The son of Italian immigrants, Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992) was born in Argentina, in a small fishing port located 400 km south of the capital, Buenos Aires. Nothing seemed to suggest that he would become one of the most important composers of the 20 th century, the inventor of an unprecedented musical genre: the tango nuevo!
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Nadia Boulanger, a brilliant teacher
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Very early on, young Astor was introduced to tango, though it did not arouse the slightest enthusiasm in him. He played the bandoneon—an instrument akin to the concertina and accordion—in several dance orchestras. But neither the music he wrote nor that which he performed fulfilled him. In 1954, he finally obtained the scholarship that enabled him to study the art of the string quartet at the Fontainebleau Conservatory (Seine-et-Marne) with the brilliant teacher and pianist Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979). Piazzolla was a devoted lover and admirer of Johann Sebastian Bach, Igor Stravinsky, and Béla Bartók. What he composed then still did not satisfy him. Nadia Boulanger also reproached him for his lack of personality…
She had the brilliant idea of asking him what type of music he had practised in Argentina before coming to Paris. Piazzolla then told her about his past as a bandoneon player and performed one of his first compositions for her, the tango Triumfal. On hearing this youthful work, Nadia Boulanger perceived all her pupil’s creative vitality, as well as the frustration of a composer drawn both to the most sophisticated music and deeply steeped in traditional Argentine music. Her advice was sound: he had to reconcile the popular music he had always practised and mastered with the daring of contemporary musical language. This marked the beginning of an international career and a succession of original works that would captivate the greatest performers.
