University of Texas Press

Instrumental Rubato and Phrase Structure in Astor Piazzolla's MusicAuthor(s): Martn KutnowskiSource: Latin American Music Review / Revista de Msica Latinoamericana, Vol. 23, No. 1(Spring - Summer, 2002), pp. 106-113Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/780427Accessed: 25/03/2009 10:57

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Martin Kutnowski Instrumental Rubato and Phrase Structure in Astor Piazzolla's Music

In 1954, being in Paris, I had the chance to lis- ten to many modern jazz ensembles, among them Gerry Mulligan's Octet. It was really wonderful to see their enthusiasm while they played: each one's individual pleasure in the improvisation, or the excitement of the whole group while playing a chord. In short, [it was] something that I had never seen before around tango or tango musicians.

As a result of this experience I had the idea of creating the Octeto Buenos Aires. I felt that it was necessary to take the tango away from that monotony in which it had been wrapping itself, harmonic as well as melodic, rhythmic, and aesthetic. I had an irresistible desire to make it more elevated musically, and thought that it would be also a way to feature the performers' virtuosism. In a few words, [I wanted to] achieve a tango that would excite and enrap- ture, without tiring the performer or the listener. It would still be tango, and it would be, at the same time and more than anything, music.

... The only purpose of the Octeto Buenos Aires is to renew the popular tango, to keep its essence, introduce new rhythms, new harmonies, melo- dies, timbres and forms. However, and above all, we don't pretend to do or be part of the so-called "art music."'

It is well known that, beginning in the mid 1950s, Astor Piazzolla started down a compositional path, one that transformed the traditional tango of the "Golden Age" into the so-called tango nuevo.2 The innovations were many: small, chamber-like ensembles in place of the traditional orquesta tipica; a more ambitious harmonic palette; a contrapuntal language remi- niscent of Baroque textures; and a general expansion of the genre as a whole, one that took it out of the ballroom and made it appropriate for the concert hall.

In the present paper, I will concentrate on two specific aspects of this transformation: first, on what I will refer to as "instrumental rubato," and then on phrase structure and its often complicated relationship to large-

Latin American Music Review, Volume 23, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2002 ? 2002 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

Instrumental Rubato and Phrase Structure in Astor Piazzolla's Music : 107

scale matters of form. I begin my discussion of "instrumental rubato" with a notion with which not everyone will necessarily agree, and that is that for the true tango connoisseur, the lyrics of the tango-and many tangos were conceived as songs-were, and still are, an essential component of the genre. In addition, all good singers introduced some kind of rhythmic, melodic, or dynamic distortion, whether in agreement or not with the natural ac- cents of the words, as dictated by expressive needs. Such rhythmic trans- formation very often consisted in arriving at the end of a phrase somehow faster than required, thus giving an impression of anxiety, as if the person were losing control over his or her own emotions. One of the resulting effects of this quasi-recited singing is, of course, a highly irregular syncopa- tion. The most famous-and for many the best-tango singer of all time, Carlos Gardel, who reportedly could not read music, represents a perfect example of this passionate, very expressive style of performance. His lack of formal musical education, as well as the lack of formal education of most singers of this time, must be understood as an advantage rather than a limitation: it allowed him to improvise in such a way that, in expressing the weight and meaning of the words, justified distorting the original scores. This of course explains the important discrepancy between the published versions of the tangos and the actual music in the recordings.

Let me offer a few examples. In "Siga el corso" (GarciaJim6nez-A. Aieta), sung by Roberto Goyeneche and accompanied by Horacio Salgan, a spe- cific melodic fragment is clearly distorted in actual performance. Both the original prototype and the performance are shown in example 1.

Siga el corso (Example 1) Garcia Jimenez- A. Aieta

conceived as: {0it m- p r- T pp F 'P r- w r 7 F sa - c - teel an- - - te quie - ro co - no - cer

in actual performance:

^{D ^ '$ Xp r- o r 'r r r r "r7'"" ?7 11 sa - c - teel an - ti- az te quie - ro co - no - cer

This rhythmic emphasis obviously brings a much more expressive ef- fect on the words "take off your mask / I want to know who you are!", and the rhythm in question clearly resembles the cross-barline syncopation of the opening theme of "Adi6s Nonino" or "A fuego lento,"3 both shown in example 2.

108 : Martin Kutnowski

A Fuego Lento (Example 2)

(rhythm of thefirst theme of Adi6s Nonino) Horacio Salgin = 72

Adios Nonino Astor Piazzolla Lentamente v

i ---bl---, J--=

-

r- r ' -

"

(w ~

No less instructive is Gardel's performance of "Viejo Smoking," a crude story of personal misery narrated in the first person. In this Guardia vieja (Old Style) tango, Gardel takes advantage of the dramatic possibilities of the text by largely ignoring the rhythmic design of the melody: oblivious to the rhythm as notated in example 3, and trusting the expert accompani- ment in the guitar, he gives voice to the meaning and accents of the words and lets them take total preeminence over the square melodic design.

How was instrumental rubato different from the vocal one, from which it obviously derived? Quite simply, and especially in faster tempi, rhythmic syncopations needed to be written down, needed to be made explicit for the whole ensemble to follow. The virtuosic nature of many New Tango arrangements thus had a decisive influence in the definition and standard- ization of such rhythmic formulas. How was it that such transformations still belonged to the tango? It was because most of New Tango rhythmic innovations were rooted in, or simply copied, from the kinds of rhythmic irregularities present in any "authentic" vocal performance. We can see and hear all this in Piazzolla's performance of "Soledad," the first move- ment of his Suite Lumiere.

I will use this movement to focus on some aspects of form and phrase structure. First, a distinction must be made between Piazzolla's vocal and instrumental music, for his approach to form was quite traditional when the words required it, as in the song "Balada para mi muerte," or "Los pajaros perdidos," or "Balada para un loco." He took a different approach, however, in his instrumental works. There Piazzolla often departed from the symmetrical phrase-structure of traditional tango.

After a four-bar introduction, the monothematic main melody starts, and continues until the end. The perpetual motion and the single two-bar

Instrumental Rubato and Phrase Structure in Astor Piazzolla's Music : 109

motive are once again reminiscent of the single affekt characteristic of the Baroque. Those clear-cut two-bar phrases defined by the motivic structure in turn articulate symmetrical verses of eight and six lines.

As shown in example 4, this phrase structure could be easily related to six or eight-line strophes, and so the piece refers strongly to tle kinds of symmetrical patterns of traditional tango discussed before. However, an important break occurs at bar 49. On the one hand, the harmonic rhythm- which had moved at a pace of one chord every two bars since the begin- ning of the piece-doubles its speed switching now to one chord per measure. This change, which had been already introduced for one phrase in bar 33, has now a more dramatic effect, together with a three-fifths down modula- tion and a substantial increase of the contrapuntal activity. To appreciate the change in harmonic rhythm, the bass line of the first phrase of the piece has been notated in a 4/2 time signature, whereas the fragment of bars 49-60 has been re-notated in 4/4. We will see that this last phrase is the most difficult to relate to square patterns. On the one hand, there is a sense of harmonic arrival at m. 55, where the cadence prepared from 53- 54 (II7-V7) resolves in the tonic of A minor. However, this leaves a struc- ture of 7 + 5 bars. Another possibility, one resulting from a more "progressive" hearing,4 would be to re-assess the change in the motivic pattern of the upbeat fragment and to consider that motive as the begin- ning-the downbeat-of the new phrase. Nevertheless, this would only mean that the phrases are now 5 + 7 bars long, still asymmetrical. This transfor- mation is made possible because of the change in the downbeat portion of the motive (see example), which is now only a whole note, and the change in harmonic rhythm, which breaks apart the two-bar units of the begin- ning. In short, this twelve-bar fragment (from bars 49 through 60) must indeed be considered asymmetrical, and thus crucially different from tra- ditional tango.

The last two musical examples that I will discuss in this study corre- spond to a fragment of the next movement of the Suite Lumiere, Mort. I will consider only the first twenty-five bars, which are irregular enough to illus- trate my point. The musical reduction in Example 5 shows the resulting phrase structure: 7, 4, 5, 9.

On the basis of this apparent phrase structure alone, Piazzolla's approach to phrase rhythm breaks with tradition. However, the fragment features other compositional devices that deserve careful attention. In order to show how these irregular phrases are put together, I have constructed a "square" prototype of the passage, shown in example 6.

Yet even this tentative, artificial model is not regular, for each phrase still has a different number of bars: 8, 4, 6, 9. My re-composition of the fragment tries to show the reasons behind the resulting phrase structure. In the first place, there is a measure overlap at the end of the first, eight-bar phrase, where the resolution on Dm coincides with the beginning of the

Example 3 - Viejo Smoking

r--3 ---I

L L r r'l ILt P r Uirc Cam pa-nea co - moel co - to-rro va que - dan -do despo-bla-do

J7 a AP & la AP I l e 'I -

todoel u joen todoel lujoen I

- tre - r !a ca - tre- ra L rr [f r r

compa - drean - do sin col-chon

Voice(inactualperformance) 7 ? ' C Q v 7' ; '' 7 w e. r r' 7'~j.'e ~. f. ' - v"(u p > 1 Un 5 J LJ'7 U C" t _ P :C p L 7p I f : f Ifgj7^r ' r r c :r I * Campa-nea co-moel co - to-rro va que - dan - do despo-bla-do to - doel lu -joen la ca-tre ra cor - pa - drean - do sin col - ch6n.

