Oblivion
Ástor Piazzolla (1921–1992)
Melancholy, that’s the word. And nostalgia. Well, at least two words somewhat describing the feelings that come over me when listening to the evocative music of Argentina’s most famous composer and bandoneón player, Ástor Piazzolla. During his lifetime he reshaped the traditional tango into his so called nuevo tango, borrowing musical ideas from his neighbours jazz and classical music.
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His music never fails to capture me. As soon as the first notes leave my speakers. I’m gone. I don’t know where I go when this happens, but let’s call it sentimental. alley… A place full of colours, romance, despair, violence, beauty, seduction and surrender. A secret place where you can’t stay long because of the undefinable tension that tightens your guts. But as soon as you return to you own planet, you want to go back again….
…nuevo tango…
But let’s call this undefinable property… Piazzolla. Easy as that. Because that is exactly what his composition teacher Nadia Boulanger did in 1954 after Ástor had won a grant to study with her in Paris. Enjoy the following memoir:
When I met her, I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. She started to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: “It’s very well written.” And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball. After a long while, she said: “Here you are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what’s wrong? I can’t find Piazzolla in this.” And she began to investigate my private life: what I did, what I did and did not play, if I was single, married, or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent! And I was very ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician. Finally I said, “I play in a night club.” I didn’t want to say cabaret. And she answered, “Night club, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn’t it?” “Yes”, I answered, and thought, “I’ll hit this woman in the head with a radio….” It wasn’t easy to lie to her. She kept asking: “You say that you are not pianist. What instrument do you play, then?” And I didn’t want to tell her that I was a bandoneón player, because I thought, “Then she will throw me from the fourth floor.” Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own. She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand and told me: “You idiot, that’s Piazzolla!” And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds.
– Ástor Piazzolla
Please listen to Oblivion (Spotify), here in a version for violin, piano, double bass and bandoneón. An exemplary composition that really has this je-ne-sais-quoi quality that never fails to abduct me to sentimental alley and the melancholy meadows… Enjoy and please, listen more to the music of Piazzolla. You wont regret it.
