Biography

Last week concluded our four-month journey of the “Big Four” of the Época de Oro: D’Arienzo, Di Sarli, Troilo, and Pugliese. Heyni eloquently shared how the legacy of Pugliese echoes through the modern orchestras of today. But who were the artists whose legacies shaped the giants of the Época de Oro? Many of those names are no longer played at our Milongas nowadays. But one name never vanished.

Enter Francisco Canaro.

Canaro was nicknamed “Pirincho” at birth because of a tuft of hair the midwife thought resembled the crest of the pirincho bird. Growing up in extreme poverty, Pirincho turned a street-honed violin and an inexhaustible work ethic into the most prolific and financially successful careers in all of tango. Canaro recorded more tangos than any other orchestra and amassed a huge international public following across cabarets, radio, studios, and film. At the same time, his tumultuous love life resembled, and at times exceeded, the most dramatic of tango songs.

Canaro innovated many aspects we now take for granted as the standard in tango. He professionalized the singer-with-orchestra format, first conceiving of the idea of the tango estrillista—a singer who sings the estribillo (bridge) of the song—and later helping it evolve towards the full ‘cantor de orquesta’ as microphones improved. Canaro was also a pioneer in introducing the contrabass into the orquestra típica, and also was instrumental in establishing the Argentine Society of Composers and Songwriters (SADIC) 1935.

Listen for his signature. Strings sing the tune with a steady, heavy marcación that keeps the floor calm. Bandoneones reply in tidy phrases. Choruses arrive right on time. This is readable tango that still works in a crowded salón.

Canaro En Paris – 1927

Canaro’s orchestra was quite the hit in Paris. Back in Buenos Aires, guitarist Juan Caldarella saw the headline “Canaro … en París” in Crítica about Canaro’s success abroad and scribbled the words onto the manuscript of a tango he was finishing with bandoneonist Alejandro Scarpino.

Canaro’s international success could not have been better timed. In addition to the general economic prosperity of the roaring 20s, the electrical microphone and amplifier technology developed in the early 1920’s at Bell Labs finally made its way to Argentina in 1926. On March 1st, Rosita Quiroga’s La Musa Mistonga was the tango recorded using the electrical amplification, which provides far superior fidelity than acoustic recordings. After a brief period of the record companies delaying promotion of the new technology to clear old inventory, by 1927 they began fully promoting the superior sound.

Fresh from his successful European tour, Canaro headed straight to the recording studio, recording more than 1,500 songs from 1927 to the end of 1930! On May 1927 in Buenos Aires, he recorded Caldarella and Scarpino’s “Canaro en París” as part of Odeon’s new OT series, created to export Argentine tango after Canaro’s success abroad. The track was a hit with listeners, and became a tango staple, with later orchestras turning “Canaro en París” into a showcase for virtuoso solos. Aniceto Rossi’s bass solo with Osvaldo Pugliese’s orchestra in the 1940s, for example, became legendary, and both Juan D’Arienzo (1940) and Héctor Varela (1960s) recorded lively versions.

“Canaro en París” from May 1927: 

La Morocha – 1929

*Note that cimarrón is lunfardo, Argentine slang,  for "mate without sugar", "bitter mate"

Poema – 1935

Should we interpret a work of art by what is presented, or should we consider a broader context? Considering that which is omitted as well as included? Should we consider the culture, context, and creator as part of understanding the creation?

You’ve all heard this week’s song. Composed by Mario Melfi and written by Eduardo Bianco, ‘Poema’ speaks of the bittersweet feeling from an ended relationship. Where nothing remains between the two lovers except the ache. The great tenor of Roberto Maida, who joined Canaro in November 1934 after Ernesto Famá’s 1933–34 run, makes Canaro’s June 1935 recording of Poema one of the most popular songs in the milonga.

Maida sings:

Given Poema’s popularity, you may have heard these lyrics a little too often. But what you have not heard is its first stanza, omitted in Canaro’s version:

The pain and sad farewell Maida sings about in the context of the fleeting hours of bliss and loving that is left unsung. The bliss of the first stanza gives meaning to the pain of the second.

And what about the man who wrote these lyrics? Knowing the backstory of the lyricist Bianco put his lyrics in a darker frame. “todo mi intenso mal” can be heard in the context that, in 1924, Bianco shot and killed his piano player for having an affair with his wife (his connections to the judge allowed him to get an acquittal in return for leaving the country). The historical moment casts an additional shadow, with Bianco having nazi sympathies, dedicating a piece to Mussolini, and working rooms that later stained the era.

But maybe more important than the history and lyricist, or even the lyrics sung or omitted, is that we interpret a song in the context of now. In the context of each new night and each new embrace, we reinterpret how Canaro’s Poema calls us to move on the floor.

“Poema” from June 1935:

Adiós Pampa mía – 1945 / 1952

The name of this week’s song is often translated as “goodbye my countryside” or “farewell to my countryside”. In Spanish, however, pampa is much more than just “countryside”: it names the vast grasslands of Argentina and, in Argentine culture, often stands for the rural homeland itself.

In the context of today's song, the word carries a sense of attachment, memory, and nostalgia, so the farewell in the title is not only to a physical landscape but also to the home and way of life it represents.

Adiós Pampa mía was born in the theater. Francisco Canaro needed a number to send off a gaucho to Paris with for his show ‘El Tango en París’. While Canaro and lyricist Ivo Pelay were mounting a revue at Teatro Presidente Alvear, his piano player Mariano Mores came in with a melody he had written some years earlier. Pelay quickly wrote the lyrics and the number was ready in time for the August 11, 1945 debut.

Finding the voice was its own story. Juan D’Arienzo tipped Canaro off to a young singer named Tomás Guida, who came to an audition with Mores at Canaro’s office. He was hired, handed a stack of scores that included this new tango, and soon after he premiered it on stage.

In the show a character called Alberto Arenas was a cattle drover; Canaro took the name for his singer, and Guida became Alberto Arenas. His first record date was 24 August 1945 with “Adiós Pampa mía,” and over the next decade he made about 80 sides with Canaro.

The song fuses tango and folklore and tapped the mood of a society shifting from pampa to city. Within weeks they recorded it for Odeon, matrix 14871, and the record was on the street.

The song quickly caught fire, with Francisco Lomuto, Aníbal Troilo and Libertad Lamarque cutting their own versions before the year was out. In 1946, a film of the same title, starring Alberto Castillo, carried the song into cinemas.

A note for interpreting tangos—in this case the note being literal. The term ‘green note’, coined by tango pianist Cristian Asato, is when the rhythm section plays the 6th note of a scale. This note is common for the guitars of música criolla (Argentine folk music) and is reminiscent of the pampa. To hear the ‘green note’, simply listen to the third note of each bar in the introduction of Adiós Pampa mía. When you hear the ‘green note’ in a tango, as you can hear in many tangos if you listen closely, it is the composer paying homage and connecting back to tango’s roots in the pampa. 

We recommend that you look up and listen to the many different recordings of this beautiful tango. For today’s post, we’ve chosen Francisco Canaro’s 1951 re-recording, which—like the original 1945 version—is sung by Alberto Arenas.

"Adiós Pampa mía" from November 1951: