Tango
Stylistic origins	European styles including polka, habanera, flamenco, mazurka, and contradanse; Candombe, vals criollo, milonga.
Cultural origins	Argentina and Uruguay[1]
Typical instruments	Violin, piano, guitar, flute and bandoneón
Mainstream popularity	Major, became a craze in Europe and North America in 1930s and 40s
Subgenres
Neotango – Tango-canción
Fusion genres
Tango-rock
Regional scenes
Dodompa (Japanese tango) – Easter Island
Other topics
Dance – Maxixe (Brazilian tango) Record labels A bandoneón popular in Argentina and Uruguay.

Tango rhythm.^[2]

Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay (collectively, the "Rioplatenses").^[1] It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneóns. Earlier forms of this ensemble sometimes included flute, clarinet and guitar. Tango may be purely instrumental or may include a vocalist. Tango is well-known across much of the world, along with the associated tango dance.

Origins[link]

Early bandoneón, constructed ca. 1905

Even though the present forms developed in Argentina and Uruguay from the mid 19th century, there are records of 18th and early 19th century Tango styles in Cuba and Spain,^[3] while there is a flamenco Tangos dance that may share a common ancestor in a minuet-style European dance.^[4] All sources stress the influence of the African communities and their rhythms, while the instruments and techniques brought in by European immigrants in the 20th century played a major role in its final definition, relating it to the Salon music styles to which Tango would contribute back at a later stage.

The first Tango ever recorded was made by Angel Villoldo and played by the French national guard in Paris. Villoldo had to record in Paris because in Argentina at the time there was no recording studio.

Early tango was played by immigrants in Buenos Aires, where many argue the tango was born.^[5][6][7] The first generation of tango players was called "Guardia Vieja" (the Old Guard). By the end of the 19th century, this blend of salon, European and African music was heard throughout metropolitan Buenos Aires. It took time to move into wider circles: in the early 20th century it was the favorite music of thugs and gangsters who visited the brothels, in a city with 100,000 more men than women (in 1914). The complex dances that arose from such rich music reflects how the men would practice the dance in groups, demonstrating male sexuality and causing a blending of emotion and aggressiveness. The music was played on portable instruments: flute, guitar and violin trios, with bandoneón arriving at the end of the 19th century. The organito, a portable player-organ, broadened the popularity of certain songs. Eduardo Arolas was the major instrument of the bandoneón's popularization, with Vicente Greco soon standardizing the tango sextet as consisting of piano, double bass, two violins and two bandoneóns.

Like many forms of popular music, the tango was associated with the underclass, and the better-off Argentines tried to restrict its influence. In spite of the scorn, some, like writer Ricardo Güiraldes, were fans. Güiraldes played a part in the international popularization of the tango, which had conquered the world by the end of World War I, and wrote a poem ("Tango") which describes the music as the "all-absorbing love of a tyrant, jealously guarding his dominion, over women who have surrendered submissively, like obedient beasts".^[4]

One song that would become the most widely known of all tango melodies^[8] also dates from this time. The first two sections of La Cumparsita were composed as a march instrumental in 1916 by teen-aged Gerardo Matos Rodríguez of Uruguay.^[9][10]

Argentinian roots of Tango[link]

Besides the global influences mentioned above, early Tango was locally influenced by Payada, the Milonga from Argentine Pampas, and Argentine Candombe. In Argentina there was Milonga "from the country" since the mid eighteenth century. The first "payador" remembered is Santos Vega. The origins of Milonga seem to be in the Pampa with strong African influences, especially though the local Candombe (which would be related to its contemporary Candombe in Buenos Aires). It is believed that this candombe existed and was practised in Argentina since the first slaves were brought into the country.^[11]

Although the word "tango" to describe a music/dance style had been printed as early as 1823 in Havana, Cuba, the first Argentinian written reference is from a 1866 newspaper, that quotes the song "La Coqueta" (an Argentine tango).^[12] In 1876 a tango-candombe called "El Merenguengué"^[13][14] became very popular, after its success in the Afro-Argentines carnival held in February of that year. It is played with guitar, violin and flute in addition to the Afro-Argentine Candombe drums ("Llamador" and "Repicador"). This has been seriously considered as one of the strong points of departure for the birth and development of the Tango.^[15]

The first "group" of tango, was composed of two Afro-Argentines, "the black" Casimiro Alcorta (violin) and "the mulatto" Sinforoso (clarinet).^[16] They did small concerts in Buenos Aires since the early 1870s until the early 1890s. "The black Casimiro" is author of "Entrada Prohibida" ("Entry Forbidden"),^[17] then signed by the brothers Teisseire, and "la yapa"; in turn, is credited with the tango "Concha sucia", which was later amended and signed by F. Canaro as "Cara sucia" ("dirty face").^[18] It must be said, thought that this duo was the author and performer of many of the early tangos now listed as "anonymous", since at that time were not used to signing works.

Before the 1900s, the following tangos were being played: "El queco" (anonymous, attributed to clarinetist Lino Galeano in 1885),^[19] "Señora casera" (anonymous 1880), "Andate a la recoleta" (anonymous 1880),^[19] "El Porteñito" (by the Spaniard Gabriel Diez in 1880),^[19] "Tango Nº1" (Jose Machado - 1883), "Dame la lata" (Juan Perez, 1888),^[19] "Que polvo con tanto viento" (anonymous 1890),^[19] "No me tires con la tapa de la olla" (A.A. 1893), "El Talar" (Prudencio Aragon - 1895).^[20]

The first recorded musical score (though no author) is "La Canguela" (1889) and is in the Museum of the City Score Rosario. On the other hand, the first copyrighted tango score is "El entrerriano", released in 1896 and printed in 1898 - by Rosendo Mendizabal, an Afro-Argentine. As for the transition between the old "Tango criollo" (Milonga from the Pampas, evolved with touches of Afro-Argentine Candombe, and some of Habanera), and the Tango of the Old Guard, there are the next songs: Ángel Villoldo ("El choclo", 1903) ("El Pimpolla", 1904), ("La Vida del Carretero", 1905) y ("El Negro Alegre", 1907), de Gabino Ezeiza ("El Tango Patagones", 1905), y de Higinio Cazón ("El Taita", 1905). Moreover, the first tango recorded by an orchestra was "Don Juan", whose author is Ernesto Ponzio. It was recorded by the orchestra of Vicente Greco.^[21][22]

1920s and 1930s, Carlos Gardel[link]

Carlos Gardel, perpetual symbol of the tango

"Por Una Cabeza" (1935) by Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Le Pera. Sung by Carlos Gardel.

Tango soon began to gain popularity in Europe, beginning in France. Superstar Carlos Gardel soon became a sex symbol who brought the tango to new audiences, especially in the United States, due to his sensual depictions of the dance on film. In the 1920s, tango moved out of the lower-class brothels and became a more respectable form of music and dance. Bandleaders like Roberto Firpo and Francisco Canaro dropped the flute and added a double bass in its place. Lyrics were still typically macho, blaming women for countless heartaches, and the dance moves were still sexual and aggressive.

Carlos Gardel became especially associated with the transition from a lower-class "gangster" music to a respectable middle-class dance. He helped develop tango-canción in the 1920s and became one of the most popular tango artists of all time. He was also one of the precursors of the Golden Age of tango.

Gardel's death was followed by a division into movements within tango. Evolutionists like Aníbal Troilo and Carlos di Sarli were opposed to traditionalists like Rodolfo Biagi and Juan d'Arienzo.

Golden Age[link]

The "Golden Age" of tango music and dance is generally agreed to have been the period from about 1935 to 1952, roughly contemporaneous with the big band era in the United States.

Some of the many popular and influential orchestras included the orchestras of Juan d'Arienzo, Francisco Canaro, and Aníbal Troilo. D'Arienzo was called the "Rey del compás" or "King of the beat" for the insistent, driving rhythm which can be heard on many of his recordings. "El flete" is an excellent example of D'Arienzo's approach. Canaro's early milongas are generally the slowest and easiest to dance to; and for that reason, they are the most frequently played at tango dances (milongas); "Milonga Sentimental" is a classic example.

Carlos Gardel, Mural painting by Carlos Páez Vilaró

Beginning in the Golden Age and continuing afterwards, the orchestras of Osvaldo Pugliese and Carlos di Sarli made many recordings. Di Sarli had a lush, grandiose sound, and emphasized strings and piano over the bandoneón, which is heard in "A la gran muñeca" and "Bahía Blanca" (the name of his home town).

Pugliese's first recordings were not too different from those of other dance orchestras, but he developed a complex, rich, and sometimes discordant sound, which is heard in his signature pieces, "Gallo ciego", "Emancipación", and "La yumba". Pugliese's later music was played for an audience and not intended for dancing, although it is often used for stage choreography for its dramatic potential, and sometimes played late at night at milongas.

