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When Argentine tango came to be recognized as a distinct, indigenous music style in the region of the River Plate, around the turn of the 20th century, “theories” of its history were formulated as well. These were rarely conclusions of objective investigations but rather comments in journalistic essays or opinions that, cited repeatedly, became accepted as common knowledge.
Milonga and tango showed both an indisputable influence of the habanera, as both featured the habanera rhythm as an accompaniment figure. The habanera, it was therefore claimed, was introduced through Cuban sailors to Buenos Aires where it was taken up by local musicians and danced in seedy harbor taverns. It then blended with the milonga and eventually evolved into tango. This speculative assumption was repeated so many times that it has currency even today. Yet, it is not based on historical evidence but rather on the popular image of Argentine tango from which its ancestry was inferred.
From its beginnings, Argentine tango was considered to be the music of the lower class population and thus ancestors of corresponding social status were assigned to it. The milonga was a music style from the Argentinian countryside were it was performed by the payadores (itinerant singers accompanying themselves on the guitar). The habanera, being introduced by “common” sailors from Cuba into the lower class neighborhoods of the harbor district, also acquired the reputation of being a country dance due to its relationship to the milonga.
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Illustration to a short story, “Los bailes de mi pago”, representing the dance of a habanera.
Published in Caras y Caretas, 1899
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Even though the presence of the habanera rhythm in milonga and tango may suggest a descendance as outlined above, it is difficult to maintain in the face of demonstrable historic evidence. For one, it is highly unlikely that a significant number of Cuban sailors visited Buenos Aires (let alone sailors musically so accomplished to make a lasting impression on local musicians) since Cuba did not possess a merchant fleet. Furthermore, this narrative completely ignores the musical life as it unfolded in Buenos Aires during the given time period.
1. Dance Music in Buenos Aires 1861-1898
Reliable data on what music people actually played, danced, and listened to in the 19th century is difficult to come by—even more so in Argentina due to the sparsity of significant research. An inventory of compositions by Argentinian composers that were mentioned as newly published in newspapers between 1861-1898 provides at least some information, incomplete as it may be. Most of the newly composed pieces were dance music. If one can judge from the number of publications, the five most popular dances were waltzes (168), polkas (137), mazurkas (113), habaneras (64), and schottische (32). These dances were also—it should come as no surprise—the ones most often composed (and danced) in Europe.
Dance assignations of musical compositions are often dubious. The dance indicated in a title may just refer to the style of the composition (a piano piece “in the style”of a waltz) rather than actually being intended for social dancing. It is almost compelling to ask this question with many of the habanera-like pieces. They simply seem too short to make it worthwhile stepping on the dance floor. There is evidence, however, that the habanera was indeed a popular social dance, and it comes from Buenos Aires.
The highpoint of the dancing season, in Argentina as well as in Europe, were the dances organized during carnival. In 1877, the Buenos Aires Opera, the most prestigious theater of the city, hosted its first public carnival dances at the opera house. The announcement published in local newspaper reads as follows:
| Opera |
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| THE RENOWNED DANCES OF THE OPERA SOCIETY |
| Upon request by countless members of the elegant youth |
| Grand Ballroom, Fantasy, and Individual Dances |
| will be given during the nights of Saturday, January 20 and Sunday, January 21. |
| GREAT NOVELTY |
| The theater is converted into a grand hall, the proscenium having been enlarged to more than 200 square cubits and given the most adequate ventilation. All the decorations and embellishments of the grand hall are newly painted for the purpose. There will be a large, luxuriously decorated grandstand at the center of the theater that will hold a large orchestra of the best music professors. They will play the most modern dances of renowned French, German, Italian, and Spanish composers—Strauss, Gungel, Labitzky, Riege, Offenbach, Lecoq, Hervé, Littolff, Capitani, Levi, Iradier, etc. |
| The dances will last 10 minutes, each with a 5 minute intermission. They will be played in the following order: 1st polka, 2nd habanera, 3rd quadrille (French), 4th waltz, 5th mazurka, 6th schottische, 7th quadrille (French). |
| Ladies will enter GRATIS with an invitation ticket of the dance commission. |
Publicity announcement of the carnival dances at the opera in Buenos Aires, 1877
The program of dances were listed in advance. They include the standard repertory of ball dances that one would have encountered in Europe as well. Typically for the 19th century, the quadrilles were the high points of the evening since they required the cooperation of the entire dancing audience.
