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Astor Piazzolla. 陳勁豪 台大愛樂社 2012/12/03. outline. Biography Selection works. Astor Piazzolla. March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992 an Argentine composer and bandoneón player born in Mar del Plata, Argentina Italian immigrant parents 1925, move to Greenwich Village, New York City
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Astor Piazzolla 陳勁豪 台大愛樂社 2012/12/03
outline • Biography • Selection works
Astor Piazzolla • March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992 • an Argentine composer and bandoneón player • born in Mar del Plata, Argentina • Italian immigrant parents • 1925, move to Greenwich Village, New York City • Starting playing banboneon at 1929. The one he saw in a pawn store. • Quickly move back to Mar del Plata and then move back to Little Italy, New York again in 1932.
Mentors in New York • Bela Wilda. A Hungarian pianist, student of Rachmaninov. • Carlos Gardel. Most important person in Tango. Invites Piazzolla to play bandoneon in his band (but his father does not allow Astor to do so)
Early career • 1936: go back to Mar del Plata. Playing bandoneon in a tango band • 1941: study with Alberto Ginastera • Between 1946-1950: formed his own orchestra, Orquesta Típica, to try to orchestrate tango music • Learning stravinsky, bartok and conducting with Hermann Scherchen
Paris • 1954: go to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger • “--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 Bartok, like Ravel, but you know what happens? 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 wanted 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 bandoneon 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. • --She taught me to believe in Astor Piazzolla, to believe that my music wasn't as bad as I thought. I thought that I was something like a piece of shit because I played tangos in a cabaret, but I had something called style. I felt a sort of liberation of the ashamed tango player I was. I suddenly got free and I told myself: "Well, you'll have to keep dealing with this music, then."
Select works • Liebertango • Adios Nonino • Fuga y misterio • Four season (summer) • Michelangelo 70 (Kremer/Piazzolla) • Maria de Buenos Aires