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Astor Piazzolla

陳勁豪台大愛樂社2012/12/03

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outline

• Biography

• Selection works

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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.

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Where is Mar del Plata, Argentina?

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What is a bandoneon?

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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)

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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

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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. “

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• --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."

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Select works

• Liebertango

• Adios Nonino

• Fuga y misterio

• Four season (summer)

• Michelangelo 70 (Kremer/Piazzolla)

• Maria de Buenos Aires