Tango nuevo[link]

The later age of tango has been dominated by Ástor Piazzolla, whose Adiós nonino became the most influential work of tango since Carlos Gardel's El día que me quieras was released in 1935. During the 1950s, Piazzolla consciously tried to create a more academic form with new sounds breaking the classic forms of tango, drawing the derision of purists and old-time performers. The 1970s saw Buenos Aires developing a fusion of jazz and tango. Litto Nebbia and Siglo XX were especially popular within this movement. In the 1970s and 1980s, the vocal octet Buenos Aires 8 recorded classic tangos in elaborate arrangements, with complex harmonies and jazz influence, and also recorded an album with compositions by Piazzolla.

The so-called post-Piazzolla generation (1980-) includes musicians such as Dino Saluzzi, Rodolfo Mederos, Gustavo Beytelmann and Juan Jose Mosalini. Piazzolla and his followers developed Nuevo Tango, which incorporated jazz and classical influences into a more experimental style.

Neo-tango[link]

Tango development has not stopped here. The following examples are not filed under "Tango Nuevo" since such classification is usually done with hindsight rather than when still undergoing development. These recent trends can be described as "electro tango" or "tango fusion", where the electronic influences are available in multiple ranges: from very subtle to rather dominant.

Tanghetto and Carlos Libedinsky are good examples of the subtle use of electronic elements. The music still has its tango feeling, the complex rhythmic and melodious entanglement that makes tango so unique. Gotan Project is a group based in Paris, consisting of musicians Philippe Cohen Solal, Eduardo Makaroff and Christoph H Muller. They formed in 1999. Their releases include Vuelvo al Sur/El capitalismo foráneo (2000), La Revancha del Tango (2001), Inspiración Espiración (2004), and Lunático (2006). Their sound features electronic elements like samples, beats and sounds on top of a tango groove. Some dancers enjoy dancing to this music, although many more traditional dancers regard it as a definite break in style and tradition. Still, the rhythmic elements in Gotan Project's music are more complex than in some of the other "electro tango" songs that were created afterwards.

Bajofondo Tango Club (Underground tango club) and its follow-on album "Supervielle" are examples with a stronger "electro" feeling than Gotan Project. Bajofondo Tango Club's beats are more regular, more dominant. The rhythms are less complex but the tango feeling is still there. Other examples can be found on the CDs Tango?, Hybrid Tango, Tangophobia Vol. 1, Tango Crash (with a major jazz influence), Latin Tango by Rodrigo Favela (featuring classic and modern elements), NuTango. Tango Fusion Club Vol. 1 by the creator of the milonga called "Tango Fusion Club" in Munich, Germany, Felino by the Norwegian group Electrocutango and "Electronic Tango", a various artists' CD. In 2004, a music label, World Music Network, also released a collection under the title The Rough Guide to Tango Nuevo.

Musical impact[link]

The tango has become part of the repertoire for great classical musicians. One of the first classical interpreters to do this "cross over" was the baritone Jorge Chaminé with his Tangos recording with bandoneónist Olivier Manoury. Since then, al Tango, Yo-Yo Ma, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Gidon Kremer, Plácido Domingo and Marcelo Alvarez have performed and recorded Tangos.

Some classical composers have written tangos, such as Isaac Albéniz in España (1890), Erik Satie in Le Tango perpétuel (1914), Igor Stravinsky in Histoire du Soldat (1918). The list of composers who wrote inspired by tango music also includes John Cage in Perpetual Tango (1984), John Harbison in "Tango Seen from Ground Level" (1991), and Milton Babbitt in "It Takes Twelve to Tango" (1984). The influence of Piazzolla has fallen on a number of contemporary composers. The "Tango Mortale" in Arcadiana by Thomas Adès is a striking example as is the orchestral Totentango by Matthew King.

Many popular songs in the United States have borrowed melodies from tango: the earliest published tango, El Choclo, lent its melody to the fifties hit Kiss of Fire. Similarly Adiós Muchachos became I Get Ideas, and Strange Sensation was based on La Cumparsita.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tango

	Argentina portal
	Buenos Aires portal
	Uruguay portal

• History of Tango
• Finnish tango
• List of tango music labels
• Music of Argentina
• Argentine tango
• Music of Uruguay
• Uruguayan tango
• Vals (dance)

Ukrainian tango songs.Audio files. http://www.orpheusandlyra.com/news.html

References[link]

 Latin Tango by Rodrigo Favela http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG0Q530daGI

Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla with his bandoneón in 1971.
Background information
Birth name	Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla
Born	(1921-03-11)March 11, 1921 Mar del Plata, Argentina
Died	July 4, 1992(1992-07-04) (aged 71) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Genres	Nuevo tango
Occupations	Composer, Bandoneón player

Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla (March 11, 1921 – July 4, 1992) was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. A virtuoso bandoneónist, he regularly performed his own compositions with a variety of ensembles.

Biography[link]

Childhood[link]

Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 1921, the only child of Italian immigrant parents, Vicente "Nonino" Piazzolla and Asunta Manetti. His grandfather, a sailor and fisherman named Pantaleón Piazzolla, had immigrated to Mar del Plata from Trani, a seaport in the southeastern Italian region of Apulia, at the end of the 19th century.

In 1925 Ástor Piazzolla moved with his family to Greenwich Village in New York City, which in those days was a violent neighbourhood inhabited by a volatile mixture of gangsters and hard-working immigrants. His parents worked long hours and Piazzolla soon learnt how to take care of himself on the streets despite having a limp. At home he would listen to his father's records of the tango orchestras of Carlos Gardel and Julio de Caro, and was also exposed to jazz and classical music, including Bach, from an early age. He began to play the bandoneón after his father spotted one in a New York pawn shop in1929.

After their return to New York City from a brief visit to Mar del Plata in 1930, the family went to live in Little Italy in lower Manhattan, and in 1932 Piazzolla composed his first tango La catinga. The following year Piazzolla took music lessons with the Hungarian classical pianist Bela Wilda, a student of Rachmaninov, who taught him to play Bach on his bandoneón. In 1934 he met Carlos Gardel, one of the most important figures in the history of tango, who invited the young bandoneón player to join him on his current tour. Much to Piazzolla's dismay, his father decided that he was not old enough to go along, although the following year he did play a cameo role as a young paper boy in Gardel's movie El día que me quieras [1]. This early disappointment of not being allowed to join the tour proved to be a blessing in disguise, as it was on this tour that Gardel and his entire orchestra perished in a plane crash in 1935. In later years, Piazzolla made light of this near miss, joking that had his father not been so careful, he would now be playing the harp, rather than the bandoneón.

Early Musical Career[link]

In 1936, he returned with his family to Mar del Plata, where he began to play in a variety of tango orchestras and around this time he discovered the music of Elvino Vardaro’s sextet on the radio. Vardaro’s novel interpretation of tango made a great impression on Piazzolla and years later he would become Piazzolla’s violinist in his Orquesta de Cuerdas and his First Quintet.

Inspired by Vardaro’s style of tango, and still only 17 years old, Piazzolla moved to Buenos Aires in 1938 where, the following year, he realized a dream when he joined the orchestra of the bandoneónist Anibal Troilo, which would become one of the greatest tango orchestras of that time. Piazzolla was employed as a temporary replacement for Toto Rodríguez who was ill, but when Rodríguez returned to work Troilo decided to retain Piazzolla as a fourth bandoneónist. Apart from playing the bandoneón, Piazzolla also became Troilo’s arranger and would occasionally play the piano for him. By 1941 he was earning a good wage, enough to pay for music lessons with Alberto Ginastera, an eminent Argentine composer of classical music. It was the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, then living in Buenos Aires, who had advised him to study with Ginastera and delving into scores of Stravinsky, Bartók, Ravel, and others, Piazzolla rose early each morning to hear the Teatro Colón orchestra rehearse while continuing a gruelling performing schedule in the tango clubs at night. During his 5 years of study with Ginastera he would master orchestration which he later considered to be one of his strong points. In 1943 he started piano lessons with the Argentine classical pianist Raúl Spivak, which would continue for the next five years, and wrote his first classical works Preludio No. 1 for Violin and Piano and Suite for Strings and Harps. That same year he married his first wife, Dedé Wolff, an artist, with whom he would have two children, Diana and Daniel.

As time went by Troilo began to fear that the advanced musical ideas of the young bandoneónist might undermine the style of his orchestra and make it less appealing to dancers of tango. Tensions mounted between the two bandoneónists until, in 1944, Piazzolla announced his intention to leave Troilo and join the orchestra of the tango singer and bandoneónist Francisco Fiorentino. Piazzolla would lead Fiorentino's orchestra until 1946 and make many recordings with him, including his first two instrumental tangos, La chiflada and Color de rosa.

In 1946 Piazzolla formed his, Orquesta Típica, which although having a similar formation to other tango orchestras of the day, gave him his first opportunity to experiment with his own approach to the orchestration and musical content of tango. That same year he composed, El Desbande, which he considered to be his first formal tango, and then began to compose musical scores for films, starting with Con los mismos colores in 1949 and Bólidos de acero in 1950, both films directed by Carlos Torres Ríos.

