Fresedo, qu'avez-vous fait de mon tango?

Osvaldo Fresedo

(Deutsche Version)

Those who have taken a closer look at classical music will remember the sonata form. It is a compositional model that is characteristic and typical of the music of the “classical” period. At closer examination, however, one cannot escape the impression, however, that while composers—especially the imaginative ones—made extensive use of the model, they nevertheless wanted to show again and again that there were other ways of composing and, thus, abated the model. It is precisely this point that makes their music interesting, that is: an expectation is created but it remains unfulfilled and is replaced by something unexpected and surprising.

What makes a tango a tango? In order not to get lost in an abyss of countless possibilities, let us render the question more precisely: What characterizes a “classical” Argentinian tango? The question cannot be adequately answered by referring to musical form, since tango is based on simple song forms that are used “universally” by other musical genres as well. Neither does the orchestration, the orquesta típica, provide a better answer since the orchestration is not more than a decoration of the music. Orquestas típicas (see Rodríguez, Carabelli, Canaro, for example) readily performed pieces of other genres that did not thereby turn into tangos.

The subject being still too extensive, let us limit our investigation, therefore, to two aspects that could be called characteristic, since one will find them in almost all tangos. The first one is a rhythmical figure, the síncopa; the second is a stylistically formative principle in which formally related sections of a piece are set off against each other.

The síncopa

Syncopation is a rhythmical procedure in which one or more notes, which normally appear on accented parts of a measure, are played on unaccented ones and help over to a following accented part of the measure. Syncopation can extend over more than one measure but in tango, a characteristic short figure—the síncopa—can be heard in almost every piece. (For this reason, we use the Spanish term síncopa in order to refer to this special context in tango.)

Here is an example. In the customary 2/4 time signature of tango, a typical síncopa could be notated as follows:

The arrows above the stave indicate the accented parts of the measures. It follows from this, that the outer notes fall on accented parts of a measure, however, while the inner ones fall on unaccented parts. Musically, it sounds as follows:

During the first three decades of the 20^th century, the composers of the guardia vieja employed the síncopa abundantly and sometimes constructed entire melodies out of this figure. The first melodic theme of Roberto Firpo's tango La Bordadora, in which the síncopa appears five times, may serve as an example.

La Bordadora (Roberto Firpo): A simplified rhythmical representation of the first melodic theme. The square brackets below the stave indicate the síncopas.

Musical Contrast as a Stylistically Formative Principle

The structural composition of a tango remains within the framework of simple musical forms. Normally, it consists of three melodies of 16 measures that are repeated and varied in one form or another. The musical interest of a piece lies largely in the implementation of the repetitions. The orchestras of the heyday of tango understood to invigorate the simple musical forms through variations in execution and orchestrations to such a degree that the pieces—in spite of their limited material—never appeared boring. Variety and contrast are a stylistically formative principle: If a melody or part thereof is played at first one way, then the continuation or repetition will be rendered in a different manner.

Variety and contrast can be expressed in a great number of ways: in the orchestration (violins are set against the bandoneons or the piano), the sound register (a melody appears in a high voice, than in a low one), the articulation or phrasing of a melody, etc. The alternating rendition of a melody as long or short note values is—like the síncopa—a typical component of tango.

(Executed by the violins, “long note values” means that the bow remains on the string and is pulled through over the whole length of the note. With “short note values”, the bow does not remain on the string, but only strikes it and is immediately taken off the string again. The difference between the two ways of playing is a different quality of sound.)

Let us look at Aromas, a tango by Osvaldo Fresedo, as an example. (We are referring here to Fresedo's recording of 1939 with the singer Roberto Ray.) The piece consists of three melodies of 16 measures and their repetitions. Each melody is made up of two eight-measure phrases that as opening and closing subsections define the melody as a unit. In order to differentiate the melodies and their phrase parts, we shall call them 1 A and B, 2 A and B, and 3 A and B, respectively.

Theme 1, part A, is played throughout with long note values, that is, “on the string”.

Fresedo Aromas, 1 A

Theme 1, part B, shows a mirror symmetry between the eight-measure phrases. The first phrase starts out with short “hammered” notes and ends with long ones played “on the string”. The second phrase begins with long note values “on the string” and ends with short ones.

Fresedo Aromas, 1 B

In theme 2, part A, the first phrase starts off with short “hammered” notes and ends with long ones “on the string”. The second phrase repeats the arrangement of the first.

Fresedo Aromas, 2 A

The first phrase of theme 2, part B, is played entirely in long note values, the second phrase entirely with short ones.

Fresedo Aromas, 2 B

Theme 3, parts A and B, show a freer alternation of sections with long and short note values. Nevertheless, they have been distributed in such a way that they reflect the internal structure of the theme.

