In more than 100 years of tango, a
fascinating variety of styles has developed. Each
orchestra created an own, distinct sound and refined
it over the years. Fortunately, recording technique
was already available, so we can today listen to the
music that was played 60 or 80 years ago. The
seminar series "Listen and Experience" invites
dancers to perceive in more detail the music that
they have danced to for hundreds of times.
To get inspired by the music while
dancing is not only a question of intuition and
subjective sensation. A trained ear recognizes on
the one hand the structures that are in each tango
and that make the dancers "breathe" and synchronize
with the partner; and on the other hand it discovers
an endless number of details in the rhythmical and
melodical richness of the tango music and in the
variety of styles. So to train the ear means to
inspire the dancing again and again and differently
with every song and with every partner.
The presentation of selected tangos,
with comments on musical and stylistic details and
on historical background, conveys knowledge to the
dancers and helps them to sharpen their awareness of
the rich details in the music, thus opening new
horizons of inspiration.
Highlights of traditional
tango music - why tango sounds as it sounds.
Or: what is tango?
Typical
rhythms in tango - Instrumentation - The way of
playing, "expressivity is more important than a
beautiful sound" - Poetry set to music: Situations,
emotions, and attitudes in tango lyrics, and their
musical arrangement.
This seminar
introduces the most important tango orchestras of
the 20ies to the 40ies and demonstrates the
rhythmical, melodical and stylistic elements that
characterize their sound and produce the "feeling"
of their music.
100 Years of Tango
The tango evolved already in
the 19th century, but we have sond recordings only
from the 1910 years. In this review talk we hear
music from 100 years of tango:
- a scratchy example from
1917;
- music from the first tango boom of the 20ies,
already with huge stylistic differences between
traditionalists and the vanguard;
- energetic upbeat music from the late 30ies and
early 40ies, when tango had become again extremely
popular after the economic crisis;
- romantic and slightly dramatic music from the
40ies, when many new tangos were written and
composed, and the role of the singers became more
important, as performers of "poetry set to music";
- artful pieces of chamber music from the 40ies to
the 60ies that take the richness and complexity of
tango to extremes;
- tango for the concert hall from the 80ies, when
tango for dancers had lost its popularity;
- music from the new tango boom that started in
the 90ies: tango electrónico and traditional tango
freshly performed by a contemporary orchestra.
The
evolution of orchestra styles in traditional
tango
A journey through 35 years of tango
music, from the lively traditionalists and the
crazy young avant-garde of the twenties to the
brilliant and expressive musicians and singers of
the fourties and fifties. During this journey we
meet cozy, cheeky, high-energetic, romantic,
complex and dramatic music; we follow the most
important orchestras over the decades, and we
listen to all the innovative and rich stylistic
elements invented by musicians and arrangers.
The
thirties: Develpment of the stylistic diversity
of the orchestras. From the Guardia Vieja and
Guardia Nueva to the Época de Oro
At the end of the twenties, during
the first big tango boom in Buenos Aires, there
were two predominant stylistic tendencies
competing for the audience: the traditional
orchestras of the "Guardia Vieja" and the
innovators with the protagonists Julio and
Francisco de Caro who called themselves "Guardia
Nueva". Many of the important musicians of the
"golden age" had their beginnings in these years.
In the following decade the tango
passed through economically difficult times;
musicians had to find other sources of income,
many orchestras broke up. But the remaining and
new protagonists experimented with enthusiasm and
created new stylistic elements. At the end of the
decade it was an enormous diversity of orchestras
that constituted the beginning of the next tango
boom, the "golden age". But not only as the
transition to the well-known and popular music of
the "época de oro" the thirties are important – in
that decade many wonderful songs were created.
The
fourties: sweeping dance music - the singer in
the orchestra - sad drama - complex
arrangements.
The early fourties were the golden
age of tango. It's estimated that there were 600
tango orchestras in Buenos Aires; every day three
new tango discs were released. We have many
beautiful recordings from the fourties, a rich
source for playing music in the milongas. In the
late fourties the music of many orchestras became
more complex and the singing more dramatic.
From the enormeous richness of styles
and moods I present a wide selection and tell
about historical and cultural backgrounds.
The
fifties and sixties: Dance music for young
enthusiastic dancers - exquisitely sung dramas -
hollywoodesque music - fancy music of young
innovators.
Between 1950 and 1970 tango was in a
strong decline. At the beginning of the fifties
many young people still danced enthusiastically
and some of them with great perfection in the
neighbourhood clubs. In those clubs and also in
many milongas in the center, recorded music was
mostly played; live performances of orchestras
were less common than in the fourties. In the
following years non-argentinean music became more
and more popular, and the young dancers danced
"otros ritmos" like Swing, Rock'n Roll, and Mambo.
Tango was for "older people" and had the fame of
sad music. When television came up, more and more
people would stay at home instead of going out for
dancing. The best dancers started a stage carreer
in Argentina and abroad. Many orchestras disbanded
or downsized to smaller ensembles.
