From the record label:
Tango alla Romanesque
The second CD in our Old World Tangos series focuses on the "Romanic" countries of Italy, France, and Romania - with a Greek encore.
Research of the individual titles was often difficult - we do not even know
the first names of some of the singers. Tango is light music and evidently
it was assumed that interest in serious information on the life and artistic
career of tango singers did not exist.
This is particularly true in the case of ITALY. The sole source of information
on popular music is often the annual reviews of the San Remo Song Festival
- an event beneath the dignity of such a leading music nation as Italy. CARLO
BUTI (1900-1963) is the only well-known name not entirely associated with
tango, but the same also applies to the magnificent OSCAR CARBONI - just a
tiny reference to his performance at the 1951 San Remo Festival - everything
else is lost in the realms of the history of popular music.
The great Corsican singer TINO ROSSI (1907-1983) is, in contrast, still immensely
popular - his own website is just
one expression of the continued adoration of his fans.
Once again, ROMANIA has a special place on this CD; discovery of this country's
historical musical heritage was presented in the OLD WORLD TANGO series vol.1
(Echoes from afar, RIENCD20). We are particularly proud of the recordings
of the legendary "magic bird" MARIA TANASE (1913-1963). These are
the only two tangos that she sang; the recordings are not in any archives
but only contained on the few remaining original shellacs; a musical treasure
even if the sound quality is poor and Juanita is not a genuine tango. Pride
in this discovery outweighs - may tango and HiFi purists forgive us. Anyway,
Juanita is worth releasing just on account of its incredible pianist.
JEAN MOSCOPOL (1903-1983) and TITI BOTEZ (1901-1957) are familiar names from
the Echoes CD and are joined here by the "last troubadour" CRISTIAN
VASILE (1908-1985) and the enigmatic GION (1910-?) - all we were able to find
out about him was that he was a widely acclaimed coffee house singer in the
Romanian spa town of Sinaia in the early thirties.
And finally, two Greek tangos, sung by DIMITRIS PHILIPPOPOULOS, and somehow
also romanesque - there was never a truly "Greek" tango scene, rather
it was an offshoot of the Italian and French tangos. Not that this in any
way detracts from the quality of the two Phillipopoulos tangos. (cf. the notes
on RIENCD20)
And there is something more to celebrate - a kind of "monument to the
unknown tango guitarist". The first time we heard it was in the tangos
that Pjotr Leschenko (cf. RIENCD06 and 12) recorded in the thirties: An unmistakable,
delightfully schmaltzy Hawaiian guitar sound that at once made us sit up and
take notice and which we encountered again in numerous tango recordings from
England, Romania, and Italy. What all these recordings have in common is that
they were made for the Columbia label that was very active in the thirties.
The unknown "maestro" can also be heard in this collection - on
the Greek tango entitled Mesanichta, also a Columbia recording. Is it a question
of a coincidence, an entire school of guitarists, or the eternally wandering
Hawaiian guitarist who always turned up in that part of Europe where tangos
were recorded for Columbia? We do not know, but would welcome any relevant
information on the subject.
Till Schumann
The tango in the Europe of the 20s and 30s - a ballroom dance,
a music style, an attitude to life?
The first Argentine tango musicians arrived in Paris before World War I to
make recordings of their new music. Art circles, intellectuals, and members
of the aristocracy developed an interest in this flamboyant form of dance
and music. The Argentinian tango was the dance and musical expression of the
rootlessness, poverty and despair of immigrants, and also compensation in
the form of an eroticism displayed with a directness previously unknown. The
elements of the "disrespectable", the gutter, the "forbidden" were adopted as an artistic style in the salons of many European cities. However,
at the time most Europeans were unable to understand the true nature of the
Argentinian tango. In Europe the tango developed into a form of ballroom dance;
it was deprived of its creative force and given fixed, easy-to-follow rules
for the ballrooms of the pleasure-seeking "Jeunesse Dorée" of the 20s and 30s. Orchestras playing the tango were light orchestras in
the truest sense of the word.
The bandoneon (incidentally an instrument invented in Germany) was frequently
replaced by the accordion - an instrument easier to play. The texts of the
tangos were romantic, wistful, rarely provocative - at the very most melancholy.
The yearning for all-liberating, romantic love was reflected in most of the
songs - in contrast to the unvarnished, true-to-life poetry of the Argentinian
texts.
The European tango is a cliché. It staged a feeling for life that people
in Europe readily adopted in their search for identity in a changing world
which was characterised by increasing industrialisation after World War I.
The tango was essentially a phenomenon of the cities in Europe, too. It was
not confined to any one region and developed its appeal beyond national and
cultural borders. This meant that many successful tangos were translated into
a variety of different languages. In the Europe of seventy years ago the tango
had already become a synonym for globalisation - long before this became a
term in common use. European tango was light music, popular music, a ballroom
dance that crossed national boundaries and traditions. It was no more, but
no less than the pop music of the Golden Twenties and of the thirties, a musical
link in the urban society of the twentieth century.
Tango alla Romanesque - Old World Tangos Vol.2 (Oriente)