Eclectic Analysis - “Adiós Nonino” by Ástor Piazzolla

Adam LeBow
The Performing Arts in Western Civilization
Spring 2009
Dr. MacFarlane


ECLECTIC ANALYSIS

“Adiós Nonino” by Ástor Piazzolla



CLICK HERE to listen to "Adiós Nonino"

Below is a link to images of the score for "Adiós Nonino"
-Bandoneon Score (2 pgs)
- Piano Score (2 pgs)
- Violin Score

http://img2.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=piazzollapiano1.jpg





HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Ástor Piazzolla (March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992) was an Argentinian tango composer and bandoneón player. He revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. An excellent bandoneon player, he regularly performed his own compositions with different ensembles. Piazzolla spent most of his childhood with his family in New York City, where he was exposed to both jazz and the music of J.S. Bach at an early age. While there, he acquired fluency in four languages: Spanish, English, French, and Italian. He began to play the bandoneon after his father, nostalgic for his homeland, spotted one in a New York pawnshop.

He returned to Argentina in 1937, where strictly traditional tango still reigned, and played in nightclubs with a series of groups including the orchestra of Anibal Troilo, then considered the top bandoneon player and bandleader in Buenos Aires. The pianist Arthur Rubinstein—then living in Buenos Aires—advised him to study with the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. During this period he was greatly influenced by Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, and others. In 1950 he composed the soundtrack to the film Bólidos de acero.

At Ginastera's urging, in 1953 Piazzolla entered his Buenos Aires Symphony in a composition contest, and won a grant from the French government to study in Paris with the legendary French composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. The insightful Boulanger turned his life around in a day, as Piazzolla related in his own words:

“When I met her, I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. She started to read them…after a long while, she said: ‘Here you are like Stravinsky, like Bartók, like Ravel, but you know what happens? I can't find Piazzolla in this.’ And she began to investigate my private life: what I did, what I did and did not play, if I was single, married, or living with someone, she was like an FBI agent! And I was very ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician. Finally I said, ‘I play in a nightclub.’ I didn't want to say cabaret. And she answered, ‘Nightclub, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn't it?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered…it wasn't easy to lie to her. She kept asking: ‘You say that you are not pianist. What instrument do you play, then?’ And I didn't want to tell her that I was a bandoneon player, because I thought, ‘Then she will throw me from the fourth floor.’ Finally, I confessed and she asked me to play some bars of a tango of my own. She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand and told me: ‘You idiot, that's Piazzolla!’ And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds.”

Upon introducing his new approach to the tango (nuevo tango), he became a controversial figure among Argentines both musically and politically. The Argentine saying "in Argentina everything may change — except the tango" suggests some of the resistance he found in his native land. However, his music gained acceptance in Europe and North America, and his reworking of the tango was embraced by some liberal segments of Argentine society, who were pushing for political changes in parallel to his musical revolution.


SYNTAX

“Adiós Nonino” was composed (it was essentially a modified version of a theme Piazzolla had previously written) in 1959 following the sudden death of Piazzolla’s father, whose grandchildren playfully called him nonino.

The piece is symbolic because it established the standard structural pattern Piazzolla would use in the majority of his compositions: ABABC, usually fast-slow-fast-slow-coda. It is most often performed by a quintet comprised of a bandoneon, violin, piano, electric guitar and double bass; this was Piazzolla’s preferred setup on two extended occasions during his career.

It is written in D minor, which is considered by some to be the “saddest” key. The time signature is 4/8. The A section contains primarily eighth and sixteenth notes paired with accented rhythms, staccato markings and relatively loud dynamics.

Ironically, the very sad B section, appropriately labeled tristement in my score, is in the relative F major. Most of it is labeled piano or pianissimo, with the exception of a few crescendos and climaxes. There are beautiful legato lines paired with long phrase markings and longer note durations – mostly eighth, quarter and half notes (both dotted and regular).

There are seventh chords, some b7 chords and occasional extended ninth harmonies, indicative of his jazz influence, which would later be more apparent in his nuevo tango music. Chromatic motion also appears in the melody, but more so in the inner lines. Overall Piazzolla basically stays within the boundaries of D minor and F major and uses standard tonal harmony.

SOUND-IN-TIME (PHENOMENOLOGY)

0:01-0:16 – The bandoneon enters with the main theme followed by the piano and the low strings – a bit of a question and answer game with very decisive rhythmic figures. This happens four times.
0:17-0:35 – The question and answer pattern continues with variation on the opening music. The bandoneon plays continuously throughout.
0:35-0:41 – The other instruments slowly drop out around the bandoneon
0:41-0:47 – The violin jumps in over the bandoneon’s fade out and prepares the audience for the theme of the B section with a partial scale ascent.
0:47-1:42 – Violin carries the B theme over the reserved yet present accompaniment being played by the rest of the ensemble. The accompaniment is nothing like that of the A section.
1:45 – Same ascent to the B theme but transposed higher; same melody and accompaniment style and inner lines continue
2:10-2:22 – The piano, violin and bandoneon break free of the B section and begin a rhythmic descent
2:23 – The repeat of the A section begins; the opening question and answer game resumes with faster rhythmic variations
2:37-2:50 – Similar to 0:17-0:35 but with unsettling sonorities and an unclear tonal direction
2:51-3:05 – A seemingly out of place whirlwind of dissonant sound comprising of all the instruments
3:30-4:25 – Return to the B section, but with the bandoneon taking the melody and piano and low strings providing a less present accompaniment
4:29-5:05 (end) – Re-energized entrance of all the instruments, with the piano and bandoneon at the forefront, indicating the start of the coda; intertwining melismatic lines in the piano and bandoneon with sustained accompaniment in the other instruments; abrupt ending and fade out with just the bandoneon

