Above: "Cafetín of Buenos Aires" by Nora Liliana Alvarez. From the Nora Liliana Alvarez Gallery: Hipertango Collection. ©Nora Liliana Alvarez.

Yet this temptress of dances has its origins amongst the lowlife of Argentina, in the slums of Buenos Aires. This is the true spiritual backbone of the tango, filled with the voices of the prostitutes, the labourers and the jobless; the tango is a music that encompasses misery and mechancholy, darkness and despair, joy and laughter, sadness and love. Herein lies its primal sensuality and blatant emotions, laid bare in the everyday life of the people who were trampled on but who had iron-like wills to eke out a life for themselves, who had dreams of making it big one day. After all, Buenos Aires was the 'Big Apple' of Argentina.

From these underground beginnings, the tango was brought into the dance halls, nightclubs, casinos and cafes of the Argentinian capital, colouring the nightlife and beginning to suffuse the city and her peoples' lives with this unique music. When Astor Piazzolla began his work to revive tango and bring it to the world, the alluring music was being heard and played everywhere in Argentina: at home, in the streets, among the crowds in clubs and cafes. Tango had become the cultural export of Argentina - some even say, the soul of Argentina.

Right from the time Alfredo Marcucci was born in 1930, he was immersed in tango, belted out by singers and orchestras in dance halls and clubs. He played the bandoneón since young, the instrument so elemental to and inseparable from tango: the only instrument, besides the human voice, that in my view can actually give credence to the full expression of a tango, running the gamut from the smallest nuances of close physical warmth to the grandest, most extrovert passionate dance. Though Marcucci had been on the road since the age of fifteen, on 1976 he settled down as a factory worker in Brussels for ten years, for the sake of his wife and children. Yet, tango still beckoned; he took early retirement and began playing again. This collaboration with the Ensemble Piacevole came after playing in various ad hoc groups.

Starting with the brief but amazingly rich Balada para un Loco, Marcucci and the Ensemble Piacevole show us the emotions of a real tango. After the waltz-like bandoneón solo introduction, the ensemble joins in for the first section, an extremely endearing portrayal of homeliness and introspective tender love - on my first hearing, I could just imagine a tender moment between a doting grandmother and her little innocent kid, outside her cosy home among the Argentinian backstreet alleys. This reverie is interjected with the pulsing harsh rhythm of the middle section, maybe the reality of the outside world catches up with this sheltered idyll - but never quite interrupts it.

Oblivion spins a tale of regret, perhaps of love untold and unrequited. In the descriptive Buenos Aires Hora O, Piazzolla actually uses the few instruments available to paint a soundscape of the streets of Buenos Aires, with its roaring buses and honking traffic, all merging into a fascinatingly dissonant tapestry. Then there are the tangos with the typical dance rhythm, like de Caro's Boedo and Brosse's Tango. Yet, apart from the churning rhythm, these tell deeply-moving stories of heartache and tears.

Not all the pieces are slow and romantic, though; but even in the faster, more dynamic pieces like La Muerte del Angel, there are still long recitatives where the bandoneón quietly contemplates. The difficult Fuga y misterio has the bandoneón and the ensemble involved in a 4-part fugue before a fantasie-like section. Libertango is built above a restless basso ostinato, various inner parts interlacing among the various musicians.

And so on, the rest of the pieces moving between extremes of anguish or despair, or joy, or longing. Piazzolla's Chiquilin de Bachin wraps up this disc, his warm and mellowed melody like an old man staring into space, telling of nostalgia and a yearning so deep, it was almost painful to hear; yet from the same notes effused hope and a daring to dream of a future.

The music is life as we know it, at times meditative, at times lovely, at other times irresistably rhythmic in a joyful, get-up-and-dance kind of way. However, through the rich voice of Marcucci's bandoneón, we learn that, whatever the tale, the true tango is overwhelmingly dark and the air of pungent melancholy never quite dissipates. Listening to Marcucci and the Piacevole, we are shown the intimate world of lovers embracing in the privacy of a darkened scented bedroom, to the sunny-shadowed streets of Argentinia, and ultimately, to the Argentinian people's impassioned struggle for life, and their love for it.

Above: "Bandoneón's Soul" by Nora Liliana Alvarez.
From the Nora Liliana Alvarez Gallery: Hipertango Collection.
©Nora Liliana Alvarez.