Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina in 1921 to immigrant Italian parents, Piazzolla spent most of his childhood with his family in New York City. While there, he acquired fluency in four languages: Spanish, English, French, and Italian. He also started playing the bandoneon, quickly rising to the status of child prodigy. While still quite young, he met Carlos Gardel, another great figure of Argentine tango. He returned to Argentina in 1937, where strictly traditional tango still reigned, and played in night clubs with a series of groups. The pianist Arthur Rubinstein (then living in Buenos Aires) advised him to study with the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. Delving into scores of Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, and others, he gave up tango temporarily and worked as a modernist classical composer.
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 French composer and conductor Nadia Boulanger. The insightful Boulanger turned his life around in a day, as Piazzolla tells beautifully in his own words:
"When I met her, I showed her my kilos of symphonies and sonatas. She started to read them and suddenly came out with a horrible sentence: ‘It's very well written.’ And stopped, with a big period, round like a soccer ball. 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 ‘night club.’” I didn't want to say “cabaret.” And she answered, “Night club, mais oui, but that is a cabaret, isn't it?” “Yes,” I answered, and thought, “I'll hit this woman in the head with a radio....” 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."
Piazzolla returned to Argentina in 1955, formed the Octeto Buenos Aires to play tangos, and never looked back.
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.
During the period of Argentine military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, Piazzolla lived in France, but returned many times to Argentina, recorded there, and on at least one occasion had lunch with the dictator Jorge Rafael Videla. However, his relationship with the dictator might have been less than friendly, as recounted in Astor Piazzolla, A manera de Memorias (a comprehensive collection of interviews, constituting a memoir):
In 1990 he suffered a thrombosis in Paris and he passed away two years later in Buenos Aires.
Piazzolla's nuevo tango was distinct from the traditional tango in its incorporation of elements of jazz, its use of extended harmonies and dissonance, its use of counterpoint, and its ventures into extended compositional forms. Piazzolla also introduced new instruments that were not used in the traditional tango, including the flute, saxophone, electric guitar, electronic instruments, and a full jazz/rock drum kit.
Piazzolla played with numerous ensembles beginning with the 1946 Orchestra, the 1955 "Octeto Buenos Aires", the 1960 "First Quintet", the 1971 "Noneto", the 1978 "Second Quintet" and the 1989 "Sextet". As well as providing original compositions and arrangements, he was the director and Bandoneon player in all of them. He also recorded an album with jazz sax player Gerry Mulligan. His numerous compositions include orchestral work such as the "Concierto para Bandoneón, Orquesta, Cuerdas y Percusión", "Doble-Concierto para Bandoneón y Guitarra", "Tres Tangos Sinfónicos" and "Concierto de Nácar para 9 Tanguistas y Orquesta", as well as song-form compositions that still today are well known by the general public in his country, like "Balada para un loco" (Ballad for a madman) and "Adiós Nonino" (dedicated to his father) which he recorded many times with different musicians and ensembles. Biographers estimate that Piazzolla wrote around 3,000 pieces and recorded around 500.
He suffered a cerebral haemorrhage in Paris on 4 August 1990, which left him in a coma, and died in Buenos Aires, just under two years later on 4 July 1992, without regaining consciousness.
other albums not listed here
~ The Birth of Tango Nuevo, Vol. 1 - Sinfonia de Tango
~ Mis 30 Mejores Tangos
~ Piazzolla Interpreta A. Piazzolla (Original Album - Remastered)
~ Ensayos
~ Tiempo Nuevo
~ Se Armó
~ El Milrago - The Early Recordings, Vol. 2 (Astor Piazzolla With His First Own Orchestra, So Called 1946 Band.)
~ Tango Moderno
Los pájaros perdidos
Astor Piazzolla Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
que vuelven desde el más allá
a confundirse con un cielo
que nunca más podré recuperar
vuelven de nuevo los recuerdos
los horas jóvenes que di
y desde el mar llega un fantasma
hecho de cosas que ame y perdí
Un sueño que perdimos
como perdimos los pájaros y el mar
The lyrics to Astor Piazzolla's song "Los pájaros perdidos" hold a deep and profound meaning. The lyrics are a reflection on nostalgia and the passage of time. The title of the song translates to "The Lost Birds" which is a metaphor for the memories of the past that one can never truly get back. The opening line, "Amo los pajaros perdidos que vuelven desde el más allá" ("I love the lost birds that return from beyond") speaks to how memories of the past can suddenly resurface and overwhelm.
The following line, "a confundirse con un cielo que nunca más podré recuperar" ("to mingle with a sky that I will never be able to recover") is a reflection on how nostalgia is bittersweet. The singer longs for the past but knows that they can never reclaim it. The next few lines reflect on how memories of the past can come back in full force, and it is hard to forget the things that were once loved and lost.
The final lines of the song reflect on the impermanence of life. The singer realizes that everything is temporary, and that the memories of the past, much like the birds and the sea, are lost. The lines "Todo fue un sueño, un sueño que perdimos como perdimos los pájaros y el mar" ("It was all a dream, a dream that we lost like we lost the birds and the sea") convey the idea that everything in life is fleeting and cannot be held onto forever.
Line by Line Meaning
Amo los pajaros perdidos
I love the lost birds
que vuelven desde el más allá
that come back from beyond
a confundirse con un cielo
to merge with a sky
que nunca más podré recuperar
that I will never be able to recover
vuelven de nuevo los recuerdos
memories come back again
los horas jóvenes que di
the young hours I gave
y desde el mar llega un fantasma
and from the sea a ghost comes
hecho de cosas que ame y perdí
made of things I loved and lost
Todo fue un sueño
It was all a dream
Un sueño que perdimos
A dream that we lost
como perdimos los pájaros y el mar
just like we lost the birds and the sea
Contributed by Bentley P. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@mezenthies3284
Piazzolla, Trejos, Milva...top top top !
@jorgeluismartino9367
Piazzola siempre eligió bien con quien interpretar su obra.
@marinagammun8016
ES UN TANGO HERMOSISÌMO.
@hermikaleta2912
Eine schöne Erinnerung an die soeben von uns gegangene MILVA und an den Großmeister des Tangos ASTOR PIAZZOLLA.
@CiccuL
Piazzolla ha scelto bene e conobbe subito le grandi qualita' canore di MILVA, lei canta si ma con tutta l'anima ,corpo e voce una vera pantera ( come e' stata definita )del palcoscenico.UNICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@josechrist3948
Dearest Milva, I visited twice your concerts in Amsterdam, they were so beautiful, you have been such a great artist, you star will shine forever from music heaven to the earth!!!! R.I.P 24.04.2021
@darkrist
27/04/21 fue cuando nos dejó la tremenda Milva! Un artista incréible!
@adrianabgmezzo
La mejor versión de esta canción. Milva FANTÁSTICA!!!!!
@jorgemartinaguilartirado4974
Su media voz.....fantástica.
@isabeldieguez4734
Suprema Ella y Genio el más la orquesta un trío imbatible🎉