The composers of the music listed were all Europeans and well-known for their dance music. Sebastián Iradier, the most representative composer of the habanera is included in the list. We noted in the first article of this series that his habaneras were predominantly vocal compositions, and many of them were also quite short. As the program indicates, however, each dance was scheduled to last 10 minutes. The orchestra, hence, must have played an arrangement of a number of habaneras. (Waltzes written for dancing typically contain 4 or more parts—each one a “complete” dance in itself—to be played through and repeated, and thus easily reach a performance time of 10 or more minutes.)
The announcement shows two things very clearly: habanera music originating from Spain was appreciated in Buenos Aires. The fact that Iradier is mentioned by name on the program advertisement suggests also that his music was considered among the best available. Furthermore, the habanera was indeed a social dance and had its devotees in the best circles of society.
Tango, however, does not appear on the program. It was to take another 25 years before tango as a dance became a standard fixture during the carnival festivities. Tango also appears only minimally in the inventory of pieces published by Argentinian composers discussed above. Within the years from 1862 to 1891, only ten entries refer to tangos. For most of these, the music appears to have been lost. Four refer to songs performed by “black” carnival societies (sociedad de negros), which were organizations of white people who organized floats and performed songs in which the presented themselves as negros. Two tangos in the inventory are piano editions of pieces from Spanish zarzuelas. One of them deserves special attention, as we will show in the following section.
2. El Tango de la Menegilda
In 1889, the Argentine composer Francisco Hargreaves published a piano edition of El Tango de la Menegilda from the revue La Gran Vía by the Spanish composers Federico Chueca and Joaquín Valverde. The revue had premiered in Madrid in 1886 and was first shown in Buenos Aires three years later. That Hargreaves promptly sat down and worked out a piano edition of Chueca's and Valverde's work is noteworthy by itself, inasmuch as he was himself a noted composer of operas. The profits expected from a piano edition of the revue's most popular song must have been exceptional. And indeed, La Gran Vía was no ordinary work. It was a huge international success that was presented in Paris, London, New York, and many other metropolitan cities. Its spectacular success in Buenos Aires was remembered even 20 years after its first showing.
El Tango de la Menegilda (“The Tango of the Maidservant”) is actually sung twice in the revue: first by the maidservant and later by the landlady, doña Virtudes (“Lady Virtuous”). The maidservant tells her story: when she came to Madrid, she learned to scrub, sweep, cook, iron, and sew when told, but seeing that this would not get her anywhere she decided to learn to pilfer and shortchange her employers. She became very skilled in it and eventually became the maid of a senile old man and now she is the landlady of the house. Doña Virtudes sings, in contrast, about the problems she faced dealing with steeling, lazy, and insolent maidservants.
Musically, El Tango de la Menegilda strongly resembles the tangos written for stage performances discussed in the previous article of this series. It has all the marks of a habanera-like composition: the habanera rhythm as an accompaniment figure, cross-rhythms in the melody, and a two-part division with contrasting parallel keys, e minor and E major in this case.
What makes El Tango de la Menegilda important for the development of Argentine tango is the cast of characters of the song and revue, as well as the influence La Gran Vía had on the theater in Buenos Aires. Habaneras and tangos, as we have seen, represented something exotic that involved the black population of Cuba. On the theater stage, these blacks belonged to the realm of servants, that is, to roles that traditionally provided relief (often comic) to the main characters of a play. The novelty of La Gran Vía was to give “lower-class” characters—common people one could meet every day on the street, on Madrid's Gran Vía—the main roles of the play and to present them in a sympathetic light. El Tango de la Menegilda showcases a maidservant, a person of questionable character with no means to get ahead other than by stealing from those who have, her better-off employers. Doña Virtudes, the maid's employer, provides the “upper-class” contrast, a finicky landlady, but she only arouses sympathy for the pilfering maids in her employ. Thus, the traditionally “lower-class” roles (which includes maids, petty thieves, soldiers, bonvivants, etc.) have become the main characters in La Gran Vía. And this cast of characters was to become the one that figures prominently in the texts of Argentine tango.
La Gran Vía was a huge international success, one which was immediately imitated. Within a year after its premiere in Buenos Aires an Argentine copy, De Paseo por Buenos Aires appeared on the stage. It was an adaption that contained many of the characters of the model but took place, as the title indicates, in Buenos Aires. Other revues of the kind were to follow. Showcasing lower-class characters was also adopted by playwrights of the Argentine theater emerging in the 1890s . (Before this decade, the theater of Buenos Aires was dominated by foreign theater companies.) Sainetes, short plays with plots playing in Buenos Aires or the Argentinian countryside, were soon to compete with serious theatrical works. A favored location of urban plots was the conventillo, the tenement housing of the lower classes and immigrants, and tango was stylized as the music and dance of its inhabitants.
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Cover of a piano score of La Gran Vía. The music in the revue is based on popular dances. They include a waltz, polka, schottische, and mazurka, thus, dances that were also played at the carnival dances at the Buenos Aires Opera.
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(Recordings of El Tango de la Menegilda are available on YouTube.)
3. Justicia criolla
It did not take long for the association of the lower-class population of the conventillo and tango to become commonplace. A key work in this respect was Ezequiel Soria's zarzuela Justicia criolla which was staged with great success in 1897. Taking place in a conventillo, the plot includes a festivity at which the inhabitants dance a tango. Tango is not the only dance requested (they also ask for dances like waltz and quadrille that we know were popular from the list of carnival dances at the opera), but it is in this play referred to as an indigenous dance. Thus it has lost its association with Cuba.
First man A waltz.
Some No, no, tangos.
Others Quadrilles!
Benito Gentlemen, a bit of peace! They will all be danced. As good criollos, I suggest we open the session with a tango, and if the majority is in the affirmative, the guitarists may begin to strum the strings of their guitars.
All The tango, the tango!
Benito How quickly have I arranged that! I have a good hand for majorities. (They play and dance the tango. ...)
Benito, the main character of the play, is a black porter at the House of Congress. As a side story to the plot, he is in love with Juana, whom he had met dancing a schottische. While there has always been a relationship between tango and dancing, in Justicia criolla a more precise connection to a specific way of dancing is established. Argentine tango was danced with corte y quebrada (with “cut” and “break”). Other dances, like the waltz, were danced “sin corte”. References to particular dance moves like the quebrada (“broken” or “fractured”) had appeared in the literature earlier in the century but were not specifically linked to a tango dance. Vague as these references are, they seem to describe a sort of dip by the woman that was considered scandalous since it “broke” the conventional upright body posture. The explicit association of tango, corte, and quebrada may have been made for the first time in Justicia criolla.
In a dialog with José, a Spanish immigrant and porter at the Courts, Benito describes his conquest of Juana at a carnival dance:
...
then, during a tango, hey, I went ahead
and conquered her with a pure corte.
Later in the play, Benito describes his embrace of Juana during a tango. It is danced in close position, the dancers are leaning against each other, and it includes a quebrada.
Guitarist And this Juanita, how is she?
Benito Like this, hey! (he closes his fist) The finest!... When I am dancing a tango with her (he acts a pantomime of the dance) ,
I plant her firmly against the hip and I let myself go
to the rhythm of the music. And I sink into her
black eyes and she inclines her head against my chest,
and doing a turn comes a little quebrada...
Oh, brother, it disappears … every ill-humor just disappears.
Guitarist I'd like to meet this Juana.
The image of tango established in Justicia criolla differs distinctly from those in Spanish zarzuelas. Here it is only incidental (though perhaps not insignificant) that Benito is black. Tango has become the dance of the conventillo, that is, the lower classes of Argentinian society.
In the first staging of Justicia criolla, Benito was played by a Spanish actor, Enrique Gil, one of the most celebrated stage artists in Buenos Aires. The guitarist was played by the then twenty-one-year-old Arturo de Nava, who frequently appeared on stage as a tango dancer and went on to become a well-known singer (payador) of Argentine and Uruguayan folk music.
