Aníbal Troilo

Aníbal Carmelo Troilo (1914–1975) stands among the central figures of Argentine tango, a bandoneonist, composer, arranger, and bandleader whose orquesta típica helped define the sound of the Buenos Aires dance halls across the music's most celebrated decades.^[1] Reference works catalogue him plainly as an Argentine tango musician of the early twentieth century, yet his name became inseparable from the orquesta típica tradition at the very moment it reached its widest dancing public.^[2] The bandoneon — a bellows-driven button concertina whose tuned reeds give tango ensembles their distinctive, breathing timbre — was his voice, and in his hands it set danceable drive against lyrical phrasing. Where the orchestra of Juan d'Arienzo ruled the dance floor through relentless rhythm, Troilo wedded that momentum to song, an art that earned him the posthumous epithet 'Supreme Bandoneón of Buenos Aires'.^[3]

Early life and apprenticeship

Troilo was born on 11 July 1914 in Abasto, a well-known barrio of Buenos Aires, the son of Felisa Bagnoli and Aníbal Troilo; his father coined the nickname Pichuco from the Neapolitan picciuso, meaning roughly 'weepy' or 'crybaby'.^[4] Captivated by the bandoneon he heard in the bars of his neighbourhood, he persuaded his mother to buy his first instrument when he was ten, played in public at a local bar in 1925, and had assembled his own quintet by the age of fourteen.^[5] His apprenticeship advanced quickly: in December 1930 he joined the sextet led by the violinist Elvino Vardaro and the pianist Osvaldo Pugliese, and from there moved through the orchestras of Julio de Caro, Juan d'Arienzo, and others.^[6]

The golden-age orchestra

At the close of the 1930s Troilo formed the orquesta típica that would carry his name, and it soon ranked among the ensembles most favoured by dancers during tango's golden age, conventionally dated from 1935 to 1955.^[7] Though the band was best remembered for its instrumentals, it also recorded with a line of celebrated vocalists, among them Francisco Fiorentino, Roberto Goyeneche, and Edmundo Rivero. The rhythmic milongas Troilo cut with Fiorentino between 1941 and 1943 circulated as particular favourites in the salons, prized for the way they kept the floor moving.^[8] Among the young musicians who passed through the orchestra was Astor Piazzolla, later tango's foremost modernist, who played bandoneon and wrote arrangements for Troilo between 1939 and 1944 — a formative association for both men.^[9]

Compositions and recordings

Troilo's own compositions entered the standard tango repertoire. The best known is the 1945 tango 'María', set to lyrics by Cátulo Castillo and first sung by the vocalist Alberto Marino; its standing was such that Plácido Domingo later included it among the tangos he recorded for a 1981 album.^[10] Scholars have studied the orchestra's working methods through the milonga-candombe 'Azabache', generally identified as Piazzolla's first arrangement for Troilo: sung by Fiorentino, it reportedly won a radio-orchestra contest, yet Troilo never issued it commercially, and researchers place the episode around 1942 without fixing a precise date.^[11] The orchestra reached the wider public on labels including Music Hall, founded in 1950, and on TK, which released its reading of Gerardo Matos Rodríguez's 'La Cumparsita'.^[12][13]

Screen appearances and later years

Troilo's path also crossed Argentina's young film industry: he featured among the tango musicians who appeared in 'Los tres berretines' (1933), one of the country's earliest sound films.^[14] Friendship shaped his music as much as the bandstand did. The death in 1951 of his close friend Homero Manzi — the master tango lyricist who set words to melodies Troilo had composed — plunged him into a prolonged depression, out of which came the tango 'Responso'.^[15] His idiom then shifted over the following decades: from 1953 into the mid-1960s he performed in an intimate duo with the guitarist Roberto Grela, by the late 1950s he had turned toward a concert manner aimed at listeners rather than dancers, and in 1968 he founded the Aníbal Troilo Quartet.^[16]

Death and commemoration

Troilo died on 18 May 1975 at the Italian Hospital of Buenos Aires, following a stroke and cardiac arrest, and his passing was felt as a national loss.^[17] Within weeks the magazine Gente recorded the grief of singers who had worked with him, among them Edmundo Rivero and Roberto Goyeneche.^[18] His memory has been honoured ever since: in 2005 the Argentine Congress designated his birthday, 11 July, as National Bandoneón Day,^[19] and a statue in Buenos Aires keeps his public presence alive in the city of his birth.^[20]