Having disbanded his first orchestra in 1950 he almost abandoned tango altogether as he continued to study Bartok and Stravinsky, and orchestra direction with Herman Scherchen. He spent a lot of time listening to jazz and searching for a musical style of his own beyond the realms of tango. He decided to drop the bandoneon and to dedicate himself to writing and to studying music. Between 1950 and 1954 he composed a series of works that began to develop his unique style: Para lucirse, Tanguango, Prepárense, Contrabajeando, Triunfal and Lo que vendrá.

Studies in Paris[link]

At Ginastera's urging, Piazzolla entered his classical composition Buenos Aires Symphony, in three movements, for the Fabian Sevitzky Award on 16 August 1953. The performance took place at the Law School in Buenos Aires with the symphony orchestra of Radio del Estadio under the direction of Sevitzky himself. At the end of the concert a fight broke out among some members of the audience who were offended by the inclusion of two bandoneons in a traditional symphony orchestra. In spite of this Piazzolla's composition won a grant from the French government to study in Paris with the legendary French composition teacher Nadia Boulanger at the Fontainebleau conservatory.

In 1954 he and his wife left their two children (Diana aged 11 and Daniel aged 10) behind with Piazzolla's parents and travelled to Paris. At this stage in his life Piazzolla was tired of tango and at first, he tried to hide his tanguero past and his bandoneon compositions from Boulanger, thinking that his destiny lay in classical music. By way of introduction to his work, Piazzolla played her a number of his classically-inspired compositions but it was not until he finally played her his tango Triunfal that she immediately congratulated him and encouraged him to pursue his career in tango, recognising that this was where his true musical talent lay. This was to prove an historic encounter and a cross-roads in Piazzolla's career.

During his time with Boulanger he studied classical composition including counterpoint which was to play a key role in his later tango compositions. Before leaving Paris he heard, and was deeply impressed by, the octet of the American jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan which was to give him the idea of forming his own octet on his return to Buenos Aires. At this time he composed and recorded a series of tangos with the String Orchestra of the Paris Opera and began to play the bandoneon while standing up, putting his right foot on a chair and the bellows of the instrument across his right thigh. Until that time bandoneonists played sitting down.

In the Vanguard of Nuevo Tango[link]

Back in Argentina, Piazzolla formed his Orquesta de Cuerdas (String Orchestra), which performed with the singer Jorge Sobral, and his Octeto Buenos Aires in 1955. With two bandoneons (Piazzolla and Leopoldo Federico), two violins (Enrique Mario Francini and Hugo Baralis), double bass (Juan Vasallo), cello (José Bragato), piano (Atilio Stampone), and an electric guitar (Horacio Malvicino), his Octeto effectively broke the mould of the traditional orquesta típica and created a new sound akin to chamber music, without a singer and with jazz-like improvisations. This was to be a turning point in his career and a watershed in the history of tango. Piazzolla's new approach to the tango, nuevo tango, made him a controversial figure in his native land both musically and politically. 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.

In 1958 he disbanded both the Octeto and the String Orchestra and returned to New York City with his family where he struggled to make a living as a musician and arranger. Briefly forming his own group, the Jazz Tango Quintet with whom he made just two recordings, his attempts to blend jazz and tango where not successful. He received the news of the death of his father in October 1959 whilst performing with Juan Carlos Copes and María Nieves in Puerto Rico and on his return to New York City a few days later, he asked to be left alone in his apartment and in less than an hour wrote his famous tango, Adiós Nonino, in homage to his father.

Back in Buenos Aires in 1960 he put together the first, and perhaps most famous, of his quintets, the first Quinteto, initially comprising bandoneon (Piazzolla), piano (Jaime Gosis), violin (Simón Bajour), electric guitar (Horacio Malvicino ) and double bass (Kicho Díaz). Of the many ensembles that Piazzolla set up during his career it was the quintet formation which best expressed his approach to tango.

In 1963 he set up his Nuevo Octeto and the same year premiered his Tres Tangos Sinfonicos, under the direction of Paul Klecky, for which he was awarded the Hirsch Prize.

In 1965 he released El Tango, an album for which he collaborated with the Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges. The recording featured his Quinteto together with an orchestra, the singer Edmundo Rivero and Luis Medina Castro reciting texts.

In 1966 he left Dedé Wolff and the following year signed a five year contract with the poet Horacio Ferrer with whom he composed the operetta Maria de Buenos Aires, with lyrics by Ferrer. The work was premiered in May 1968 with the singer Amelita Baltar and introduced a new style of tango, the tango song. Soon after this he began a relationship with Amelita Baltar. The following year he wrote Balada para un loco with lyrics by Ferrer which was premiered at the First Iberoamerican Music Festival with Amelita Baltar and Piazzolla himself conducting the orchestra. Piazzolla was awarded second prize and the composition would prove to be his first popular success.

In 1970 Piazzolla returned to Paris where with Ferrer he wrote the oratorio El pueblo joven premiered in Saarbrucken, Germany in 1971. Back in Buenos Aires he founded his Conjunto 9 (aka Nonet), a chamber music formation, which was a realisation of a dream for Piazzolla and for which he composed some of his most sophisticated music. He now put aside his first Quinteto and made several recordings with his new ensemble in Italy. Within a year the Conjunto 9 had run into financial problems and was dissolved and in 1972 he participated in his first concert at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, sharing the bill with other Tango orchestras.

After a period of great productivity as a composer, he suffered a heart attack in 1973 and that same year he moved to Italy where he began a series of recordings which would span a period of five years. The music publisher Aldo Pagani, a partner in Curti-Pagani Music, had offered Piazzolla a 15 year contract in Rome to record anything he could write. His famous album Libertango was recorded in Milan^[1] in May 1974 and later that year he separated from Amelita Baltar and in September recorded the album Summit-Reunion Cumbre with the saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and an Italian orchestra, including jazz musicians such as bassist Pino Presti and drummer Tullio De Piscopo,^[2] in Milan. The album includes the composition Aire de Buenos Aires by Mulligan.

In 1975 he set up his Electronic Octet an octet made up of bandoneon, electric piano and/or acoustic piano, organ, guitar, electric bass, drums, synthesizer and violin, which was later replaced by a flute or saxophone. Later that year Aníbal Troilo died and Piazzolla composed the Suite Troileana in his memory, a work in four parts, which he recorded with the Conjunto Electronico. At this time Piazzolla started a collaboration with the singer Jose A. Trelles with whom he made a number of recordings.

In December 1976 he played at a concert at the Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires, where he presented his work, “500 motivaciones”, written especially for the Conjunto Electronico, and in 1977 he played another memorable concert at the Olympia in Paris, with a new formation of the Conjunto Electronico.

In 1978 he formed his second Quintet, with which he would tour the world for 11 years, and would make him world renowned. He also returned to writing chamber music and symphonic works.

During the period of Argentine military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, Piazzolla lived in Italy, 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 Ástor Piazzolla, A manera de memorias (a comprehensive collection of interviews, constituting a memoir):^[3]

One year before the Los Largartos issue you went to Videla's house and had lunch with him, why did you accept that invitation? What an invitation! They sent a couple of guys in black suits and a letter with my name on it that said that Videla expected me a particular day in a particular place. I have a book around in some place, with pictures of all the guests: Eladia Blázquez, Daniel Tinayre, Olga Ferri, the composer Juan Carlos Tauriello, there were painters, actors […]

—Ástor Piazzolla, A manera de memorias

Travelling the World[link]

In 1982 he recorded the album Oblivion with an orquestra in Italy for the film Enrico IV, directed by Marco Bellochio, and in May 1982, in the middle of the Falklands War, he played in a concert at the Teatro Regina, Buenos Aires with the second Quinteto and the singer Roberto Goyeneche. That same year he wrote Le Grand Tango for cello and piano, dedicated to Russian cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich which would be premiered by him in 1990 in New Orleans.

On 11 June 1983 he put on one of the best concerts of his life when he played a program of his music at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. For the occasion he regrouped the Conjunto 9 and played solo with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, directed by Pedro Ignacio Calderón. The programme included his 3 movement Concerto for bandoneon and orquestra and his 3 movement Concierto de Nacar.

In June 1984 Piazzolla appeared at the Montreal International Jazz Festival and on 29 September that same year he appeared with his Quinteto and the Italian singer Milva at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris.

In 1985 he was named Illustrious Citizen of Buenos Aires and premiered his Concerto for bandoneon and guitar at the Fifth International Belgian Guitar Festival on 15 Mar 1985, with the Philharmonic conducted by Leo Brouwer. He made his London debut with his second Quinteto at the Almeida Theatre in London at the end of June.

With the film score for El exilio de Gardel he won the French critics Cesar Award in Paris for best film music in 1986.

He appeared at Montreux Jazz Festival, Montreux, Switzerland, with vibraphonist Gary Burton in July 1986 and on 6 September 1987 gave a concert in New York’s Central Park, in the city where he spent his childhood.

