- Date: before 1985
- Composer: Astor Piazzolla
- Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Review
Astor Piazzolla was keenly aware of the changing style of the Argentine national dance over his lifetime. It was entirely natural that he should seek to remind his critics and fans alike of the fact that tango had begun in the process of musical evolution and altered its sound and mood through that same process.Histoire du Tango is the vehicle by which he did so. It is not written for the standard tango band, but is a kind of abstraction of that sound into a classical suite, originally written for flute and guitar. (There is also a version for violin and guitar, as well as other arrangements, and the work's title is sometimes given in Spanish, La Historia del Tango.)
The music is a little over 20 minutes long and covers the evolution of the dance through the twentieth century. Tango evolved from an earlier popular dance called the milonga, which is itself evolved from the Cuban rhythm known as habañera. Tango was initially regarded as a low dance. Like North American jazz, it originated in bordellos, and so the first movement is entitled "Bordel 1900." The relatively genteel milonga is depicted here as having been jolted into a new form by a heavy injection of eroticism. The dotted habañera/milonga rhythm is exaggerated and in this form not accepted in polite society.
The second movement is called "Café 1930." By now, tango was the favorite dance of all classes in Argentina and was known as a daring dance around the world. Piazzolla is now writing directly from his memories of the type of tango played in cafés in Buenos Aires. This is a respectful depiction of the full-blown traditional tango.
The third movement, "Nightclub 1960" evokes the precise time when Piazzolla returned to Buenos Aires after his efforts to create Jazz Tango in the U.S. It now becomes clear that Piazzolla is dealing in the overall composition with his own place in the history of the music, as more sophisticated jazz elements enliven a music that had become standardized and complacent. This is a picture of the early version of Tango Nuevo.
The final movement is called "Concert d'aujourd'hui," a title that most literally translates as "Concert of Today" but which might also be called "Contemporary Concert." By the 1980s, Piazzolla was becoming an exciting voice in classical concert music. He shows himself here as having taken tango from its polite café form through its new nightclub dance form and making it into a new form for concert music. The harmonic vocabulary here is advanced and often startling, and it is music for listening more than dancing. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide
