Very welcome to a new edition of our podcast series Los maestros de la Música cuentan, in which we return to Buenos Aires.
There, on January 1, 1937, an important bandoneonist and composer was born: Osvaldo Piro. At the age of 10 he began to learn the bandoneon with Domingo Mattio, bandoneonist of the Aníbal Troilo orchestra. Aníbal Troilo is his idol, like that of all the bandoneonists of his generation, Piro tells me when I interviewed him in 1998 after a concert with the National Orchestra of Juan Dios Filiberto.
In our conversation he tells me that at the age of 16 he was already hired by the great violinist Alfredo Gobbi in his orchestra. In 1965, at the age of 28, Piro founded his own orchestra, with which he won numerous awards, including the Palme d’Or at the La Falda Tango Festival near Córdoba (Argentina), in 1968.
With his wife, the singer Susana Rinaldi, he performs in Mar del Plata and many times in Buenos Aires in the Old Warehouse, Michelangelo and Caño 14.
In 1984, Piro emigrated to Paris, where he worked with pianist Gustavo Beytelmann, flutist Enzo Gieco and guitarist Luis Rizzo, among others. From Paris, Piro makes several tours throughout Europe.
When he returned to Buenos Aires in 1988, he founded his own place: San Telmo Tango and played there with his Ensemble 9. In 1996 he was elected Illustrious Citizen of Buenos Aires.
His work as musical director of the Juan Dios Filiberto National Orchestra, which he has directed since 1994, keeps him very busy. But what he likes most is composing and performing his own works, Piro tells me in our talk. At the moment there are a lot of very interesting and creative young musicians. However, they have fewer opportunities to act than when he was young. But as Aníbal Troilo has said: Tango can wait! – says Piro in our conversation in 1998.
Listen to for yourselves everything that this exciting musician, who is now 84 years old, told me and what he has dedicated his whole life to tango.
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Part of the interview transcript
I started at a very young age, like all bandoneonists, 9 or 10 years old. I studied with Domingo Mattio, musician of Aníbal Troilo. The idol of my generation, symbol, was Hannibal Troilus; for the bandoneonists of my generation like Julián Plaza, Raúl Garello, etc., our idol was Aníbal Troilo. It’s true, at the age of 16 I was in Alfredo Gobbi’s orchestra, being very young, but…
Interviewer: Was that the first professional job?
No, no, I worked with other orchestras before Alfredo Gobbi, but let’s just say the most important… the first important one was that of him who was a very talented musician, very creative; a great arranger and a very good composer.
Interviewer: And what was special? Because they also wrote it down in that book, but I didn’t feel yet… I didn’t hear what set him apart from the others, what Piazzolla liked so much, gobbi thing, right?
Gobbi was distinctly Decarian, like Osvaldo Pugliese; they were two musicians of the line of Julio de Caro. And Piazzolla liked Gobbi very much because he was a very talented creator, a great composer and a very good arranger, so much so, that Piazzolla always remembered that the first bandoneon arrangement he had played had been an arrangement by Alfredo Gobbi. This… popularly he did not transcend as much as other performers, but we musicians remember him with great love and with great affection, because he was very talented.
Interviewer: Also his way of playing the violin is…
And more than anything… yes, he was very personal when playing the violin, but his orchestra was very personal, his orchestra had a very particular discourse. It was still danceable, but it was very rich musically.
Interviewer: And when was that orchestra? in what year
Well, he was a man who died very young, died at 50 or so and… this… ago… between 25 and 30 years that he died, means that he passed the decade of the 40s, but he died by the 60s and something right? he was 50 to 51 years old nothing more. His songs such as “Orlando Goñi”, “El Andariego”, “Camandulaje” are very important works of him that can still be heard.
WIKIPEDIA
He began his bandoneon studies at the age of 10 with Professor Félix Cordisco, (uncle of bandoneonist Alfredo Cordisco, who also taught piano). At the age of 11 he formed the children’s musical trio OSMASI (Osvaldo, Mario and Simón). At the age of 12 he expanded his studies with the bandoneonist Domingo Mattio who was a member of the Aníbal Troilo orchestra. He studied harmony with Pedro Rubione and Julio Nistal, and Philosophy of Music with Juan Francisco Giacobbe. At 15 he joined Ricardo Pedevilla’s orchestra professionally.
At the age of 16 he joined Alfredo Gobbi’s orchestra, when Jorge Maciel and Carlos Almada sang there. He also belonged for a short time and simultaneously to the orchestras of Víctor D ́Armario, with Ángel D ́Angostini and Celso Amato, among others. He returned with Gobbi, with whom he spent six years. Then, a year before forming his orchestra, he joined that of Fulvio Salamanca (1964). With his own orchestra he debuted on February 16, 1965, in the Patio de Tango.
ViDEO – Argentine Tango Cycle
bandoneón breathes neighborhood, in the festival, tango festival the, for the label, died, street silence
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