Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla (1921-1992) is widely regarded as the most influential tango artist of the 20th century. His work borrows elements from tango, jazz, and classical music to form a new genre called nuevo tango. He was a virtuoso performer and a respected composer whose work is widely performed around the world. He was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina to Italian immigrant parents. When he was 4 years old, they moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. He picked up the bandoneón, the accordion-like instrument that would dominate his musical career, at age 8. He heard a wealth of different kinds of music from an early age: his father brought Argentine tango records to New York; he heard jazz on the streets of the city; and by age 12, he was learning to play Bach on his bandoneón. He returned to Argentina at 16, and moved to Buenos Aires the following year to try his luck on the tango scene there. He found some success, but realized that his interests leaned more towards contemporary classical composers like Bartok and Stravinsky. To that end, he studied composition with Alberto Ginastera and nearly dropped all tango activities. Finally, in 1954 he left for Paris to study with the legendary composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. She encouraged him to embrace his tango heritage. He returned to Argentina inspired to elevate the tango to an artistic level. He wrote original compositions for traditional ensembles, as well as for his own groups which ranged in size from quintets to nonets. He toured the world with his music, and changed the tango forever.
Yo Soy María comes from the opera María de Buenos Aires, which Piazzolla wrote with librettist Horacio Ferrer in 1968. It is an aria in which the titular María introduces herself. Trombonist Domingo Pagliuca arranged this aria for the Boston Brass, and Rick DeJonge created a flexible instrumentation concert band version of that arrangement. Here are DeJonge’s program notes:
María de Buenos Aires is a tango-opera with music by Astor Piazzolla and text by Horacio Ferrer. The opera premiered in Buenos Aires in 1968, and there the story is set: In the slums of Buenos Aires lives María. In the big city she is seduced by an underworld moving to the passionate beat of the Argentine tango. In a dangerous waterfront bar she becomes consumed by the fiery dance while seedy characters plot her demise. But María’s destiny is not so clear, as her shadow returns to haunt the streets…
Here is Piazzolla’s aria in a somewhat authentic performance context:
A performance of the Boston Brass version is available at this link. And the flex band version, as played by the Florida State University Wind Ensemble, can be downloaded here. You can also see a snippet here:
Here are a few highlights from the full opera:
Piazzolla info at Wikipedia, IMDb, NPR, and allmusic.
See more about María de Buenos Aires at Wikipedia, Atlanta Opera, Arizona Opera, and New York City Opera. Look up Yo Soy María at the Wind Band Repertory Project and the Boston Brass website.