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.
Lush strings and a steady beat (marcación)
Singer up front with crisp diction and clear phrasing
Short violin links and tidy bandoneón replies
Studio polish shaped for radio, cinema, and the floor
In April 1925, Canaro’s orquesta típica—wearing full gaucho costumes by contract to cultivate the ‘exotic image’ of the Argentine performers—took the stage in front of the fashionable crowd at the Dancing Florida on Rue Clichy 20 in Paris. The lineup consisted of Francisco Canaro and Agesilao Ferrazzano on violins, Carlos Marcucci and Juan Canaro on bandoneons, Fioravanti Di Cicco on piano, Rafael Canaro on double bass, Romualdo Lomoro on drums and Teresita Asprella on vocals and guitar.
Argentine musicians were recording and performing in Paris as early as 1909, and by 1912–1913 the city was deep in tangomania, with thé-tango afternoons, society demonstrations, and a flurry of press attention. Moral pushback only sharpened the craze, and gramophone labels such as Odeon, Pathé, Columbia, and Parlophone spread the music across Europe. The First World War tempered the festivities, but by the time Canaro took the stage European tango fever was back in full swing.
Image from Tododango.com
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:
Some songs are written about how the artist imagines something may feel, but the most powerful songs tend to be ones written from lived experience. This may be why so many of the tangos we listen to today have a story behind them as dramatic as that in the lyrics.
“Prolific” is the word to describe Canaro’s recording career. The same holds for his romantic relationships. While on tour early in his career, Canaro began dating two women in the same town. He kept correspondence with each as the tour moved towns—that is, until he mixed up which letter went to which address. In 1925, he married Martha Gesaume, but by all accounts, marriage did little to dampen his womanizing. But what did stop him in his tracks was being introduced to Ada Falcón.
With her father passing early in life, Ada’s mother determined the path to financial stability was through performance. Ada, born August 17, 1905, began her singing career at the age of five, and by age 13 starred in her first film “El Festin de Los Caranchos”. Recording as a soloist with Osvaldo Fresedo’s orchestra at the age of 19, by 1926 Ms. Falcón was wealthy, famous, and dating the popular politician Carlos Washington Lencinas.
Then tragedy struck in the form of an assassin’s bullet striking Lencinas. Canaro and Falcón started a working relationship in 1929. Their first recording together, La Morocha, became an international hit. Listening to it, it is already apparent that Ada has unlocked a new facet of Canaro’s artistry. The syncopations and rhythmic structure of La Morocha are more complex than the relatively simple tracks Canaro had been making. Following La Morocha, Canaro embarks on his “Serie sinfonica” of more complex arranged works. Canaro and Falcón record an additional 200 songs together, several of which Canaro or Falcón author the lyrics.
Like the songs Contursi wrote for Grisel, the real-life infatuation, affair, and eventual heartbreak of Falcón and Canaro can be heard through their lyrics. The story moves from Yo no se Que me Han Hecho tus ojos (I Don’t Know What Your Eyes Have Done to Me), and to Sos buenos, vos También (you are also good) at the beginning of their relationship, to Nada Más (Nothing More), and “No Mientas” (Don’t lie) at the very end.
The final chapter in Ada Falcón’s story is more dramatic than even tango lyrics could capture. It may have been the exhaustion from being in the public spotlight since age 5, or the strain of a decade-long affair with a married man. Or a symptom of PTSD from the time Canaro’s wife pulled a gun on her in the studio and threatened her life if she did not leave Canaro alone. Or maybe she just got fed up with men after Canaro continued having affairs with other women—by some accounts with Ada’s sister, but by all accounts, with a choir girl in one of his musicals who he had two children with. Or it could be she had had enough after she walked in on her next partner in the arms of another woman. Whatever the cause, Ada Falcón sold her possessions, donated the money to charity, receded from public life, and eventually moved into a Franciscan convent in Cordoba to become a nun.
La Morocha (July, 1929):
Yo soy la morocha,
la más agraciada,
la más renombrada
de esta población.
Soy la que al paisano
muy de madrugada
muy de madrugada
brinda un cimarrón.
I am the brunette,
the most graceful,
the most renowned in this town.
I am the one who offers the countryman,
very early in the morning,
very early in the morning,
a cup of bitter mate.*
*Note that cimarrón is lunfardo, Argentine slang, for "mate without sugar", "bitter mate"
Coda
In 2003, directors Lorena Muñoz and Sergio Wolf produced the documentary Ada Falcón - Yo No Sé Qué Me Han Hecho Tus Ojo (I don't know what your eyes have done to me).
The documentary is touching and well done for those interested.
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:
Cuando las flores de tu rosal
vuelvan más bellas a florecer,
recordarás mi querer y has de saber
todo mi intenso mal.
De aquel poema embriagador
ya nada queda entre los dos.
Con mi triste adios sentirás la emoción
de mi dolor.
When the roses on your rosebush
bloom again, more beautifully,
you will remember my love, and you will surely come to know how deep my suffering was.
Of that intoxicating poem
nothing now remains between us two.
With my sad farewell you will feel the pang
of all my pain.
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:
Fue un ensueño de dulce amor,
horas de dicha y de querer.
Fue el poema de ayer,
que yo soñé de dorado color.
Vanas quimeras que el corazón
no logrará descifrar jamás.
¡Nido tan fugaz,
fue un sueño de amor,
de adoración!
It was a reverie of sweet love,
hours of bliss and of loving.
It was yesterday’s poem,
which I dreamed in a golden hue.
Vain chimeras that the heart
will never decipher.
O nest so fleeting,
it was a dream of love,
of adoration!
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:
Prilidiano Pueyrredón, Tormenta en la pampa (Storm in the Pampa), c. 1860
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:
¡Adiós pampa mía!...
Me voy... Me voy a tierras extrañas
adiós, caminos que he recorrido,
ríos, montes y cañadas,
tapera donde he nacido.
Si no volvemos a vernos,
tierra querida,
quiero que sepas
que al irme dejo la vida.
¡Adiós!...
Al dejarte, pampa mía,
ojos y alma se me llenan
con el verde de tus pastos
y el temblor de las estrellas...
Con el canto de tus vientos
y el sollozar de vihuelas
que me alegraron a veces,
y otras me hicieron llorar.
¡Me voy, pampa mía!...
¡Adiós!...
Farewell, my pampa!...
I'm leaving... I'm going to foreign lands
farewell, roads that I have traveled,
rivers, mountains and ravines,
abandoned homestead where I was born.
If we should never see each other again,
beloved land,
I want you to know that in leaving
I leave my life behind.
Farewell!...
On leaving you, my pampa,
my eyes and my soul are filled
with the green of your pastures
and the trembling of the stars...
With the song of your winds
and the sobbing of vihuelas
that at times cheered me,
and at other times made me cry.
I'm leaving, my pampa!...
Farewell!...