomes a characteristic sign of the composer’s homeland – Argentina, the soul of his music.

A Dream

The maestro dreamed of making the bandoneon an academic instrument for a symphony orchestra: an idea that he successfully implemented, creating works for his favorite symphony orchestras. After his father’s death, Piazzolla’s son Daniel Hugo recreated his famous ensemble, where he played himself (synthesizer) with pleasure and attracted his son Daniel Astor to him. Astor Piazzolla’s music is world-famous: in modern cinema, the maestro’s passionate melodies sound in a huge number of paintings. Only during his lifetime the composer wrote more than 50 works for films. Some of the most famous examples of films with his compositions are Scent of a Woman, “Lumière!, and Breathing Lessons. The composer’s work “Oblivion” in 1993 was declared a contender for the Grammy Award, among the best instrumental compositions (Ritter 23). During Piazzolla’s recent tour in the states, the world-famous jazz magazine Down Beat called the maestro one of the world’s outstanding musicians.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Piazzolla’s work is a constant internal contradiction, revolutionary changes, a craving for academic performance, sensual tango rhythms and classical symphonic suites, a deep love for traditions, and a desire to change them. Perhaps this is the reason why listening to the rebellious tango of Astor Piazzolla; people want to be sad alone, passionately admire the music and live against everything, as El Gran Astor did.

Works Cited

Páez, Federico J. Díaz. Astor Piazzolla’s Cinco Piezas Para Guitarra: A Performer’s Guide to the” Unwritten.” Diss. City University of New York, 2021.

Reyes, Asis A. A Performer’s Guide to Astor Piazzolla’s” Tango-Études pour flûte seule”: An Analytical Approach. City University of New York, 2018.

Ritter, Elizabeth. “A Glance at Astor Piazzolla’s Histoire Du Tango: Lecture Recital.”, 2017.

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