In September 1987 he recorded his Concierto para bandoneon y orquesta and Tres tangos para bandoneon y orquesta with Lalo Schifrin conducting the St. Luke’s Orchestra, in the Richardson Auditorium at Princetown University.

In 1988 he wrote music for the film Sur and married the singer and television personality Laura Escalada on 11 April. In May that year he recorded his album La Camorra in New York, a suite of three pieces, the last time he would record with the second Quinteto. During a tour of Japan with Milva he played at a concert in Tokyo in June 1988 and that same year underwent a quadruple by-pass operation.

Early in 1989 he formed his Sexteto, his last ensemble, with two bandoneons, piano, electric guitar, bass and cello. With them he appeared at the Teatro Opera in Buenos Aires in the presence of the newly-elected Argentine President Carlos Menem on Fri 9 June 1989. This would be Piazzolla's last concert in Argentina.

There followed a concert at the Royal Carre Theatre in Amsterdam with his Sexteto and Osvaldo Pugliese’s Orquestra on 26 June 1989, a live recording at the BBC Bristol Studios in June 1989 and a concert at the Wembley Conference Centre on 30 June 1989. Towards the end of the year he dissolved his sexteto and continued playing solo with classical string quartets and symphonic orchestras. He joined Anahi Carfi's Mantova String Quartet and toured Italy and Finland with them and in November 1989 he hade his last album Five Tango Sensations, with the Kronos Quartet in the US. His 1982 composition, Le grand tango, for cello and piano was premiered in New Orleons by the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the pianist Igor Uriash before the end of the year.

On 3 July 1990 he gave his last concert in Athens, Greece, with Athens Orquestra of Colours, conducted by Manos Hatzidakis.

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.

Among his followers, his own protégé Marcelo Nisinman is the best known innovator of the tango music of the new millennium, while Pablo Ziegler, pianist with Piazzolla's second quintet, has assumed the role of principal custodian of nuevo tango, extending the jazz influence in the style. The Brazilian guitarist Sergio Assad has also experimented with folk-derived, complex virtuoso compositions that show Piazzolla's structural influence while steering clear of tango sounds; and Osvaldo Golijov has acknowledged Piazzolla as perhaps the greatest influence on his globally oriented, eclectic compositions for classical and klezmer performers.

Musical style[link]

Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer around 1970.

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. As Argentine psychoanalyst Carlos Kuri has pointed out, Piazzolla's fusion of tango with this wide range of other recognizable Western musical elements was so successful that it produced a new individual style transcending these influences.^[4] It is precisely this success, and individuality, that makes it hard to pin down where particular influences reside in his compositions, but some aspects are clear. The use of the passacaglia technique of a circulating bass line and harmonic sequence, invented and much used in 17th and 18th century baroque music but also central to the idea of jazz "changes", predominates in most of Piazzolla's mature compositions. Another clear reference to the baroque is the often complex and virtuosic counterpoint that sometimes follows strict fugal behavior but more often simply allows each performer in the group to assert his voice. A further technique that emphasises this sense of democracy and freedom among the musicians is improvisation that is borrowed from jazz in concept, but in practice involves a different vocabulary of scales and rhythms that stay within the parameters of the established tango sound-world. Pablo Ziegler has been particularly responsible for developing this aspect of the style both within Piazzolla's groups and since the composer's death.

With the composition of Adiós Nonino in 1959, Piazzolla established a standard structural pattern for his compositions, involving a formal pattern of fast-slow-fast-slow-coda, with the fast sections emphasizing gritty tango rhythms and harsh, angular melodic figures, and the slower sections usually making use of the string instrument in the group and/or Piazzolla's own bandoneón as lyrical soloists. The piano tends to be used throughout as a percussive rhythmic backbone, while the electric guitar either joins in this role or spins filigree improvisations; the double bass parts are usually of little interest, but provide an indispensable rugged thickness to the sound of the ensemble. The quintet of bandoneón, violin, piano, electric guitar and double bass was Piazzolla's preferred setup on two extended occasions during his career, and most critics consider it to be the most successful instrumentation for his works.^[5] This is due partly to its great efficiency in terms of sound – it covers or imitates most sections of a symphony orchestra, including the percussion which is improvised by all players on the bodies of their instruments – and the strong expressive identity it permits each individual musician. With a style that is both rugged and intricate, such a setup augments the compositions' inherent characteristics.

Despite the prevalence of the quintet formation and the ABABC compositional structure, Piazzolla consistently experimented with other musical forms and instrumental combinations. In 1965 an album was released containing collaborations between Piazzolla and Jorge Luis Borges where Borges's poetry was narrated over very avant-garde music by Piazzolla including the use of dodecaphonic (twelve-tone) rows, free non-melodic improvisation on all instruments, and modal harmonies and scales.^[6] In 1968 Piazzolla wrote and produced an "operita", María de Buenos Aires, that employed a larger ensemble including flute, percussion, multiple strings and three vocalists, and juxtaposed movements in Piazzolla's own style with several pastiche numbers ranging from waltz and hurdy-gurdy to a piano/narrator bar-room scena straight out of Casablanca.

By the 1970s Piazzolla was living in Rome, managed by the Italian agent Aldo Pagani, and exploring a leaner, more fluid musical style drawing on more jazz influence, and with simpler, more continuous forms. Pieces that exemplify this new direction include Libertango and most of the Suite Troileana, written in memory of the late Aníbal Troilo. In the 1980s Piazzolla was wealthy enough, for the first time, to become relatively autonomous artistically, and wrote some of his most ambitious multi-movement works. These included Tango Suite for the virtuoso guitar duo Sergio and Odair Assad; Histoire du Tango, where a flutist and guitarist tell the history of tango in four chunks of music styled at thirty-year intervals; and La Camorra, a suite in three ten minute movements, inspired by the Neapolitan crime family and exploring symphonic concepts of large-scale form, thematic development, contrasts of texture and massive accumulations of ensemble sound. After making three albums in New York with the second quintet and producer Kip Hanrahan, two of which he described on separate occasions as "the greatest thing I've done", he disbanded the quintet, formed a sextet with an extra bandoneón, cello, bass, electric guitar, and piano, and wrote music for this ensemble that was even more adventurous harmonically and structurally than any of his previous works (Preludio y Fuga; Sex-tet). Had he not suffered an incapacitating stroke on the way to Notre Dame mass in 1990, it is likely that he would have continued to use his popularity as a performer of his own works to experiment in relative safety with even more audacious musical techniques, while possibly responding to the surging popularity of non-Western musics by finding ways to incorporate new styles into his own. In his musical professionalism and open-minded attitude to existing styles he held the mindset of an 18th century composing performer such as Handel or Mozart, who were anxious to assimilate all national "flavors" of their day into their own compositions, and who always wrote with both first-hand performing experience and a sense of direct social relationship with their audiences. This may have resulted in a backlash amongst conservative tango aficionados in Argentina, but in the rest of the West it was the key to his extremely sympathetic reception among classical and jazz musicians, both seeing some of the best aspects of their musical practices reflected in his work.^[7]

Musical career[link]

Astor Piazzolla and Gerry Mulligan at the "Summit" recording, Milan, Italy 1974.
Photograph by Pino Presti

Piazzolla, after leaving Troilo's orchestra in the 1940s, led numerous ensembles beginning with the 1946 Orchestra, the 1955 Octeto Buenos Aires, the 1960 "First Quintet", the 1971 Conjunto 9 ("Noneto"), the 1978 "Second Quintet" and the 1989 New Tango Sextet. As well as providing original compositions and arrangements, he was the director and bandoneón player in all of them. He also recorded the album Summit with jazz baritone saxophonist 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", pieces for the solo classical guitar—the Cinco Piezas (1980), 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.

In the summer of 1985 he appeared with his Quinteto Tango Nuevo at the Almeida Theatre in London for a week-long engagement. On September 6, 1987, his quintet gave a concert in New York's Central Park, which was recorded and, in 1994, released in compact disk format as The Central Park Concert. [2]

Piazzolla’s Ensembles[link]

• Orquesta Típica (in English: Piazzolla's Traditional Orchestra), aka the 1946 Orchestra, 1946-50.
• Orquesta de Cuerdas (in English: String Orchestra), 1955-1958.
• Octeto Buenos Aires (in English: Buenos Aires Octet) 1955-58.
• Jazz Tango Quintet, 1959.
• Quinteto (in English: Quintet), aka the first Quintet, 1960-70.
• Nuevo Octeto (in English: New Octet), 1963.
• Conjunto 9 (in English: Ensemble 9), aka Noneto, 1971-72 & 1983.
• Conjunto Electronico (in English: Electronic Ensemble), aka Electronic Octet, 1975.
• Quinteto Tango Nuevo (in English: New Tango Quintet), aka the second Quintet, 1978-1988.
• Sexteto Nuevo Tango (in English: New Tango Sextet), 1989.

