Tanda Francisco Canaro - Instrumental: A beautiful tango tanda with a short tutorial.

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The tango tanda of the week is with Francisco Canaro, aka Pirincho. Melodical tangos, instrumental tangos from 1932 and 1936.

++Timestamps++
Start 00:00
Tutorial 00:29
Todo corazón 04:29
Buen amigo 06:04
El arroyito 08:02
Ojos negros 09:40

The book I show is 'Tango Masters: Francisco Canaro', written by Michael Lavocah. He is the author of several books about tango, and I strongly recommend his work!

Francisco Canaro was born in San José de Mayo, Uruguay, in 1888. One of ten brothers and sisters, he grew up in poor circumstances, selling newspapers in the streets of Buenos Aires to make some money as a 9 year old. Canaro worked up his way in music: He played the violin, composed his first tango, ‘Pinta brava’ in 1912, and in 1915 he directed his first orchestra.

By the 1920’s, and during the first half of the 1930’s, Francisco Canaro had the most successful tango orchestra, touring not only Argentina, but Europe as well. Or perhaps I should say Orchestras: his brothers Juan, Rafael and Mario directed some of his orchestras on his behalf sometimes.

Francisco Canaro recorded some 3800 tracks and he has almost 300 compositions in his name. He is believed to actually have written most (but not all) of them. And his career as a composer and orchestra leader made him a fortune.

Canaro’s best years were the late 1920s till the mid 1930s. Although he remained active and commercially succesful throughout the 1940s and ’50s, artistically he became less relevant from 1938 onward.

Nowadays, Canaro’s tangos are more popular in Europe and North America than in Buenos Aires, where they are generally considered a bit straightforward and simple. Nevertheless, we do have a nice tanda for you with some of his instrumentals.

The first track of the tanda is ‘Todo corazón’, composed by Julio De Caro – and also the first tango that De Caro himself had recorded in 1924. This recording by Canaro is from 1936 and it’s one of my favourite Canaro instrumentals – make sure to listen to the violin, so delicately played by Juan José Gallastegui.

The second track is Canaro’s version of another tango composed by Julio De Caro: ‘Buen amigo’. It’s kind of interesting to see how Canaro chose to ignore
(at least for now) the instant success that D’Arienzo and Biagi were having with their revival of the rhythmical tango, and went the opposite direction instead, recording a number of Decarean tangos. ‘Buen amigo’ admittedly is not up there at the same level as ‘Todo corazón’, but it does have it’s charming moments.

The third tango is ‘El Arroyito’, another recording from 1936. Music composed by Samuel Castriota, who also wrote the music for the very first tango canción: ‘Mi noche triste’. This melody has a deceptive lightness, while the undertones are quite a bit darker – almost ominous.

For the final track of the tanda we go a few years back in time: it’s ‘Ojos negros’, recorded in 1932. Music written by Vicente Greco. Canaro and Greco went back quite a few years – they’d been neighbours, and in 1910 Canaro had joined Greco’s orchestra as a violinist. Ojos negros is perhaps the most recognisable Canaro-style tango of this tanda, with a clear 4x4 beat. But… it does have a beautiful melody as well.

So this is the Francisco Canaro instrumental tanda of this week, showing his melodical side:
1. Todo corazón (1936)
2. Buen amigo (1936)
3. El arroyito (1936)
4. Ojos negros (1932)

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 TangoTunes or iTunes) or stream them on Spotify.

Thanks:
www.tangoarchive.com
www.todotango.com
www.tangosalbardo.blogspot.com
www.tangodecoder.wordpress.com
www.agadu.org
www.tango.info
www.hermanotango.com.ar
FB pages about Canaro, De Caro and tango music in general, like Archivo Documental Del Tango, Tango Time Machine, Tango y Cultura and many others.

#tangomusictutorials #tandaoftheweek #tanda #franciscocanaro #losamigostango #tangomuziek