The Kings of Tango: Enrique Saborido

Enrique Saborido

How Enrique Saborido Composed his Tango “La Morocha” Twenty-Two Years Ago

[An Interview by Ernesto de la Fuente, Buenos Aires, 1928]

As we meet Enrique Saborido, the unforgettable composer of one of the most memorable tangos ever sung in Argentina, we recollect—like a memory from the days of childhood—the music and words that even schoolboys today know and hum, despite the time that has passed.

Who, in more than twenty years, has not heard at some time the verses of “La Morocha”, accompanied by a simple melody, that reflect the happy way of live, filled with poetry, of the Pampa countryside?

Yo soy la morocha,

La más agraciada,

La más renombrada,

De esta población;

Soy la que al paisano

Muy de madrugada

Brinda un cimarrón.

I am the brunette,

the most graceful one,

the best renowned

in this village;

I am the one who,

at the break of dawn,

toasts a mate to the country folk.

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.

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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 20^th 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 20^th 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 19^th 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