Film Music[link]

Michael "Mike" Figgis (born 28 February 1948) is an English film director, writer, and composer.^[1]

Personal life[link]

Figgis was born in Carlisle, England and grew up in Africa. Figgis for several years had a relationship with the actress Saffron Burrows and cast her in several films. He is cousin to Irish filmmakers Jonathan Figgis and Jason Figgis who run the award-winning film production company October Eleven Pictures in Ireland. His sons Arlen Figgis and Louis Figgis have also followed their father in to the film industry, as editor and producer respectively.

Career[link]

Figgis's early interest was in music and he played keyboards for Bryan Ferry's first band. In 1983 he directed a theatre play, produced in Theatre Gerard-Philipe (Saint-Denis, Paris, France). This play performed with great success at Festival de Grenada and in Theater der Welt (Munich, Germany).

After working in theatre (he was a musician and performer in the experimental group People Show)^[1] he made his feature film debut with the low budget Stormy Monday in 1988. The film earned him attention as a director who could get interesting performances from established Hollywood actors. He initially made a splash in America in the 1990s with the gritty thriller Internal Affairs that helped to revive the career of Richard Gere. His next Hollywood feature Mr. Jones was misunderstood by the studio who attempted to market the downbeat story as a feelgood movie resulting in a box office flop. Figgis poured his disenchantment with the film industry into Leaving Las Vegas, creating star turns for Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue which earned Figgis Academy Award nominations for Best Directing and Best Screenplay. His most ambitious film to date is the low budget film The Loss of Sexual Innocence, a loosely based autobiographical movie of the director himself.

Forays into digital video technology led him to conceive of and direct Timecode, which took advantage of the technology to create an ensemble film shot simultaneously with four cameras all in one take and also presented simultaneously and uncut, dividing the screen into four quarters. Since then, his work output has almost exclusively been on the cutting edge of creative digital filmmaking, with the exception of star-laden Cold Creek Manor.^[1] He returned to the Timecode quad-screen approach for his section of Ten Minutes Older, but has also worked on documentary pieces including a segment of The Blues (called Red, White, and Blues) and a short piece on flamenco. His curiosity with the cinematic use of time has led him to cite Robert Enrico's 1962 film version of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge as an influential film for him. Figgis has a well-documented love-hate relationship with the Hollywood system which leads him to often be an outspoken critic of the system while also despairing the lack of a better alternative, in his mind, at the moment. At an appearance at Camerimage in 2005, he expressed the view that filmmaking had become "boring and perhaps need[ed] to become even worse before anything better can emerge" successfully at least in reaction.

He was the founding patron of the independent filmmakers online community Shooting People. At one of their events in 2005 he said that filmmaking with a small digital camera made the experience more like painting or novel writing than the movie industry. His fascination with camera technology has also led him to create a camera stabilization rig for smaller video cameras, called the Fig Rig which places the camera on a platform held within a steering wheel-like system and has since been released by Manfrotto Group.^[2]

In 2007, Figgis shot his newest feature Love Live Long set between Istanbul and Bratislava on the infamous Gumball 3000 Rally, starring Sophie Winkleman and Daniel Lapaine.

Since 2008 Mike Figgis is professor of film studies at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he conducts intensive summer seminars.^[1]

In 2008, Figgis was called upon by Transport for London to help shoot a PIF entitled A Little Thought From Each of Us, A Big Difference For Everyone, encouraging more considerate behaviour on London's public transport systems, which was then shown in London cinemas. The ad comprised the screen split into four sections, each section showing one of four scenarios all on the same double-decker bus. At the end of the ad, the friction-creating scenarios were resolved and the ad ended on "A little thought from each of us. A big difference for everyone."

To promote a new camera phone, Sony Ericsson commissioned Mike Figgis to create Life Captured - a short film made out of mobile phone snapshots taken by fourteen people from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, who were selected to submit a series of photos after winning the global Life captured competition.^[3]

Filmography[link]

• The House (1984)
• Stormy Monday (1988)
• Internal Affairs (1990)
• Women & Men 2: In Love There Are No Rules (1991)
• Liebestraum (1991)
• Mr. Jones (1993)
• The Browning Version (1994)
• Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
• Flamenco Women (1997)
• One Night Stand (1997)
• The Loss of Sexual Innocence (1999)
• Miss Julie (1999)
• Timecode (2000)
• Hotel (2001)
• The Battle of Orgreave (2001)
• Ten Minutes Older: The Cello (2002) Segment: About Time 2
• The Blues (2003) - Episode: Red, White, And Blues
• Cold Creek Manor (2003)
• The Sopranos - Episode: Cold Cuts (2004)
• Co/Ma (2004)
• Love Live Long (2008)
• The Co(te)lette Film (2010)

Bibliography[link]

• Mike Figgis: Collected Screenplays 1 –– Stormy Monday, Liebestraum, Leaving Las Vegas (2002)
• Digital Filmmaking (2007)

References[link]

External links[link]

• [1] Wellcome Trust oral-history interview from July 2009
• Mike Figgis Faculty page at European Graduate School (Includes biography, filmography, photos and video lectures)
• Mike Figgis at the Internet Movie Database
• Mike Figgis biography and credits at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Digital Filmmaking book
• A short film for Agent Provocateur
• Interview
• Mike Figgis judged the Film of the Month competition in January 2009 on the independent filmmakers networking site Shooting People.

Gabrielle "Coco" Bonheur Chanel (19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971)^[1] was an influential French fashion designer, founder of the famous brand Chanel, whose modernist thought, practical design, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important and influential figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the only fashion designer to be named on Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century.^[2]

Early life[link]

Gabrielle Chanel was born to an unwed mother, Jeanne Devolle, a laundrywoman, in "the charity hospital run by the Sisters of Providence"^[3] in Saumur, France. She was Devolle's second daughter. The father, Albert Chanel was an itinerant street peddler who lived a nomadic life, traveling to and from market towns, the family residing in rundown lodgings. He married Jeanne Devolle several years after Chanel was born, in 1884,^[4] after Jeanne's family "united, effectively, to pay Albert to marry her".^[5] At birth Chanel’s name was entered into the official registry as “Chasnel.” Jeanne was too unwell to attend the registration and Albert was registered as "travelling".^[3] With both parents absent, Gabrielle's last name was misspelt, probably due to a clerical error. The couple eventually had five other children: Julia-Berthe, (1882–1912), Antoinette (born 1887) and three brothers, Alphonse (born 1885 died 2001), Lucien (born 1889) and Augustin (born and died 1814).

In 1895, when Gabrielle was twelve years old, her mother died of bronchitis.^[6] She was only thirty-one years old.^[6] Gabrielle's father sent his two sons out to work as farm laborers and his three daughters to the Corrèze, in central France to the convent of Aubazine, whose religious order, the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary, was "founded to care for the poor and rejected, including running homes for abandoned and orphaned girls".^[7] It was a stark, frugal life demanding strict discipline. At age eighteen, Chanel, now too old to remain at Aubazine, went to live in a boarding house set aside for Catholic girls in the town of Moulins.^[8]

Having learned the sewing arts during her six years at Aubazine, Chanel was able to find employment as a seamstress. When not plying her trade with a needle, she sang in a cabaret frequented by cavalry officers. It was at this time that Gabrielle acquired the name “Coco,” a name possibly derived from a popular song she sang, or an allusion to the French word for kept woman: cocotte.^[8] As cafe entertainer, Chanel broadcast a juvenile allure and suggestion of a mysterious androgyny, tantalizing the military habitués of the cabaret.^[8]

Later in life, she concocted an elaborate, fabricated history to cover up her humble beginnings with a more compelling light. Of the various stories told about Coco Chanel, a great number were of her own invention. These legends were to be the undoing of the earliest of her biographies. These were ghosted memoirs commissioned by Chanel herself, but never published, always aborted before fruition, as she realized that the facts exposed a personage less laudatory than the mythic Chanel she had self-invented. Chanel would steadfastly claim that when her mother died, her father sailed for America to seek his fortune and she was sent to live with two cold-hearted spinster aunts. She even claimed to have been born in 1893 as opposed to 1883, and that her mother had died when Coco was two instead of twelve.^[9]

Personal life and early career[link]

Gabrielle Dorziat modelling a Chanel hat, May 1912. Published in Les Modes.

It was at Moulins that Chanel met a young, French, ex-cavalry officer, and wealthy textile heir Étienne Balsan. At age twenty-three, Chanel became Balsan’s mistress and for the next three years lived with him in his chateau Royallieu near Compiègne, an area known for its wooded equestrian paths and the hunting life.^[10] It was a life style of self-indulgence, Balsan’s wealth and leisure allowing the cultivation of a social set who reveled in partying and the gratification of human appetites with all the implied accompanying decadence. Balsan lavished Chanel with the beauties of "the rich life"— diamonds, dresses, and pearls. It was while living with Balsan that Chanel began designing hats, initially as a diversion that evolved into a commercial enterprise. Biographer Justine Picardie, in her 2010 study Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life (Harper Collins), suggests that the fashion designer's nephew, André Palasse, supposedly the only child of her sister Julia- Berthe who had committed suicide, actually was Chanel's child by Balsan.