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Arturo de Nava (dark jacket) as a tango dancer
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4. The Inception of Argentine Tango
The work and the artistic development of these musicians (and, as a matter of fact, of all Argentinian and Uruguayan tango composers) has been very poorly documented and it is at this point impossible to establish a chronology of their compositions. It is clear, however, that when the first pieces by these composers appeared in print, they evinced characteristics that differed decisively from the older habanera-like tangos.
There are two significant differences: First, most early Argentinian tangos were conceived as instrumental music which resulted in a different musical form. Whereas the predominantly vocal habanera-like pieces were composed as two-part pieces (AB) that reflected the verse/refrain structure of the text, instrumental Argentine tangos used a three-part rondo form (ABC). Compositions with three sections of 16 measures each (subdivided into two phrases of equal length) became the standard format for instrumental tangos.
Second, cross-rhythms created through the habanera rhythms and triplets in the melody disappeared. Instead, the síncopa became the dominant and conspicuous rhythmical figure of Argentine tango. In some pieces this rhythm is so dominant that they seem to be composed “around” the síncopa. Furthermore, as a result of being performed by instruments rather than singers, the music took on a stronger rhythmical character, with shorter, sometimes strongly accentuated motives and dynamic contrasts that leave an impression of mischievous exaggeration.
To be sure, the influence of the habanera continued to be discernible for some time. The habanera rhythm was yet the prevailing rhythmic figure in the bass accompaniment. Little ornamentations in the melody echoed the upper mordents that abounded in zarzuela tangos. Contrasts in parallel major and minor keys used to set off different sections of a piece remained a common device throughout the tango literature.
In a previous series of articles, we have analyzed in detail a few early instrumental tangos from the period under consideration. We shall therefore refrain from repeating the process here and refer the reader to two compositions, Ángel Villoldo's El Porteñito and Arturo De Bassi's El Incendio that can be called exemplary in many ways.
Ángel Villoldo: El Porteñito, Quinteto Pirincho
Arturo De Bassi: El Incendio, Roberto Firpo
Judging from the sources available and accessible today, it surprises that Argentine tango emerged suddenly within a short period of time and that it was already well-defined at its appearance, showing few signs of development. Apart from influences of the habanera and zarzuela, the basic form and characteristics of Argentine tango appear to have been understood and shared by composers from the outset.
One explanation for this circumstance is that the fundamental musical form of Argentine tango was not new at all. The three-part rondo form (ABC) is one of the most common patterns in Western music, in particular, in dance and dance-like genres. The sudden appearance of a distinct Argentine tango, whose composers resort to the same musical forms and tonal language, is an indication that this music was cultivated by a group of professional musicians who had been educated in the tradition of Western music. Thus, what was new about Argentine tango was not the musical form but the musical style. This new style manifested itself in rhythmic and melodic qualities (thesíncopa, for instance) and, as the music style developed, in the formation of specialized ensembles (the orquesta típica) and a particular performance style.
5. La Morocha
“For me, the origin of tango is the habanera. In its first era, it had the rhythm of the habanera. Now it has changed, but that was its origin. One will realize this by taking a look at La Morocha.”
Arturo De Bassi, 1937
Enrique Saborido's La Morocha (1905) is one of the best known early tangos. It has an emblematic status of early tangos due to its almost mandatory appearance in Argentine films with plots playing at the turn of the 20th century. Saborido's fame was not only limited to his compositions. Besides being a pianist, he was a renowned tango dancer and for some time maintained a dance school in Buenos Aires. In 1911, he was invited to Paris where he taught tango until the outbreak of WWI.
Saborido revealed the genesis of La Morocha in a 1928 interview. As the story goes, he was very fond of a beautiful brunette (morocha) dancer, Lola Candales. His friends challenged him one night to write a tango that she could perform successfully. After returning home in the early morning hours, Saborido sat down at the piano and composed the tango within 1-1/2 hours. Then he went to see Ángel Villoldo and asked him to write a text for the song. Within a few hours, the piece was ready to be rehearsed, and Lola Candales performed it the following night to the great applause of Saborido's friends.
The habanera rhythm predominates as an accompaniment figure throughout the entire piece. The melody is quite simple. In the first part, it consists of almost only one motif that is repeatedly altered depending on the harmonic context.
