The author of the text,
Villoldo, who died a few years ago, knew how to interpret the true
feeling of the gaucho spirit in his verses and imprinted on them all
the sentiment of a true criollo.
“Tango
then [1906] was not like the tango of today,” tells us Saborido,
who was perhaps the first to enjoy the pleasures of triumph with one
of the most successful productions of national tango.
“Why was tango in the
past different from today?”we ask the old composer.
“Because currently it
wants to be modernized, dropping its blessedly traditional character,
even changing the grace of its rhythm, which used to be the true soul
of tango.”
“At present, one even
dances it differently,” he adds. “Those who remember how one
danced twenty years ago can appreciate the huge difference that
exists between the two periods.”
Accordingly, Saborido
longs for the spiritual beauty of the old days, when there were no
cabarets and there existed only certain places where friends could
gather and amuse themselves a la criolla.
“At
what age were you introduced to music composition?”, we ask him.
“When
I was very little,” he responds, “a few years after arriving in
Argentina.”
“You
are, then, not from this country?”“I
am Uruguayan, but I came to Argentina when I was four years old.
Later, as an adult, I became an Argentinian citizen and I consider
myself as porteño
as any ...”
“My
parents,” he continues, “wanted me to learn music, and my first
violin lessons were given to me by the violin teacher Gutiérrez,
under whose auspices I remained until I was twelve years old.”
“And
did your career as a violinist end then?”
“A year later I was
playing something on the piano, and having made contact with some
musicians of popular music, they called me, when they needed someone
as a replacement. That was why I gave up the violin and continued
with the piano, composing once in a while some little pieces of
popular music.”
“Those were beautiful
days …?”
“Unforgettable,
completely different from today. Family gatherings were taking place
every day and I used to be invited into the houses of well-known
families to participate in the orchestras. And since I was a young
lad, they received me with cordial affection.”
In the houses of the
Hileret, Molina, Gowland, Arredondo, and many others I became an
habitué, and all my odd improvisations at the piano were much
appreciated...
“And outside of the
family environment?”
“There were what I call
pre-historic cabarets, like the Hansen, a center of amusement for the
elegant crowd of the era. The most unforgettable parties were
celebrated in this place, organized by gentlemen that today flaunt
white hair and perhaps reprimand their children when they get into
the kind of mischief that they were in the habit of making...”
“Was it at that time
that you composed La Morocha?”
“In 1906, and under
really special circumstances.”
“Inspired, perhaps, by
some cute little criolla
of those days...”
Saborido contemplates. It
seems as if scenes of that unforgettable past come back to life in
his mind.
“At that time, there
still existed the 'Bar Reconquista' of the well-liked Ronchietti,”
he tells us. “I used to go there often and so did also a charming
Uruguayan dancer called Lola Candales ...”
“She was your muse?”
“I shall tell you. One
night the gathering was extremely animated, among the fellows being
Victorica, Argerich, the representative Félix Rivas and others. As
they had noticed that I was very keen on Lola, who was an elegant
brunette, they challenged my self-esteem by claiming that I would not
be able to write a tango that she could sing successfully. The party
continued and it was early morning when we left. I went to bed and
was at the point of falling asleep when I remembered the challenge.”
“And right then you
wrote your tango.”
“Immediately. It was
five o'clock and I sat down at the piano. At half past six I had
composed the piece. One hour later I was in the apartment of my
friend Ángel Villoldo, asking him to write the text. At ten o'clock
in the morning text and music were finalized, and at noon we were
both visiting Lola Candales...”
“To play the new tango
for her?”
“That's it. She
memorized and rehearsed it and that night, in the presence of that
whole memorable gang, she sang it herself, for the first time.”
“A complete success?”
“Absolutely. It was
repeated eight times to the applause of the audience, and the
representative Rivas sent Lola $200 as a price for her success.”
“And then?”
“I took it to Luis
Rivarola, who was the main music publisher. He printed it and one
month later all of Buenos Aires was singing it unlike any tango, I
think, had ever been sung. It was an unexpected triumph, and I rarely
felt so happy as then.”