Caricature by Sem of Chanel dancing with Boy Capel, 1913.

In 1908 Chanel began an affair with one of Balsan's friends, Captain Arthur Edward 'Boy' Capel.^[11] In later years Chanel reminisced of this time in her life: “...two gentlemen were outbidding for my hot little body.” ^[12] Capel, a wealthy member of the English upper-class, installed Chanel in an apartment in Paris ^[13] and financed Chanel's first shops. It is said Capel's own sartorial style influenced the conception of the Chanel look. The bottle design for Chanel No. 5 had two probable origins, both attributable to the sophisticated design sensibilities of Capel. It is believed Chanel adapted the rectangular, beveled lines of the Charvet toilery bottles he carried in his leather traveling case ^[14] or it was the design of the whiskey decanter Capel used, and Chanel so admired that she wished to reproduce it in “exquisite, expensive, delicate glass.” ^[15] The couple spent time together at fashionable resorts such as Deauville, but he was never faithful to Chanel.^[16] The affair lasted nine years, but even after Capel married an aristocratic English beauty in 1918, he did not completely break off with Chanel. His death in a car accident, in late 1919, was the single most devastating event in Chanel's life.^[17] She commissioned the placement of a roadside memorial at the site of the accident, which she visited in later years to lay flowers in remembrance.^[18] Twenty-five years after the event, Chanel then residing in Switzerland, confided to her friend Paul Morand: "His death was a terrible blow to me. In losing Capel, I lost everything. What followed was not a life of happiness I have to say." ^[19]

Chanel became a licensed modiste (hat maker) in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 rue Cambon, Paris named Chanel Modes.^[20] Chanel's modiste career bloomed once theatre actress Gabrielle Dorziat modelled her hats in the F Noziere's play Bel Ami in 1912 (Subsequently, Dorziat modelled her hats again in Les Modes).^[20] In 1913, she established a boutique in Deauville, where she introduced luxe casual clothes that were suitable for leisure and sport.^[20] Chanel launched her career as fashion designer when she opened her next boutique, titled Chanel-Biarritz, in 1915,^[20] catering to the wealthy Spanish clientele who holidayed in Biarritz and were less affected by the war.^[21] Fashionable like Deauville, Chanel created loose casual clothes made out of jersey, a material typically used for men's underwear.^[20] By 1919, Chanel was registered as a couturiere and established her maison de couture at 31 rue Cambon.^[20]

In 1920, she was introduced by ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev to Igor Stravinsky. Now a notable patron of the arts, Chanel guaranteed the production of the ballet Le Sacre du Printemps (“The Rite of Spring”) against financial loss, and provided her new home Bel Respiro, located in a Paris suburb, as a residence for composer Stravinsky and his family. ^[22] In addition to turning out her couture collections, Chanel threw her prodigious energies into designing dance costumes for the cutting-edge Ballet Russe. Between the years 1923-1937, she collaborated on productions choreographed by Diaghilev and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, notably Le Train bleu, a dance-opera, Orphée and Oedipe Roi. ^[23]

In 1924, Chanel made an agreement with the Wertheimer brothers, Pierre and Paul, directors of the eminent perfume house Bourgeois since 1917, creating a corporate entity, "Parfums Chanel." The Wertheimers agreed to provide full financing for production, marketing and distribution of Chanel No. 5. For ten percent of the stock, Chanel licensed her name to "Parfums Chanel" and removed herself from involvement in all business operations.^[24] Displeased with the arrangement, Chanel worked for more than twenty years to gain full control of "Parfums Chanel."^[24] She proclaimed that Pierre Wertheimer was “the bandit who screwed me.”^[25]

One of Chanel’s longest and enduring associations was with Misia Sert, a notorious member of the Parisian, bohemian elite and wife of Spanish painter José-Maria Sert. It is said that theirs was an immediate bond of like souls, and Misia was attracted to Chanel by “her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal destructiveness, which intrigued and appalled everyone.” ^[26] Both women, convent bred, maintained a friendship of shared interests, confidences and drug use. By 1935, Chanel had become a habitual drug user, injecting herself with morphine on a daily basis until the end of her life.^[27] According to Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent, Luca Turin related an apocryphal story in circulation that Chanel was "called Coco because she threw the most fabulous cocaine parties in Paris" ^[28]

Perfume Chanel No. 5

In 1923, Vera Bate Lombardi, born Sarah Gertrude Arkwright,^[29] reputedly the illegitimate daughter of the Marquess of Cambridge,^[29] afforded Chanel entry into the highest levels of British aristocracy. It was an elite group of associations revolving around such personages as Winston Churchill, aristocrats such as the Duke of Westminster and royals such as Edward, Prince of Wales. It was in Monte Carlo in 1923, at age forty-two that Chanel was introduced by Lombardi to the vastly wealthy Duke of Westminster, Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, known to his intimates as “Bendor”. The Duke of Westminster lavished Chanel with extravagant jewels, costly art, and a home in Mayfair. In 1929, he gifted her with a parcel of land he had purchased near Monte Carlo where Chanel built an opulent villa, La Pausa.^[30] His affair with Chanel lasted ten years.^[31] The Duke, an outspoken anti-Semite, intensified Chanel’s inherent antipathy toward Jews and shared with her an expressed homophobia. In 1946, Chanel is quoted by her friend and confidante, Paul Morand: “Homosexuals? ...I have seen young women ruined by these awful queers: drugs, divorce, scandal. They will use any means to destroy a competitor and to wreak vengeance on a woman. The queers want to be women—but they are lousy women. They are charming!” ^[32] Coinciding with her introduction to the Duke, was her introduction, again through Lombardi, to Lombardi's cousin, the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII. The Prince became smitten with Chanel and pursued her in spite of her involvement with the Duke of Westminster. It is said that he visited Chanel in her apartment and requested that she call him “David,” a privilege reserved only for his closest friends and family. Years later, Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue, would insist: “the passionate, focused and fiercely independent Chanel, a virtual tour de force,” and the Prince, “had a great romantic moment together.” ^[33]

It was in 1931 while in Monte Carlo that Chanel made the acquaintance of Samuel Goldwyn. The introduction was made through a mutual friend, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, cousin to the last czar of Russia, Nicolas II. Goldwyn offered Chanel a tantalizing proposition. For the sum of a million dollars (approximately seventy-five million today), he would bring her to Hollywood twice a year to design costumes for MGM stars. Chanel accepted the offer. En route to California from New York traveling in a white train car, which had been luxuriously outfitted specifically for her use, she was interviewed by Colliers magazine in 1932. Chanel said she had agreed to the arrangement to "see what the pictures have to offer me and what I have to offer the pictures."^[34] This enterprise with the film industry left Chanel with a dislike for the business of movie making and distaste for the Hollywood culture itself, which she denounced as “infantile.” ^[35] Chanel's verdict was that: "Hollywood is the capital of bad taste...and it is vulgar."^[36] Ultimately, her design aesthetic did not translate well to film. The New Yorker speculated that Chanel had left Hollywood because "they told her her dresses weren't sensational enough. She made a lady look like a lady. Hollywood wants a lady to look like two ladies."^[37] Chanel went on to design the costumes for several French films, including Jean Renoir's 1939 film La Règle du jeu where she was credited as La Maison Chanel. Left-wing Renoir was a friend of Chanel's – it was Chanel who introduced him to Luchino Visconti. Knowing that the shy Italian count wanted to work in film, Chanel introduced him to Renoir, who liked him and had him work with him on his next film.^[38]

Chanel was the mistress of some of the most influential men of her time, but she never married. She had affairs with the poet Pierre Reverdy, and illustrator and designer, Paul Iribe. After her romance with Reverdy ended in 1926, they still maintained a friendship which lasted some forty years.^[39] Her involvement with Iribe was a deep one until his sudden death in 1935. Iribe and Chanel shared the same reactionary politics, Chanel financing Iribe's monthly, ultra-nationalist and anti-republican newsletter, Le Témoin, which fueled an irrational fear of foreigners and preached anti-Semitism.^[40][41] One year after Le Témoin stopped publication, however, in 1936, Chanel also financed Pierre Lestringuez's radical left-wing magazine Futur^[42].

