Of the many Piazzolla records - and tango records - I have heard since this album opened the genre up for me (and many others), this is still my favorite by far, but I remain uncertain that I have any proper frame of reference for that call. This suggests that this recording was a departure even from the departure that Piazzolla’s Nuevo Tango was from jealously defended Argentine styles. I also think that this track is a departure from its companion pieces, all of which are masterful. This slow milonga (a 19th century style that predates tango, the same way Charley Patton predates Robert Johnson even though they recorded less than ten years apart) is like a cobra rising out of a basket, looking you full in the face, and then vanishing back inside like nothing happened. On its surface, it is the saddest of songs, almost dripping with (and this is the right word – and language) Weltschmerz. But over repeated listenings, the menace in it surfaces. This is “sad” the way Bach – or Weill – is, and it speaks to why those two Germans belong in the same sentence. Its math tells you what it is and that you are here. Suffer.
Note: 25 secular essays (each one exactly 200 words long) about 25 songs, to appear one per day during Advent (or so) from Nov. 27 through Dec. 21.
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