Born in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, Argentina in 1921, Piazzolla was an outstanding Argentine composer and bandoneon player. Recognized as one of the architects of the renewal of tango, especially after 1955, when he returned to Argentina after a period of studies in Paris under the direction of Nadia Boulanger, a famous pedagogue who advised him never to forget popular music, a precept that the musician always kept in mind. Decarissimo, Milonga del ángel, La muerte del ángel, Invierno porteño, Buenos Aires hora cero, Balada para un loco and Adiós, Nonino are some of his most popular tangos. They combine the traditional genre, classical music and jazz and intermingle their languages, techniques and styles, which gives them a novel aspect and considerable appeal, despite which they aroused the rejection of the most conservative tango circles. Piazzolla is also the author of a valuable Concerto for bandoneon and orchestra, important for its vindication of this instrument, beyond the role of accompaniment in dance ensembles, and an opera, María de Buenos Aires (1968).
The son of an Italian immigrant and admirer of Gardel, Astor Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata in 1921, but as a child he went with his parents to live in New York, where he resided since 1924. In 1929, Don Vicente gave his son a second-hand bandoneon as a gift, an instrument that would become associated with him. He studied music under the tutelage of Bela Wilda, a Russian master and disciple of Rachmaninov, and from him he learned to transcribe and play Bach and Schumann. In New York he met Carlos Gardel, and a long friendship arose between them that even led to the musician's brief participation, as an actor, in the film El día que me quieras, where he played a street vendor.
Piazzolla's career developed between the New and the Old World. Back in Argentina, he settled in Buenos Aires and performed as a bandoneonist in the orchestras of Miguel Caló and Aníbal Troilo; in the latter he was also in charge of the arrangements. In the meantime, he perfected his technique with the classical musician Alberto Ginastera. In 1944, Piazzolla left Troilo to lead the orchestra that accompanied the singer Francisco Fiorentino. He continued his work as arranger for the orchestras of José Basso, Miguel Caló and Francini-Pontier. Also in this period he wrote pieces of cultured music, such as Rapsodia porteña (1952) and Sinfonía de Buenos Aires (1953), in whose instrumentation he included bandoneons. That year he traveled to Paris to study with the famous pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, who convinced him to persist in the path of tango.
Upon his return to Argentina, Piazzolla summoned top musicians and formed the Octeto Buenos Aires, with Enrique Mario Francini and Hugo Baralis on violins, Roberto Pansera on bandoneon, José Bragato on cello, Aldo Nicolini on bass, Horacio Malvicino on electric guitar and Atilio Stampone on piano. Several of the Octeto's versions had a decisive influence on the future evolution of tango, due to their rhythmic and contrapuntal novelties. When his father died in 1959, in spite of the biabas he had given him in his childhood and that the son still remembered without rancor, Piazzolla composed perhaps his most beautiful work in his honor: Adiós, Nonino.
In 1960, after a stay in the United States, where his style was presented as jazz-tango, he formed a quintet with musicians such as Elvio Bardaro, Dante Amicarelli, Antonio Agri, Horacio Malvicino, Oscar López Ruiz, Kicho Díaz, Osvaldo Manzi and Cacho Tirao. In 1968, Piazzolla composed with the poet Horacio Ferrer the operita María de Buenos Aires, for eleven instruments, recitative and male and female singers. In 1969 he began to write, also together with Ferrer, songs of greater simplicity for the voice of Amelita Baltar. They composed Balada para un loco, which would become a great popular success, and in whose wake other compositions of a similar nature emerged, such as Balada para mi muerte, Balada para Él and Chiquilín de Bachín.
On his return from a trip to Paris, Piazzolla reassembled his old Octet and began to compose longer and more ambitious pieces, far from the classic tango-song schemes. Among these experiences are some of his most famous pieces, such as a new version of Adiós, Nonino (the first one dates back to 1959), Muralla china, the four parts of Pulsación and the music of numerous films. Always attracted by jazz, in 1974 he recorded an album with the great saxophonist Gerry Mulligan. From 1972 is the Concierto de nacar for nine tango players and orchestra; from 1976, the Suite troileana, composed in honor of his teacher Aníbal Troilo; and, from 1979, his Concierto for bandoneon, piano, strings and percussion.
Piazzolla's prestige was widespread in Europe, while in Argentina there were controversies about whether or not his was tango, a genre that he renewed through his instrument (the bandoneon) and his compositions. In any case, the influence of Astor Piazzolla and the new musical aesthetics he was able to impose on tango had an unavoidable influence on the younger generations of artists inclined towards the popular music of Buenos Aires. Thus, for example, the bandoneonist and composer Eduardo Rovira, who departed from the traditional canons of tango and founded the Agrupación de Tango Moderno in 1960. Another outstanding musician, Rodolfo Mederos, is surely the most outstanding follower of Astor Piazzolla as a bandoneon player.
SOURCE: Ruiza, M., Fernández, T. and Tamaro, E. (2004). Biography of Astor Piazzolla. In Biografías y Vidas. The online biographical encyclopedia. Barcelona (Spain). Retrieved from https://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/p/piazzola.htm