When asked why she did not marry the The Duke of Westminster, she stated: "There have been several Duchesses of Westminster. There is only one Chanel."^[43]

Chanel was, "the first [designer] to show black dresses to be worn at any time." ^[44]

As the 1930s progressed, Chanel’s place on the throne of haute couture came under threat. The boyish look and the short skirts of the 1920s flapper seemed to disappear overnight. Chanel’s designs for film stars in Hollywood had met with failure, and had not aggrandized her reputation as expected. More significantly, Chanel’s star had been eclipsed by her premier rival, the designer, Elsa Schiaparelli. Schiaparelli’s innovative design, replete with playful references to Surrealism was creating much enthusiasm and excitement in the fashion world. Feeling she was losing her avant-garde edge, Chanel proceeded to collaborate with Jean Cocteau on his theatre piece, Oedipe Rex. The costumes she designed were mocked and critically lambasted: “Wrapped in bandages the actors looked like ambulant mummies or victims of some terrible accident.” ^[45]

World War II[link]

In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Chanel closed her shops, maintaining her apartment situated above the couture house at 31 rue Cambon. She claimed that it was not a time for fashion.^[21] Three thousand female employees lost their jobs.^[46] The advent of war had given Chanel the opportunity to retaliate against those workers who, lobbying for fair wages and work hours, had closed down her business operation during the general labor strike in France in 1936. In closing her couture house, Chanel made a definitive statement of her political views. Her violent loathing of Jews, inculcated by her convent years and sharpened by her association with society elites had solidified her beliefs. She shared with most of her circle the conviction that Jews were a Bolshevik threat to Europe.^[46] During the German occupation Chanel resided at the Hotel Ritz, which was also noteworthy for being the preferred place of residence for upper echelon German military staff. Her romantic liaison with Hans Günther von Dincklage, a German officer who had been an operative in military intelligence since 1920,^[47] facilitated her arrangement to reside at the Ritz.^[48]

World War II, specifically the Nazi seizure of all Jewish-owned property and business enterprises, provided Chanel with the opportunity to gain the full monetary fortune generated by "Parfums Chanel" and its most profitable product, Chanel No. 5. The directors of "Parfums Chanel," the Wertheimers, were Jewish, and Chanel used her position as an “Aryan” to petition German officials to legalize her claim to sole ownership. On May 5, 1941, she wrote to the government administrator charged with ruling on the disposition of Jewish financial assets. Her grounds for proprietary ownership were based on the claim that “Parfums Chanel “is still the property of Jews”...and had been legally “abandoned” by the owners.^[49] “I have,” she wrote, “an indisputable right of priority...the profits that I have received from my creations since the foundation of this business...are disproportionate...[and] you can help to repair in part the prejudices I have suffered in the course of these seventeen years.”^[50] Chanel was not aware that the Wertheimers, anticipating the forthcoming Nazi mandates against Jews had, in May 1940, legally turned control of “Parfums Chanel” over to a Christian, French businessman and industrialist, Felix Amiot.^[49]

Ultimately, the Wertheimers and Chanel came to a mutual accommodation, re-negotiating the original 1924 contract. On May 17, 1947, Chanel received wartime profits from the sale of Chanel No. 5, in an amount equivalent to some nine million dollars in twenty-first century valuation. Further, her future share would be two percent of all Chanel No. 5 sales worldwide. The financial benefit to her would be enormous. Her earnings would be in the vicinity of twenty-five million dollars a year, making her at the time one of the richest women in the world. In addition, Pierre Wertheimer agreed to an unusual stipulation proposed by Chanel herself. Wertheimer agreed to pay all of Chanel’s living expenses— from the trivial to the large— for the rest of her life.^[51][52]

Activity as Nazi agent[link]

Archival documents unearthed by Hal Vaughan reveal that the French Préfecture de Police had a document on Chanel in which she was described as 'Couturier and perfumer. Pseudonym: Westminster. Agent reference: F 7124. Signalled as suspect in the file" (Pseudonyme: Westminster. Indicatif d'agent: F 7124. Signalée come suspecte au fichier").^[53] Vaughan concludes from this that Chanel acted as a Nazi spy, although this has been the subject of controversy.^[54] Anti-Nazi activist Serge Klarsfeld thus declared that "It is not because Chanel had a spy number that she was necessarily personally implicated. Some informers had numbers without being aware of it." ("Ce n'est pas parce Coco Chanel avait un numéro d'espion qu'elle était nécessairement impliquée personnellement. Certains indicateurs avaient des numéros sans le savoir").^[55] Vaughan believes that Chanel committed herself to the German cause as early as 1941 and worked for General Walter Schellenberg, chief of SS intelligence.^[56] At war’s end, Schellenberg was tried by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, and sentenced to six years imprisonment for war crimes. He was released in 1951 due to incurable liver disease, and took refuge in Italy. Chanel paid for Schellenberg’s medical care and living expenses for himself, wife and family until his death in 1952 (She also paid for his funeral).^[57]

“Operation Modellhut”[link]

In 1943, Chanel traveled to Berlin with Dinklage to meet with SS Reichsführer, Heinrich Himmler to formulate strategy.^[56] In late 1943 or early 1944, Chanel and her SS master, Schellenberg, devised a plan to press England to end hostilities with Germany. When interrogated by British intelligence at war’s end, Schellenberg maintained that Chanel was “a person who knew Churchill sufficiently to undertake political negotiations with him.” ^[58] For this mission, named “Operation Modellhut,” (“Model Hat”) they recruited Vera Lombardi. Count Joseph von Ledebur-Wicheln, a Nazi agent, who defected to the British Secret Service in 1944, recalled a meeting he had with Dinklage in early 1943. Dinklage proposed an inducement that would tantalize Chanel. He informed von Ledebur that Chanel's participation in the operation would be ensured if Lombardi was included: “The Abwehr had first to bring to France a young Italian woman [Lombardi] Coco Chanel was attached to because of her lesbian vices...”^[59] Unaware of the machinations of Schellenberg and her old friend Chanel, Lombardi played the part of their unwitting dupe, led to believe that the forthcoming journey to Spain would be a business trip exploring the possibilities of establishing the Chanel couture in Madrid. Lombardi's role was to act as intermediary, delivering a letter penned by Chanel to Winston Churchill, and forwarded to him via the British embassy in Madrid.^[60] Schellenberg’s SS laison officer, Captain Walter Kutcschmann, acted as bagman, “told to deliver a large sum of money to Chanel in Madrid.”^[61] Ultimately, the mission proved a failure. British intelligence files reveal that all collapsed, as Lombardi, on arrival, proceeded to denounce Chanel and others as Nazi spies.^[62]

Protection from prosecution[link]

In September 1944, Chanel was called in to be interrogated by the Free French Purge Committee, the épuration. The committee, which had no documented evidence of her collaboration activity, was obliged to release her. According to Chanel’s grand-niece, Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, when Chanel returned home she said, “Churchill had me freed”. ^[63]

The extent of Winston Churchill’s intervention can only be speculated upon. However, Chanel’s escape from prosecution certainly speaks of layers of conspiracy, protection at the highest levels. It was feared that if Chanel were ever made to testify at trial, the pro-Nazi sympathies and activities of top-level British officials, members of the society elite and those of the royal family itself would be exposed. It is believed that Churchill instructed Duff Cooper, British ambassador to the French provisional government, to “protect Chanel”. ^[64]

Finally induced to appear in Paris before investigators in 1949, Chanel left her retreat in Switzerland to confront testimony given against her at the war crime trial of Baron Louis de Vaufreland, a French traitor and highly placed German intelligence agent. Chanel denied all accusations brought against her. She offered the presiding judge, Leclercq, a character reference: “I could arrange for a declaration to come from Mr. Duff Cooper.” ^[65]

Chanel’s friend and biographer Marcel Haedrich provided a telling estimation of her wartime interaction with the Nazi regime: “If one took seriously the few disclosures that Mademoiselle Chanel allowed herself to make about those black years of the occupation, one’s teeth would be set on edge.”^[66]

Haute couture Chanel suit circa 1960

Post-war life and career[link]

In 1945, she moved to Switzerland, eventually returning to Paris in 1954, the same year she returned to the fashion world.^[21] The re-establishment of her couture house in 1954 was fully financed by Chanel’s old nemesis in the perfume battle, Pierre Wertheimer. ^[67] Her new collection was not received well by Parisians whose memory of Chanel's treasonous collaboration with the Nazis still resonated in the public mind. However, her return to couture was applauded by the British and Americans, who became her faithful customers.^[68]

Death[link]

In early 1971 Chanel, then 87-years old, was tired and ailing but continued to adhere to her usual schedule, overseeing the preparation of the spring collection. She died on Sunday, January, 10th at the Hotel Ritz where she had resided for more than thirty years.^[69] She had gone for a long drive that afternoon and, not feeling well, had retired early to bed.^[70]

Legacy as design revolutionary[link]

As early as 1915, Harper's Bazaar raved over Chanel’s designs: “The woman who hasn’t at least one Chanel is hopelessly out of fashion...This season the name Chanel is on the lips of every buyer.” ^[71] Chanel’s ascendancy as a fashion avatar was the official deathblow to the corseted female silhouette. The frills, fuss, and constraints endured by earlier generations of women were now passé. Her genius redefined the fashionable woman for the post WW I era. The Chanel trademark was a look of youthful ease, a liberated physicality, and unencumbered sportive confidence.