We will hear interesting music from
these decades: Of the "Big Four" who were still
very popular, of new orchestras with excellent
singers, and of smaller bands with very good
musicians.
Singing in
traditional tango: Lyrics - Styles - Interaction
between orchestra and singer.
We listen to sung tangos from the
twenties to the sixties, from crude cheeky songs
to "poetry set to music"; we listen to different
styles of singing and various ways of orchestra
and singer playing together. From about 1940, with
the "cantor de la orchestra", singer and orchestra
interweave more and more, and emotions and
dramatic moments are created. And we read the
lyrics and their translations.
The Big
Four, Part 1: Aníbal Troilo.
Great musicians - sophisticated
rhythms - interweaving of orchestra and singer -
dosed drama - magic expressivity.
The Big
Four, Part 2: Juan D'Arienzo.
Juan d'Arienzo was called "El rey del
compás". In the mid-thirties he developed,
together with his musicians, a new rhythmic and
upbeat sound that has been drawing people to the
dancefloor since then. During 40 years the
orchestra recorded hundreds of songs, and the
style became more and more heavy. The singers are
particularly powerful, and the lyrics often rough
and sometimes dramatic. We get to know D'Arienzo's
rhythm machine and it's development over the
decades.
The Big
Four, Part 3: Osvaldo Pugliese.
Osvaldo Pugliese is, with good
reasons, the most-admired tango musician in
Argentinia and elsewhere. Excellent musicians
played in his orchestra that was organized as a
cooperative, and stayed with him for decades.
Although Pugliese was persecuted for being a
communist by various governments, he was very
popular until his death in 1995, and he left
hundreds of recordings. We listen to complex,
rich-in-contrast, dramatic, magic music that goes
directly to the heart.
The Big
Four, Part 4: Carlos Di Sarli.
in preparation.
The other
Big Four: Roberto Firpo - Francisco Canaro -
Osvaldo Fresedo - Julio y Francisco de Caro.
Energetic rhythm - magic phrasing - cozy
sweetness - crazy expressivity
"The big four" - Carlos di
Sarli, Juan d'Arienzo, Aníbal Troilo, and Osvaldo
Pugliese – developed styles and created many
excellent tangos and have to be present in every
milonga. "The other big four" were pioneers of
tango in various aspects. They created essential
innovations of instrumentation and style, they
provided training and initiation for the best
musicians, and they created wonderful music for
dancing.
Carlos di
Sarli – Miguel Caló – Aníbal Troilo. The elegant salon orchestras of the
40ies
In the first part of the 40ies, when
there were supposedly 600 tango orchestras in
Buenos Aires, when every day three tango discs
were released and when in every block in the
center there was a milonga, the orchestras of
Carlos di Sarli, Miguel Caló and Aníbal Troilo
were among the most popular. Nowadays they are
essential for every tango DJ.
The seminar presents these three
orchestras and their excellent musicians and
singers. We follow their career from the late
20ies until the 50ies, with focus on the
recordings with singing from the first part of the
40ies, when tango composers and lyricists
cooperated cloesely, and the singers no longer
sung only the chorus but became performers of
"poetry set to music". In a series of comparisons
between different versions of the same songs we
examine the characteristic elements of the styles
of the three orchestras.
Milonga:
History - rhythms - styles - highlights.
We listen to ancestors and relatives
of the milonga, grounded Milongas, hot milongas,
milongas with candombe influences, modern
milongas; and some stories around.
Vals:
History - rhythms - styles - highlights.
We listen to swinging, melancolic,
hilarious, rustic, viennese, folcloristic,
meditative valses, and we analyse the rhythms and
ways of playing.
Animals in
tango.
These are some animals we will meet
in the seminar:
- cow and horse: These animals play an important
role in the argentinean economy, social history
and culture, and they are topics of many tangos
(this is the serious part of the seminar).
- birds, cats, apes, and other animals with their
voices appear in comical and contemplative tangos
(this is the funny part of the seminar).
Women in tango.
I
present tangos with women as authors, musicians,
and singers. And I present tangos where the
lyrics express recurrent, stereotypical images of
women, among them: the unfaithful woman = the
ingrate, who ruins her spouse; the prostitute =
the seducer who is at the same time victim of
seduction and exploitation; the mother = the only
woman to rely on. We listen to beautiful pieces
with these topics from various decades, and we
discuss, apart from the lyrics, the stylistic
characteristics of the music, that make these
pieces unique three-minutes artworks.
Seminars
for DJs:
Characteristics
of the ochestras - to build tandas with
character
We examine the characteristics of the
orchestras from the point of view of the dancers,
and we investigate which moods are produced - in
order to build tandas with certain moods and
create of flow during the milonga.
Creating
the flow - how to construct an evening
Coherent tandas – contrasts between
tandas – cycles of energy – tuning with the
dancefloor.