“Did you write other
tangos thereafter?”
“Felicia,
Pochocho, Berlina de Novia, Don Paco, Señor
Ley, Mosca Brava, Coraceros del 9, and others until
1911, when I gave up composition completely.”
“Why?”
“Because I had been
invited by the Marchioness de Reszke, widow of the famous tenor Jean
de Reszke, to go to Paris and try to introduce Argentine tango. I
accepted, and a few months later in France I had my first successes
teaching orchestras to play tango properly and giving dance lessons
to prominent society members of the City of Light.”
“I was also asked to
serve as an arbitrator to show that the furlana was no more decent
than tango, until even the newspaper Le Gaulois, which was the
journal of the catholics, published an article praising the grace and
beauty of the Argentinian dance.”
“Later, I organized a
pericón in the
palace of the Marchioness Reszke that was attended by the most
distinguished in the arts, letters, and journalism that Paris had to
offer. The praises were also unanimous.”
“And why did you return
to this country?”
“When the war broke out.
I had a true desire to return to this land, and I took advantage of
the situation. I arrived here and, forgetting music and tango almost
completely, engaged in other matters. Imagine, today I have a
position in the National Administration, a thing diametrically
opposed to my former inclinations.”
“And why don't you
rejoin the body of today's composers, seizing your scepter as the
King of Tango?”
“Incidentally, I am
about to do just that. Having
been forgotten for so many years, I would like to make a
come-back, like with La Morocha.
I have even published some new pieces.”
“Which
are they?”
“Pegué
la Vuelta, Ingratitud,
La Hija de la Morocha,
Caras y Caretas,
...”
Saborido sits down at the
piano and plays his new productions. They are filled with rare
melancholy and brim with an exquisite spirituality. It is the tango
of yesteryear returning with all the tradition of those who created
it, with emotion, poetry, and its own rhythm.
Comments
The Origin of La
Morocha
Enrique Saborido
(1877-1941) was, together with Ángel Villoldo and the duo of Alfredo
Gobbi and Flora Rodríguez, among the first international stars of
tango. All four were directly involved in establishing tango in Paris
and thus were instrumental in bringing it to a world-wide attention.
Saborido's La Morocha
became, like Villoldo's El choclo
and El Porteñito,
one of the iconic pieces that are inseparably connected to the first
glorious period of tango at the beginning of the 20th
century.
The
story of La Morocha's
genesis has by now become legend, having been repeated in countless
tango histories since its first appearance in Caras y
Caretas. It is, of course,
just one of those stories that journalists like to tell and the
audience loves to hear. In an earlier interview, Saborido had told a
different version of the first performance of La Morocha.
According to that account, it took place in the restaurant “Tarana”
(the successor of the “Hansen” mentioned in the article),
performed by a trio of instrumentalists that included Saborido, but
no singer. Who is to know if it unfolded? It seems odd, though,
that Saborido's friends would have challenged him to write a tango
song,
that is, a sung piece, with which a dancer was expected to triumph.
For
its time, La Morocha
is not an ordinary tango. In the first two decades of the 20th
century, most tangos were pieces of instrumental music, consisting
usually of three sections. La Morocha
is a two-part composition, a musical form that is common of songs
with strophic texts. Typically, in such two-part song forms the music
of the first section (A) is repeated and then followed by a refrain
(B), thus giving it the characteristic AAB form. The poetic structure
of La Morocha
follows indeed this model.
1.
Stanza
[A] Yo
soy la morocha,
la más agraciada,
la más renombrada
de esta población.
Soy la que al paisano
muy de madrugada
brinda un cimarrón.
[A] Yo,
con dulce acento,
junto a mi ranchito,
canto un estilito
con tierna pasión,
mientras que mi dueño
sale al trotecito
en su redomón.
[B] Soy
la morocha argentina,
la que no siente pesares
y alegre pasa la vida
con sus cantares.
Soy la gentil compañera
del noble gaucho porteño,
la que conserva el cariño
para
su dueño.
|
2.
Stanza
[A] Yo
soy la morocha
de mirar ardiente,
la que en su alma siente
el fuego de amor.
