Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires

Verano Porteño began in 1965 as music for Alberto Rodríguez Muñoz's play Melenita de oro, years before Piazzolla's four Estaciones Porteñas came to be understood as a cycle. That same year, Piazzolla also created a version for Aníbal Troilo's orchestra, and the work continued to evolve through several versions and transformations. The earliest theater version lasts less than four minutes. As the piece evolved, so did the larger idea of Piazzolla's Buenos Aires seasons, which were performed and recorded together for the first time in 1970 at the Teatro Regina in Buenos Aires. For that reason, Verano Porteño is the natural starting point of the cycle: the first of the four, and the work from which the others grew.

Its muscular, driving tango pulse is set against passages of sultry lyricism, reminiscent of the bochorno, that oppressive, almost suffocating atmosphere familiar to Buenos Aires in the height of summer.

Otoño Porteño was written in 1969, four years after Verano Porteño, as Piazzolla continued to develop his portrait of Buenos Aires through the seasons. Between March and June of that year, the Astor Piazzolla Quintet gathered at ION Studio in Buenos Aires for a series of recording sessions that produced Adiós Nonino, one of the defining albums of Piazzolla's quintet period. Among its tracks is the first recording of Otoño Porteño, offering a fascinating glimpse into the musicians who shaped this period of Piazzolla's music, notably violinist Antonio Agri, whose playing became such an important part of the quintet's sound.

The piece moves between sharply articulated tango rhythms and more expansive chords and clusters, with the violin and bandoneon exchanging a melody that is at once lyrical and melancholy.

Invierno Porteño was written in 1969. With Primavera added in 1970, the four pieces were first performed together at the Teatro Regina in Buenos Aires. The concert, recorded live and released as Piazzolla en el Regina, marked the first time the four Estaciones Porteñas were heard together.

Of the four seasons, Invierno Porteño is perhaps the most immediately haunting. Its long, expressive melody unfolds over Piazzolla's rhythmic language before the music turns toward an unexpected Baroque gesture near the end: a descending sequence that recalls the harmonic language of composers such as Pachelbel. The effect is striking: Buenos Aires tango and an older European musical tradition briefly meeting within the same piece.

The music also took on a new life through words. In 1979, Argentine poet and songwriter Eladia Blázquez wrote lyrics for Invierno Porteño, transforming Piazzolla's instrumental portrait of winter into a song.

Primavera Porteña was written in 1970 and completes Piazzolla's Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas. Listen closely to the bandoneon opening and you can hear a distinctly contrapuntal idea at work: one instrument enters, then another follows, taking up the musical idea in imitation, creating a cascading sequence of entrances, a fugato, or fugue-like passage.

The connection to Piazzolla's classical training is not accidental. During his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, he worked extensively on counterpoint and fugue, and Boulanger encouraged him to bring that knowledge into his own musical language rather than leave it behind. Her influence can be heard throughout Piazzolla's music, where rigorous contrapuntal writing exists alongside the rhythmic language of tango. Boulanger, one of the most influential music pedagogues of the 20th century, also taught composers including Aaron Copland and Elliott Carter.