Fresedo Aromas, 3 A

Fresedo Aromas, 3 B

As a diagram, the phrases executed as series of long and short note values could be presented as follows:

Fresedo Aromas, schematic view of the orchestration

Two conclusions can be drawn from the diagram above. First, the orchestration follows the internal structure of the melody, that is, the change between notes played “on the string” or “hammered” occurs at intersections of melodic units (consisting of two, four, eight, or sixteen measures). The structure, the form, of the musical piece is thus made audible. Second, the distribution within the eight-measure phrases reveals an architectural symmetry, especially in the first two phrases. This indicates planning and suggests that the arranger wanted to exploit the contrast of “long” and “short” note values as a means of musical expression.

Fresedo's Sueño azul

The above example for stylistically formative elements in tango have been chosen because they demonstrate the points under discussion better than other pieces. One should not expect every piece to follow the same model, however. The music would be rendered uninteresting as it would lack an element of surprise. With a little practice the listener of tango will soon pick out the síncopa in every tango and recognize contrasting orchestrations in the repetitions of melodies even if they are not expressed differently as long and short note values.

Nevertheless, one can find again and again pieces that refuse categorization. Musicians, as creatively thinking artists, often seem to prefer disarray over systematic planning. Fresedo's Sueño azul is a piece that appears to lack completely what has been described above. It was recorded two years before Aromas. The full, mellow sound of the strings, the harp, and the voice of Roberto Ray readily suggest that they belong to the same style period. The first impression of the sound quality admits no doubt that the orchestra of Sueño azul is the same one that is performing in the recording of Aromas.

Yet, Sueño azul differs from Aromas in two important points. In the former the orchestration remains the same all throughout the piece: the violins play the melodies continuously “on the string”. Even when they accompany the singer and recede into the background while playing a counter melody to the voice, the articulation remains soft and joined. The contrast between long note values “on the string” and short, “hammered” notes is completely absent. Not even a síncopa can be discerned. The only moment that recalls a síncopa comes at the end of the first phrase in the eighth measure. It is, however, not a síncopa but a triplet.

Is that still tango? By name it is, but it is not Argentinian! The music of Sueño azul was composed by an Hungarian musician, Tibor Barciz, to a French text. The original title was Vous, qu'avez-vous fait de mon amour?. The piece premiered 1933 in Paris in a theater revue by Henri Varna, Vive Paris!. It was a successful composition that was repeatedly recorded by various orchestras for years to come (see versions by René Juyn and the Grand Orchestre Perfectaphone [1933], Tino Rossi and the Orchestre M. Pierre Chagnon [1934] and Jean Lumière [1934] ).

With an Argentinian tango, Vous, qu'avez-vous fait de mon amour? has little in common. It is a strophic song with an underlaid habanera rhythm and a síncopa at the end of the phrase in the eighth measure.

Vous, qu'avez-vous fait de mon amour?, Jean Lumière

It is well known that the habanera rhythm as a repeated bass pattern is the basis of one of the three tango dances, the milonga. Not only that, it also appears occasionally in (Argentinian) tangos. In fact, it was quite common ten or twenty years before the composition of Vous, qu'avez-vous fait de mon amour?. Such tangos were usually labeled “tango milonga” (see Roberto Firpo's El amenecer, Francisco Canaro's Charamusca, or José Padula's Nueve de Julio, for example). From the 1930s on, however, the habanera rhythm in these pieces was hardly played anymore in these pieces. That is, the notated dotted rhythm was “normalized” to straight, “un-dotted” notes in the arrangements. (For example, listen to di Sarli's version of El amenecer.) From an Argentinian perspective of the 1930s, the use of the habanera rhythm in Vous, qu'avez-vous fait de mon amour? seems a bit old-fashioned.

Furthermore, in the Argentinian “tango milonga”, the habanera rhythm was used as a means of stylistic contrast from one section to another, corresponding to the alternating sections of long and short note values discussed above. In the French recordings of Vous, qu'avez-vous fait de mon amour?, however, the habanera rhythm is used continuously throughout the piece, that is, without differentiation from section to section. Such an application of a rhythmical patter it not typical of Argentinian tango, but rather of European dance music. The “Argentinian” stylistic elements in the French recordings are, then, no more than a template.

When Vous, qu'avez-vous fait de mon amour? was published with a Spanish text as Sueño azul in Argentina, the publisher did not simply call it a “tango”, but a “great Hungarian tango”. Since the piece had been very successful in Paris, it does not as a surprise that an Argentinian musician like Fresedo took it into his repertoire. Yet, one wonders why he avoided any musical reference to tango—which, after all, was his métier—and did not arrange it in a more “authentic” (Argentinian) manner.

(© 2017 Wolfgang Freis)