Astor Piazzolla - A Biography

Astor PiazzollaArgentinean Tango Composer

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Piazzolla created a distinctive language that converges Jazz, classical music, and the drastic pulse of his Tango.The bandonen is a type of accordion particularly popular in Argentina, is an essential instrument in most tango ensembles. 2Adios Nonino, one of the most representative songs composed around 1959, when Piazzolla had the news of the sudden death of his father, called Nonino. The author cried through his art, and left for the history of Argentine music, one of his most beautiful pages.BiographyAstor Piazzolla was born in Argentina but spent most of his childhood in New York. When Astor was 8 years old, his father gave him his first bandoneon and Astor started to study music seriously, he study music in France and then he returned to Buenos Aires were he formed his own tango orchestra. Being the arranger of the Troilos orchestra, he began musical studies creating a new blend between tango, classical music and jazz.

In 1973, after a period of great productivity as a composer, he suffers a heart attack which forces him to reduce his artistic activities and he decides to move to Italy where he begins a series of recordings for the next 5 years, his most famous work Libertango, is widely accepted in the European Community. In 1977, he plays a memorable concert at the Olympia in Paris and then restarts his dedication to chamber music and symphonic works.

The next ten years are the best for Piazzolla, he intensifies his concerts all over the world: Europe, South America, Japan, and the United States. Until 1990 he does a series of concerts mostly with the quintet, also as a symphonic solo performer and as a chamber musician. In his final years he played most with the sextet (his final group), and with string quartets.

In August 4, 1990, while in Paris, he suffers a stroke and after almost 2 years of suffering the consequences of this incident, he dies in Buenos Aires on July 4, 1992. His opus, contain more than 1000 works, a career characterized by his artistic unique style that continues to influence the best musicians in the world.

Adios Nonino: The Musical Analysis The piano enters with a variation of the main theme followed by the bandoneon which repeat the main theme again establishing an question answer pattern and continues playing through continuouslyThe bandoneon enters with the main theme followed by the piano and the low strings a bit of a question and answer game with very decisive rhythmic figures. This happens four times; meanwhile the other instruments slowly drop out around the bandoneon. The piano jumps in over, the bandoneon fades out and prepares the theme B section. The violin carries the B theme over the accompaniment played by the rest of the ensemble. The piano, violin and bandoneon break free of the B section. All the instruments start the beginning of the coda to end abruptly in a dissonant sound, showing that all the frustration and anger was released and there is nothing else that can be done.

The version played on the presentation belongs to Sexteto Mayor, an Argentienean Tango Ensamble compose by two bandoneons, two violins, piano, and bass.