Tango Argentino

Etymology of the word Tango

Among the many mysteries associated with tango, the first is that of its own name. There isn’t any definite theory about the birth of tango as music and even less about the origin of its name.

According to some interpretations, tango comes from tang, a word from one of the many languages spoken in Africa and which means to feel, to touch, to approach. It was also the name given by the Africans to their percussion instruments, although they pronounced it tangó. Also tangó were the dances organized by the black Africans who had arrived to the River Plate area. The Spanish version is more similar to the African version of tang, as it is derived from tangir, an old Spanish word similar to tañer (to toll), and from the Latin tangere, to touch.

History of the Argentine Tango (cultural origins)

The tango was born in the second half of the 19^th century in the cities of ports along the ‘Río de la Plata’, principally in Buenos Aires, Rosario (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay), within a social frame of  waves of immigration currents of great diversity which brought about a complete reconstruction of their society, especially so in Buenos Aires.

At the beginning, the tango was rejected by the higher classes and forbidden by the Catholic Church so that it started to develop in the barrios of the poorer outskirts, the arrabales, in seedy bars, cabarets and houses of ill repute, where the immigrants of the most varied origin mingled: blacks, gauchos, indians, poor porteños and Europeans (mostly Italians, Spaniards and Frenchmen). In the world of tango, the arrabal is like a muse, the place where one belongs and that one must not forget.

However, the tango did not stay confined to these places of dubious fame; it started to reflect the popular soul, the soul of the working people, the ones who fought day and night for their survival, and of the simple people who lived in the periphery of Buenos Aires. The tango dancer (man and woman) was above all else, ‘de barrrio’.

Even so, one cannot deny that tango lived its infancy and great part of its puberty in dancing venues of low category, in brothels and in peringundines: very modest dancing venues that were fundamental for the expansion of tango and also for the development of its choreography.. During this stage the tango developed a very esoteric code, el lunfardo, a language understood only by those living in the arrabal.

During the first two decades of the 20^th century the sons of the richer families in Buenos Aires took the tango that they had learnt in the brothels to Paris, thus opening a new era .With better musicians, the addition of the piano and the bandoneon, and better lyrics, the tango started to be listened to by the upper classes.

Among the most prestigious composers and interpreters of the tango from this time we could highlight Carlos Gardel as being the most memorable singer of tango in the twenties and thirties. His inseparable partner Alfredo Le Pera wrote many of the lyrics and Gardel himself composed many of the tunes. Gardel took the tango to Paris and to New York and Hollywood and was a great success in all those cities. Some of his most well known tangos are ‘El día que me quieras’,’Por una cabeza’, ‘La Cumparsita’, ‘El choclo’, ‘Caminito’, ‘Mi Buenos Aires Querido’, etc.

The 40s were a golden decade for the tango, which by then had already been accepted in the moneyed neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires and in the most luxurious night clubs; it had first class writers, singers and musicians – many of them descendants from Italian immigrants-  who formed part of what became known as the ‘nueva guardia del tango’. Also the national radio and cinema helped to take the tango to a golden age well into the 50s.

Among the musicians we can name Osvaldo Pugliese, Aníbal Troilo, Carlos di Sarli, Horacio Salgán and others, who also gave a considerable impulse to the recording industry in Argentina, while the lyrics were written by Enrique Santos Discépolo, Homero Manzi, Enrique Cadícamo, Cátulo Castillo, poets who created unforgettable pieces for the tango. The most well known singers were Julio Sosa, el Polaco Goyeneche, Angel Vargas y Edmundo Rivero.

During the 50s and 60s there started appearing different styles of tango. Musicians like Mriano Mores and Aníbal Troilo started to experiment with new sounds. But the undisputed leader of this renewal was Astor Piazolla; he introduced dissonant harmonies in the tango and thus produced a radical transformation of the genre.

Piazolla also made a decisive contribution to change in the instrumental compositon  of the tango by including electrical instruments (guitar, bass, keyboard), drums and the saxophone, which up to that time were completely alien to tango. This caused a heated controversy between the traditionalists and the reformists, generating a deep dislike towards his style among the traditionalists.

Piazolla’s most renowned composition was ‘Balada para un loco’, a song which won him not only the first prize in the ‘Festival de la Canción de Buenos Aires’ but also great popular acclaim, especially among the young. Other famous compositions are ‘Libertango’, ‘Milonga del Angel’, ‘La Muerte del Angel’ but especially ‘Adiós Nonino’ (composed after the death of his father).

Between the 70s and 80s, popular preferences started to look to other genres. However, the tango never died, it had to wait only for this transition phase to finish in order to reappear.

Nowadays the tango is enjoying an unprecedented revival: it has awakened the interest of the younger generations and there are new composers. In Buenos Aires there are innumerable academies of tango and milonga, where students from all over the world go to learn not only the dance but that particular feeling that one can only find in Buenos Aires, ‘la capital del tango’.