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Concerto for Bandoneón and Orchestra (Aconcagua)

Astor Piazzolla

 Born in Mar del Plata, near Buenos Aires, March 11, 1921; died in Buenos Aires, July 5, 1992 

Though born near Buenos Aires, Piazzolla grew up in New York City, where at the age

of eight he received his first bandoneón, which his father had bought at a pawn shop. Reluctant

at first to play the Argentine tango music his father loved, Astor began playing Bach on the

square, entirely button-operated accordion. Soon, however, his interest in tango was fired by

legendary singer and tango superstar Carlos Gardel, a friend of the family. When Piazzolla

moved back to Argentina in 1937 he was hired to play bandoneón and to make arrangements for

Anibal Troilo, one of the great tangueros of the time. Studies with Alberto Ginastera in

Argentina and Nadia Boulanger in Paris broadened his interest in classical techniques, though

Boulanger encouraged him to follow his tango calling, which he was now able to infuse with

sophisticated structures.

Piazzolla infused the tango with new life following the Second World War, though he

was criticized by the upholders of tradition for adding dissonance and extended rhythmic

techniques. His style, called nuevo tango, bears certain similarities to bebop and bossa nova, yet

avoids the improvisations of jazz, except for occasional “cadenzas.” He performed and recorded

with a number of popular tango ensembles—the 1946 Orchestra (his first tango orchestra),

Octeto Buenos Aires, several famous Quintets, the octet Conjunto Electronico, the nonet

Conjunto 9, and the New Tango Sextet—but toward the end of his life he preferred giving

concerts as a soloist accompanied by symphony orchestra. He composed over 1,000 works—not

only tangos, but film scores, and symphonic and chamber pieces; he also left a treasured legacy

of over fifty recordings.

In 1979 the Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires commissioned Piazzolla to compose

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his Bandoneón Concerto, which he premiered on December 15 that year with an orchestra

gathered for the occasion, conducted by Simon Blech. His publisher, Aldo Pagani, supplied the

nickname “Aconcagua” after Piazzolla’s death, because, he said, “this is the peak of Astor’s

oeuvre, and the [highest] peak in South America is Aconcagua (on the Argentina-Chile border,

due west of Buenos Aires).”

Piazzolla launches the Concerto with a driving, rhythmic “tango” for the orchestra and

soloist together. The first movement’s middle section, introduced and concluded by bandoneón

cadenzas, projects the mournful, meditative character that we associate with so many of

Piazzolla’s inspired tangos. The return to the driven music of the opening reveals a three-section

construction that mirrors the layout of the entire Concerto—three movements, fast-slow-fast,

which is typical of classical concertos. The composer scores the Concerto without winds and

 brass throughout in order to highlight the sound of the bandoneón.

The expressive slow movement luxuriates in soulful meditation for the bandoneón alone

 before the soloist is joined by an intimate group of solo violin, harp, and solo cello. The entire

string section takes up the main theme—with the bandoneón making embellishments and the

 piano adding color—before the yearning melody returns to the solo instrument.

Excitement breaks out in the lively finale, with its catchy syncopated rhythms against a

“walking” bass line. Piazzolla said that at first he didn’t know how to finish the concerto, but that

he decided just to “do my thing”—which meant tango. He based part of the movement on a very

danceable tango he had written for the soundtrack to the film Con alma y vida. Toward the end

of the movement he applies the brakes and introduces a “Melancolico final,” in which the

 bandoneón plays the winsome major-mode melody punctuated by piano chords, light string

 pizzicatos, and rhythmic guiro scrapings. The final section, marked “Pesante” (weighty), builds

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to the conclusion with insistent descending patterns, drumbeats, and increasing volume,

interrupted once for an impassioned string passage.

 —© Jane Vial Jaffe