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La Morocha, section A, antecedent phrase. Red brackets indicate the basic melodic motif.
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The same holds true for the second part, which also shows one repeating motif that is altered depending on the harmonic context. Interestingly, this motif consists of triplets and creates cross-rhythms against the habanera-rhythm in the accompaniment.
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La Morocha, section B, antecedent phrase. Red brackets indicate the basic melodic motif that creates cross-rhythms.
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The musical structure of Saborido's tango criollo appears to contradict all the formal elements of Argentine tango listed above. Rather than a tango, La Morocha shows all the marks of a habanera: the habanera rhythm in the accompaniment, cross-rhythms in the melody, a two-part formal division, and tonal differentiation of the two parts through parallel major and minor keys.
The analyst is presented with a dilemma: the author referred to the piece as a tango, but the musical evidence suggests that it is a habanera. Has one of the emblematic Argentine tangos, La Morocha, been modeled after a Spanish habanera like Iradier's La Paloma?
Composers are neither analysts nor librarians of their music, and it is safe to assume that the successful dissemination of their works was more important to them than a correct classification. The categorization of La Morocha as a tango can perhaps be seen as an indication of the rising popularity of tango and the decline of the habanera. All the same, a more critical look at Saborido's interview reveals points in the story which suggest that the circumstances under which La Morocha was written were not quite as portayed by the composer.
Saborido's suggestion that he wrote the piece for a dancer—not a singer—must seem odd but is not unthinkable. (Even Fred Astaire tried to establish himself as a singer at the beginning of his career.) More problematic is the type of text that Villoldo wrote for La Morocha: it takes place in the countryside and the persons appearing in it are “la morocha”, and the rural population of gauchos, pamperos, and an estate owner on horseback. This is not the cast of characters for a tango, but rather for a habanera which, as we have noted at the beginning of this article, was understood as a country dance.
The subject matter of texts that Villoldo wrote for his own tangos criollos are, by contrast, quite different. They all play in an urban setting and feature characters that one would expect in a conventillo rather than the pampa. Typically, the actors of the texts are also avid tango dancers. It is, therefore, difficult to understand why Villoldo would have placed the action into the pampa, if he had been asked to write a text for tango to be sung by a dancer in a bar in Buenos Aires.
In 1906, when La Morocha was printed, as well as in 1928, when Saborido gave his interview, tango enjoyed great popularity in Buenos Aires. The habanera, by contrast, had past its apogee. It was still danced in 1905 but could no longer generate the excitement that tango did. And in 1928, the habanera was a dance of the past. Musicians have always been pragmatic: the response of the audience is the yardstick by which success is measured. Whatever the reasons for the (misleading) categorization of La Morocha may be, the song as a habanera may never have reached the success and reputation it gained as a tango criollo.
Example 9: Libertad Lamarque performing La Morocha (1938). Note that the triplets that create cross-rhythms in the original score are played here as síncopas. This clearly audible in the orchestra interlude during the dance performance.
Libertad Lamarque performing La Morocha (1938). Note that the triplets that create cross-rhythms in the original score are played here as síncopas. This clearly audible in the orchestra interlude during the dance performance.
6. Conclusion
Historical assessments of Argentine tango have traditionally placed its descendance from the habanera into an undefined, distant past and the countryside removed from Buenos Aires. Our investigation has drawn a different picture: throughout the second half of the 19th century, the habanera was known and appreciated in the Argentinian capital, just as it was in Paris and Madrid. Contrary to its popular image as a country dance, it was a social dance performed in the best circles of society.
The theater stage played a crucial role in the development of Argentine tango. The social environment of tango corresponds to the one taking a central place in the sainetes of the emerging Argentine and Uruguayan theater. The lower-class inhabitants of the conventillo are prominent characters in these plays, and tango is presented as the typical dance of the conventillo. Thus, the image of tango shifted from being a dance of black people to the emblematic dance of the lower-class population of Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
The appearance of Argentine tango coincides with the growing popularity of sainetes. Argentine tango quickly showed its own stylistic traits, but there existed no conflict of genre between the new “native” tango and old “imported” habanera. Saborido's La Morocha became a very successful tango criollo in spite of its stylistic dependency on the „archaic“ habanera.
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