REFERENTIAL MEANING / VIRTUAL FEELING

I get a sense of turmoil right away in the A section. The bouncing, choppiness of the bandoneon indicates that the person is struggling with the hustle and bustle of daily life as the other instruments, representing everyone and everything else in life, swirl around him.

In “the long melodic B section” the sustained notes indicate that a deep, choked and anguished lament underlies. The weeping and mourning of “Nonino’s” death and the pain of a son, at such a distance, is expressed in this passage. It is the soul of the piece – it is actually Piazzolla’s soul speaking through the music. A quote regarding the infamous B section: “The artist, without tears, cried that night, but through his art. And left for the history of Argentine music, one of his most beautiful and everlasting pages.”

The repeat of the A section depicts just how tormented this person really is. He is desperately looking for an escape tunnel but cannot find one. Life is really closing in on him, as is shown by the piano and low strings playing in unison with the bandoneon’s melody and agitated rhythm. In what seems to be a somewhat improvised segment, the bandoneon’s melody clashes with the extremely dissonant accompaniment being played by the rest of the ensemble; for me it conjures up thoughts like: pain, the devil, hell and for some reason it reminds me of the haunting tritone chords in the opening violin part of “Danse Macabre” by Saint-Saëns.

The music in coda (or section C) encompasses all the feelings in the previous sections, with the addition of making peace with the situation and having hope for the future. The struggles from the other sections have unsurprisingly crept into the coda, but the increasingly major sonorities in the melody and accompaniment are the determination to overcome every obstacle. The abrupt ending indicates that all the frustration, anger, and torment, etc. was released and there is currently nothing else that can be done, though this was a significant step in itself.


ONTO-HISTORICAL WORLD

Just before the piece was composed, Piazzolla on a tour of Central and South America. He arrived in New York, having returned from the tour at a time of deep sadness and financial difficulties, due to his trip, which had resulted in failure. To top it all off, he then received news of the sudden death of his father, Vicente Piazzolla, which was the inspiration for the piece.

An Argentinian saying: “In Argentina, everything may change – except the tango.” Indeed his tour resulted in failure because it was his intent to impose a new style of jazz-tango on the public, a genre that would later come to be known as Nuevo Tango. This new style of music gained popularity in Europe and North America but met resistance in Argentina. However, his music was embraced by some liberals in the Argentine society, who were pushing for political changes in parallel to his musical revolution.

OPEN LISTENING

Things I hear:

-melancholy
-struggle
-hysteria
-crying
-reminiscence
-a “deep breath” every time there is an abrupt tempo change
- probably breaking the rules a bit with this one, but I really get a sense that Piazzolla assigned each specific obstacle in his life at the time (not just his father’s death) to a musical idea in the piece

PERFORMANCE GUIDE

I highly doubt I’ll ever perform this piece – I play the piano but consider myself a singer and not an instrumentalist – but studying this piece I definitely came up with some musical and dramatic ideas that would likely be useful to a performer.

The music is the character and the emotion. It is extremely informative on its own. You don’t have to look angry or go wild physically to bring the intensity to life. Think about interpreting the music from one section to another and as a whole and what/how/why the specific changes occur in the repeats. Imagine that every aspect of your life is chaotic; you don’t necessarily have to recall a situation regarding death – if you’ve had bad experiences and felt like you were on an emotional roller coaster then you are well aware of the state of mind.

If you didn’t actually have someone to talk to about your problems and could only speak through the melody, how would you speak the melody? You have the potential to direct the movie that is five minutes in this person’s life.

META-CRITIQUE

First and foremost I have to echo a sentiment that I think is shared by almost everyone in the class: it gets very difficult to delineate between the sections. The potential for one section to bleed into another seems ever-present and it certainly happened to me. Maybe it’s just me but in the end it doesn’t bother me very much. Maybe they are meant to stretch into other sections. My historical context is probably too biographical but I think it is both important and relevant because it shows what helped to shape Piazzolla as a composer. One thing that probably wasn’t so great about how I approached this process was the fact that I didn’t focus on one particular section until it was completed. I bounced around as I found new information and ideas, which probably contributed to the “bleeding over sections” and unfortunately might have caused me to forget some things I might have included in my analysis. I felt that my strongest ideas were in the “Referential Meaning / Virtual Feeling” sections and I hope that I was able to articulate them correctly and well.