The horse culture and penchant for hunting so passionately pursued by the elites, especially the British, fired Chanel’s imagination. Her own enthusiastic indulgence in the sporting life led to clothing designs informed by those activities. From her excursions on water with the yachting world, she appropriated the clothing associated with nautical pursuits: the horizontal striped shirt, bell bottom pants, crewneck sweaters, and espadrille shoes—all traditionally worn by sailors and fishermen.^[72]

Ethnic influence[link]

Designers such as Paul Poiret and Fortuny introduced ethnic references into haute couture in the 1900s and early 1910s.^[73] Chanel continued this trend with Slav-inspired designs in the early 1920s. The beading and embroidery on her garments at this time was exclusively executed by Kitmir, an embroidery house founded by an exiled Russian aristocrat, the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the sister of her erstwhile lover, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich.^[74][75] Kitmir's fusion of oriental stitching with stylised folk motifs was highlighted in Chanel's early collections.^[75] One 1922 evening dress came with a matching embroidered 'babushka' headscarf.^[75] In addition to the headscarf, Chanel clothing from this period featured square-necked tunic tops and elbow length sleeves alluding to Russian peasant attire, with chenille cloche hats for day wear. Evening designs were often embroidered with sparkling crystal and black jet embroidery.^[76]

The Chanel suit[link]

Her initial triumph was the innovative use of jersey fabric, a material traditionally relegated to the manufacture of undergarments. Her wool jersey traveling suit consisted of a cardigan jacket, and pleated skirt, paired with a low-belted pullover top. This ensemble, worn with low-heeled shoes, became the casual look in expensive women’s wear.^[77]

The "little black dress"[link]

The concept of the “little black dress,” is often cited as a Chanel contribution to the fashion lexicon and as an article of clothing survives to this day. Its first incarnation was executed in thin silk, crèpe de chine, and had long sleeves.^[78] Upon its conception, it was lauded as a fashion-forward look—a spare sexiness that resonated with the young, fashionable woman of the 1920s.^{[citation needed]} An unadorned garment of this cut also served as the perfect foil for accessories—belts and particularly ropes of pearls, and jewelry worn in dramatic arrays.^{[citation needed]}

Costume jewelry[link]

Ever the canny innovator, Chanel turned unenviable costume jewelry into a coveted accessory—especially when worn in excess displays, as did Chanel herself. Originally inspired by the opulent, costly jewels and pearls gifted to her by her aristocratic lovers, Chanel raided her own jewel vault and partnered with Duke Fulco di Verdura to launch a House of Chanel jewelry line. The fashionable and wealthy loved the creations and made it wildly successful. Ever the oracle for the modern, society elite, Chanel put forth her own disingenuous PR statement delivered in the inevitable dictatorial manner: “It’s disgusting to walk around with millions around the neck because one happens to be rich. I only like fake jewelry...because it’s provocative.”^[79]

Film depictions[link]

The first film about Chanel was Chanel Solitaire (1981), directed by George Kaczender and starring Marie-France Pisier, Timothy Dalton, and Rutger Hauer.

The American television movie Coco Chanel debuted on 13 September 2008 on Lifetime Television, starring Shirley MacLaine as a 70-year-old Chanel. Directed by Christian Duguay, the film also starred Barbora Bobulova as the young Chanel, Olivier Sitruk as Boy Capel, and Malcolm McDowell. The movie substantially rewrote Chanel's personal history, such as its portrayal of her status as a professional mistress as instead a series of "love stories," and glossing over both her Nazi collaboration and her use of British Royal connections to avoid post-war trial as a collaborator.

A film starring Audrey Tautou as the young Coco, titled Coco avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel), was released on 22 April 2009. Audrey Tautou is the new spokeswoman of Chanel S.A.

The film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, directed by Jan Kounen and starring Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen, concerns the purported affair between Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. The film is based on the 2002 novel Coco & Igor by Chris Greenhalgh, and was chosen to close the Cannes Film Festival of 2009.^[80] Two more projects are said to be in the works, including one directed by Daniele Thompson.^[81]

Literary depictions[link]

Coco & Igor is a novel, written by Chris Greenhalgh, which depicts the affair between Chanel and Igor Stravinsky and the creative achievements that this affair inspired. The novel was first published in 2003.

In 2008 a children's book entitled Different like Coco was published. It depicted the humble childhood of Coco Chanel and chronicled how she made drastic changes to the fashion industry.

Chanel boutique on Rodeo Drive (Beverly Hills)

The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman is a novel written by Karen Karbo. Published in 2009, it chronicles the humble beginnings and legendary achievements of Coco Chanel while providing insight and advice on everything from embracing the moment to living life on your own terms.

Stage depictions[link]

The Broadway musical Coco, music by Andre Previn, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, opened 18 December 1969 and closed 3 October 1970. It is set in 1953–1954 at the time that Chanel was reestablishing her couture house. Chanel was played by Katharine Hepburn for the first eight months, and by Danielle Darrieux for the rest of its run.

References[link]

Footnotes[link]

Works cited[link]

• Chaney, Lisa (2011). Chanel: An Intimate Life. London: Fig Tree. ISBN 9781905490363. 
• Vaughan, Hal (2011). Sleeping with the enemy : Coco Chanel's secret war. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-59263-7. 
• Mazzeo, Tilar J. (2010). The Secret of Chanel No. 5. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-179101-7. 

Further reading[link]

• Chaney, Lisa (2011). Chanel: An Intimate Life. Fig Tree. ISBN 9781905490363. 
• Charles-Roux, Edmonde (2005). The World of Coco Chanel: Friends, Fashion, Fame. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-51216-6. 
• Davis, Mary (December 2006). "Chanel, Stravinsky, and Musical Chic". Fashion Theory 10 (4): 431–60. DOI:10.2752/136270406778664986. 
• Fiemeyer, Isabelle (2011). Intimate Chanel. Flammarion. ISBN 978-2-080-30162-8. 
• Madsen, Axel (2009). Coco Chanel: A Biography. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. ISBN 978-1408805817. 
• Morand, Paul (2009). The Allure of Chanel. Pushkin Press. ISBN 978-1-901285-98-7. 
• Picardie, Justine (2010). Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-196385-8. 
• Simon, Linda (2011). Coco Chanel. Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-86189-859-3.  (Reviewed in The Montreal Review)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Coco Chanel

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Coco Chanel

• Official Site of Chanel
• Coco Chanel in the 1920s
• Coco Chanel designer profile at Fashion Model Directory
• Coco Chanel in the Art Deco Era
• Sewing patterns by Chanel
• Coco Chanel, Boy Capel and the Monsignor
• Interactive timeline of couture houses and couturier biographies Victoria and Albert Museum

v t e Chanel Designers Coco Chanel · Karl Lagerfeld Owners Alain Wertheimer · Gerard Wertheimer · Jacques Wertheimer · Pierre Wertheimer Garments Little black dress · Pink Chanel suit of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Perfumes Bois des Îles · Chanel No. 5 · Chanel No. 19 · Chanel No. 22 · Coco Mademoiselle · Cuir de Russie Perfumers Ernest Beaux · Jacques Polge · Henri Robert Handbags Chanel 2.55 Watches Chanel J12 Spokesmodels Carole Bouquet · Catherine Deneuve · Inès de La Fressange · Nicole Kidman · Keira Knightley · Kate Moss · Vanessa Paradis · Audrey Tautou  · Gaspard Ulliel Films Chanel Solitaire · Coco Before Chanel · Coco Chanel · Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

Pablo Ziegler Salzano (born September 2, 1944) is an Argentine composer based in Buenos Aires and New York City. He is currently the leading exponent of nuevo tango, thanks to the skills and reputation he gathered while working extensively as Ástor Piazzolla's regular pianist from 1978 until the maestro's retirement for health reasons in 1989. He played with Piazzolla's re-formed Conjunto 9 in 1983 for his Teatro Colón concert with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic. In 1985 Ziegler composed the music for the film Adios Roberto, and in 1990, he established the New Tango Quartet.^[1]

His playing style, both sharply percussive and metallically lyrical, is instantly recognizable and bears some similarities to that of Vladimir Horowitz as well as some of the wistfulness of Bill Evans. As a composer he has taken Piazzolla's contrapuntal approach to tango music and added more jazz influence, notably with the regular use of a drumkit, lighter harmonies similar to those used in Bossa Nova, and extended passages of improvisation. Having created a bridge between Jazz and improvisation and the New Tango personified by Piazzolla, he has been more successful with his album Bajo Cero.^[1]

Ziegler's 2005 album, Bajo Cero, earned a Latin Grammy award.^[2] On March 21, 2009 he played in Herbst Theatre in San Francisco for the "Tango Meets Jazz" concert, with Nestor Torres.

His recordings with Piazzolla include most notably:

• The Central Park Concert
• Tango: Zero Hour
• La Camorra

His recordings as bandleader:

• 1999 Quintet for New Tango
• Asfalto: Street Tango
• 2003 Bajo Cero
• Tango and all that Jazz
• Buenos Aires Report

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

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