Soledad (Solitude) from Suite Lumiere (Example 4) 'upbeat'porton of the nmove

Ig^~~lll~~~~~~~j~ r-"^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~(upbeat) (r^r/rf Icrr ir.rr Ir f r J i. 7 cjrj- r .J \^t ruJJ r . 1 7Lrr^c-r " I -r Jr (mtro = 4bars) 8bars

S#esq W"O

13

[r !:J j |, t '- J j rj,. IrIf sJ 1I: t.' J J J r... It- J I , ; J~ ,.l j r 7_ *v~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~6 bars

Voice (as published r r r r r r r r u) t

19 (upbeat)

(,* J 1,._' . rcr if J 17 , r r r r r 1i J II7 . r r r l - r ? r i 8 bars

[i 'r J 1,7 '..r I r i J l7 ,1 J J 'J r _ r It J ! J ~ - r__j 33

'

112 : Martin Kutnowski

Mort from Suite Lumiere Example 5

r:r r r r iu: rT h ? r c r? l rr r i Dm 4 bars?

12

i f f r rr;2gI -J J l rJ I k4J IJUJJ U J J {1rCrr< SJ317 IJ3r~-~ 1#~31-6 barss 9

Dm 9 bars? Am

next, four-bar phrase. This elision-overlap, evidently, creates a greater sense of continuity. I have shown the overlap by numbering those bars as "8a" and "8b." This happens again at the end of the third, six-bar long phrase, where in order to avoid the stop of the whole note E in the alto register, the same note is transferred to the soprano, and thus initiates the last phrase (see bars "17a" and "17b"). Finally, even the last fragment of my example (bars 17 through 25) contains subtle phrase-rhythm manipulations. In ef- fect, a phrase that is nine-bars long should, to some extent, be in fact con- sidered a "true" seven-bar phrase because of the augmentation in the harmonic rhythm. As example 6 shows, a comparison between the bass line of the first and last phrases shows this augmentation. This is shown in the graph with the 4/2 time signature for the bass, and with a different bar numbering for the melody and bass. Hence, the last phrase could be con- sidered as having only seven bars, but with a written-out rallentando.

In all, this last example helps to understand the connection that existed in Piazzolla's compositional style between the dislocation of rhythm in the local level-instrumental rubato-and the far-reaching realm of phrase struc- ture and form.

Instrumental Rubato and Phrase Structure in Astor Piazzolla's Music : 113

Mort from Suite Lumiere Example 6

{ J Ir w 6I r 1i I r r I Ir f i I' - I

Dm 4 bars?

12 '17 a"

{ir ? frI'-^ -1J i?4j?J I"JjJJ I__jJJJ o I 6 bars? 5 bars?

"17b" 21 22 23 24 25

ls rrf' I': r'-cI.~r'-c I,:r^ J~ ! ::. r i .. r .j. r I .r' r |9 11Jb Dm 9 bars? 7bars~ , , Am - :2 1 ~o .. IL .. ... i1

Notes

1. Astor Piazzolla-Octeto Buenos Aires. Notes accompanying the compact disk. (Diapas6n, Buenos Aires, without date. Recording from the origi- nal matrix #52002). Translation by Martin Kutnowski.

2. For a comprehensive account of the successive tango styles in Argen- tina see: Azzi, Maria Susana. Tango! El baile, el canto, la historia, la edad de oro y despues (Odin Ediciones, Buenos Aires, 1997).

3. Composed by Horacio Salgan in 1955. 4. In order to establish a mental image of the structure of a piece of mu-

sic, the listener sometimes has to choose between a "conservative" or "progressive" hearing. Each of those possibilities requires different as- sumptions, and depends largely on the listener's real-time or retro- spective decisions. This notion is discussed in depth in Lerdahl and Jackendoff, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. (MIT Press, Massachu- setts, 1983).

Article Contentsp. [106]p. 107p. 108p. 109p. [110]p. [111]p. 112p. 113

Issue Table of ContentsLatin American Music Review / Revista de Msica Latinoamericana, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 2002), pp. 1-158Front MatterBrazilian Sources in Milhaud's "Le Boeuf sur le Toit": A Discussion and a Musical Analysis [pp. 1 - 59]Performing So Paulo: Vanguard Representations of a Brazilian Cosmopolis [pp. 60 - 78]Colonial Capitalism, Hegemony, and Youth Praxis in Puerto Rico: Fiel a la Vega's Rock en Espaol [pp. 79 - 105]Instrumental Rubato and Phrase Structure in Astor Piazzolla's Music [pp. 106 - 113]Revueltas in San Antonio and Mobile [pp. 114 - 130]Los exmenes profesionales de Ponce y Revueltas en el Conservatorio Nacional de Mxico [pp. 131 - 136]Reviewsuntitled [pp. 137 - 140]untitled [pp. 140 - 143]untitled [pp. 143 - 150]untitled [pp. 150 - 154]

Communications and Announcements [pp. 155 - 156]Back Matter [pp. 157 - 158]