Astor Piazzolla: Google honors Argentine tango composer on his 100th birthday

Happy Birthday Astor Piazzolla!

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Google today dedicates a beautiful doodle to Astor Piazzolla on his 100th birthday. Astor Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger. He revolutionized traditional tango to create a hybrid genre known as “nuevo tango.”

Astor Piazzolla was born on March 11, 1921 in Mar del Plata, Argentina and moved with his family to New York City at a young age. His family further moved to Little Italy in lower Manhattan. In 1932 Piazzolla composed his first tango, "La Catinga".

In 1934, Astor Piazzolla met Carlos Gardel, one of the most important figures in the history of tango, and played a cameo role as a paper boy in his movie El día que me quieras. Carlos Gardel invited him to join him on his tour. His father didn’t allow him to join them but that proved to be fortunate for him as Carlos Gardel and entire orchestra perished in a plane crash.

In 1937, Astor Piazzolla returned to Argentina where traditional tango still reigned supreme. Once home, he actually gave up tango to study classical music and become a modernist classical composer.

In 1946 Astor Piazzolla formed his Orquesta Típica, which, although having a similar formation to other tango orchestras of the day, gave him his first opportunity to experiment with his own approach to the orchestration and musical content of tango. That same year he composed El Desbande, which he considered to be his first formal tango, and then began to compose musical scores for films, starting with Con los mismos colores in 1949 and Bólidos de acero in 1950, both films directed by Carlos Torres Ríos.

Having disbanded his first orchestra in 1950, Astor Piazzolla almost abandoned tango altogether as he continued to study Bartok and Stravinsky and orchestra direction with Hermann Scherchen. He spent a lot of time listening to jazz and searching for a musical style of his own beyond the realms of tango. He decided to drop the bandoneon and to dedicate himself to writing and to studying music. Between 1950 and 1954 he composed a series of works that began to develop his unique style: Para lucirse, Tanguango, Prepárense, Contrabajeando, Triunfal and Lo que vendrá.

Astor Piazzolla did several things during his lifetime. He had set up his Electronic Octet in 1975. It was an octet made up of bandoneon, electric piano and/or acoustic piano, organ, guitar, electric bass, drums, synthesizer and violin, which was later replaced by a flute or saxophone. In December 1976, Astor Piazzolla played at a concert at the Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires, where he presented his work, “500 motivaciones”, written especially for the Conjunto Electronico, and in 1977 he played another memorable concert at the Olympia in Paris, with a new formation of the Conjunto Electronico.

Throughout his life, it’s estimated that Piazzolla wrote approximately 3,000 original compositions and recorded another 500. In honor of his 100th birthday, the Astor Piazzolla Foundation recently announced the Piazzolla Music competition for soloists and ensembles alike.

Astor Piazzolla died on July 4, 1992 at the age of 71. Google today respects the great Argentine composer on his 100th birthday.