Soy la que al criollito
más noble y valiente
ama con ardor.
[A] En
mi amado rancho,
bajo la enramada,
en noche plateada,
con dulce emoción,
le canto al pampero,
a mi patria amada
y a mi fiel amor.
[B] Soy
la morocha argentina,
la que no siente pesares
y alegre pasa la vida
con sus cantares.
Soy la gentil compañera
del noble gaucho porteño,
la que conserva el cariño
para
su dueño.
|
Correspondingly,
it is precisely in this form, with additional introduction and coda,
that Lola Membrives recorded the piece in 1909. The following example
reproduces the first stanza and the refrain of the Membrives
recording.
La Morocha
and the Habanera
At
the time when Saborido composed La Morocha,
the orquesta típica,
the standard tango ensemble consisting of bandoneons, violins, bass
and piano, did not yet exist. Violin, flute, guitar, mandolin and an
occasional bandoneon where the instruments commonly used. The bass
line of the compositions, which was played by the guitar, contained a
rhythmic figure characteristic of early tangos: the habanera rhythm.
This
rhythm was so prevalent in early tangos that it is said that tango is
a descendant of the Cuban habanera. This attribution is problematic
in as much as a stylistic dependency is inferred from a rhythmic
figure of one measure length. Furthermore, in the last third of the
19th century, the habanera was an immensely popular song
form in European music. (The reader may recall the habanera from
Bizet's opera Carmen or Sebastián Iradier's La Paloma.)
Any influence the habanera may have had on tango could have just as
well come from Paris or Madrid.
 |
| Iradier: La Paloma |
Nevertheless,
Saborido's La Morocha seems especially indebted to the
habanera. Habaneras like those by Bizet and Iradier show another
rhythmical figure that is typical of habanera songs in addition to
the rhythmic figure in the accompaniment; namely, triplets in the
melody that are juxtaposed against the dotted rhythm of the habanera
rhythm. This combination, which creates characteristic rhythmic
tension, is also found in the refrain of La Morocha.
 |
| Saborido: La Morocha, excerpt |
In
short, considering the two-part song form and the strong rhythmical
influence of the habanera, one might ask if La Morocha should not
be called a habanera rather than a tango—if it were not for the
text.
Stylistic
Changes of Tango
Saborido
comments (in 1928) that tango had changed in the preceding twenty
years (and with it the way it was danced)—pointing out, in
particular, the rhythm. After 1915, tango musicians began to drop the
habanera rhythm, so that by 1920 the rhythmic accompaniment was plaid
in straight eighth notes rather than the dotted habanera rhythm used
before. The emergence of the standardized orquesta típica
seems to have played an important part in this development: the guitar was
replaced by a double bass and piano, and with it the bass line
changed from dotted to straight eighth notes.
A
recording of La Morocha
by Francisco Canaro from 1929 illustrates the change. Canaro still
pays tribute to the rhythms of yesteryear: the habanera rhythm is
still present, but it is kept in the middle voices. The rhythmic
fundament consists of straight, march-like eighth notes.
Even more pronounced is
the change in the refrain of the melody part. The triplets were
changed by Canaro to typical tango rhythms: the triplet becomes a
síncopa.
 |
| Triplets in original score, as sung by Membrives. |
 |
| Rhythms as played by Canaro. |
The
differences in style and performance between Lola Membrives and the
Canaro orchestra are striking. Lola Membrives' recording is a vocal
performance of a song as it might have been given on a theater stage
or a varieté. It is a piece of music to be listened to. The tempo is
flexible and the singer slows down or speeds up the tempo in order to
highlight the vocal performance.
In
Canaro's recording, the tempo shows little variance and the beat is
strong and steady. The singer is employed like an estribillista,
that is, a refrain-singer: the piece is practically an instrumental
piece and the singer sings only one short section of the text (in
this case the first stanza, not the refrain). This arrangement of La
Morocha was not intended to
show off the skill of a singer. It has a strong and steady rhythm
that moves the listeners forward—while they are dancing.
© 2017 Translation and Comments Wolfgang Freis
