Tanda of the Week: Pugliese instrumental. Tutorial, English spoken/Nl ondertiteld.

Timecodes of Second Tanda of the Week with Osvaldo Pugliese. and beautiful historical pictures.

00:00 Start
00:29 Tutorial about Pugliese
05:30 Para Dos
07:52 Patético
10:08 La Yumba
11:48 Emancipación

Some weeks ago we did a Pugliese tanda with singer Alberto Morán, and then I already mentioned that it’s mostly the instrumentals by Pugliese that are played at the milongas. So this time we have an instrumental Tanda of the Week, and with Pugliese that means powerful bandoneons and romantic violins.

Osvaldo Pugliese was born in 1905, and formed his orchestra in 1939. Before that he had already played with some of the greatest tango musicians, like Pedro Maffia and Pedro Laurenz, and with

Pugliese was influenced by the ‘evolutionary school’ of Julio de Caro, and in turn, De Caro had recorded the Pugliese composition ‘Recuerdo’ in 1926. Pugliese started recording in 1943 on the Odeon label and the influence of De Caro is still very present his mid-40’s recordings.

But then, Pugliese found his own style, with tangos like ‘La Yumba’ in ‘46 and ‘Negracha’ in ’48.
He enhanced tango, using contrapuntos, countermelodies, synchopation (but in a very different way than e.g. Biagi used synchopation), and the arrastre and rubato: adding a kind of fluïdity to the tempo of the entire orchestra. Osvaldo Pugliese turned tangos into mini symphonies, and thereby brought tango to a whole new level.

Now for the tanda of this week we start with ‘Para Dos’, from 1952. Para Dos was composed by Osvaldo Ruggiero. Ruggiero joined the orchestra of Pugliese as a bandoneon player in 1939, so right from the start, and he stayed with the orchestra for 28 years. He wrote several tangos that were recorded by Pugliese’s orchestra. And please note the 2 wonderful violins in ‘Para Dos’ around the 1’50 mark.

The next track is ‘Patético’, from 1948 – written by another bandoneon player in the orchestra: Jorge Caldara. Caldara was with the orchestra from 1944-’54, and then started his own orchestra. Another one of his tangos is ‘Pasional’. Patético is one of my favourites and it’s a kind of transitional work in Pugliese’s repertoire: it goes well with some of his 1940s tangos (like Negracha, or Amurado) but also with his ‘50s recordings.

Then we have ‘La Yumba’ – of course. ‘La Yumba’ is Pugliese’s signature piece, he recorded it a number of times, first in 1946. This is the 1952 version. La Yumba is an onomatopoeia named after the gasping sound of the bandoneons and the rhythm of the orchestra. It’s a composition that is more about rhythm than melody, and its musical structure inspired others like Salgán and Piazzolla.

The final track of this tanda is something of a crowd pleaser: ‘Emancipación’ from 1955.
From just the first two notes of this tango it’s clear that this is Pugliese. It’s a tango that sounds like it could have been written by Pugliese or at least especially for this orchestra. But it’s not.
Emancipación was actually composed by Alfredo Bevilacqua, a pianist and composer of the guardia vieja, and first recorded by Juan Maglio in 1912(!) A very different version of course, with a guitar and habanera rhythm. What Pugliese has done with this tango is really amazing.

Enjoy!
Please note: We do not own the music in this video. Songs are included for educational purposes only. All songs have been edited/cut to prevent downloading of the complete songs. You can buy them from various providers (like iTunes) or stream them on Spotify.