Today we have an interview with . When I met and interviewed him in Rotterdam in 1993, the great master was already 88 years old. He was the first artistic director of the Tango Department of the Rotterdam Conservatory. When he came to Rotterdam for the opening, I had the honour of accompanying him and performing for him. Unfortunately, I did not speak Spanish very well at that time, and Pugliese was already a little deaf, so his wife Lydia repeated my questions. Pugliese called me "Golden Helenita", something that made me proud. His great calm and his aura impressed me and accompanied me during my music studies, even after his sad death, 2 years later. Besides making music, Pugliese loved two things very much: telling jokes and dulce de leche, an Argentinean sweet that he ate by the spoonful. During our conversation, Pugliese choked on a slice of tangerine, which got stuck in his esophagus and it refused to budge. He was the only one who kept calm while everyone around him panicked. I ran out to buy sneezing powder. Fortunately, when I returned to the hotel room shortly after, the situation had been resolved and the piece of tangerine was now calmly in his stomach. Let us now listen to the words of Osvaldo Pugliese.

Interview Osvaldo Pugliese

- Interviewer: Thank you very much for the concert yesterday, I felt so alive! I wonder: Are you always composing music, do you always compose music? - Osvaldo Pugliese: Yes, yes…No (laughs) - Interviewer: Do you think that tango can renew itself? Is there a new generation in ? - Lydia Pugliese: She's asking you if tango can renew itself, if there is a new generation in Buenos Aires. - Osvaldo Pugliese: I don't understand you. - Lydia: If you think that tango is going to renew itself, if there is a new generation in Buenos Aires... Answer - Osvaldo Pugliese: Tango, like life, like plants, like the universe, has to be transformed through the work of new values and new talents that appear. This is how it was; how it is, the tango, from the time it was born until the present, and it will continue from here into the future, in the same way, historically so. - Interviewer: How is this ... love in Europe for the tango ... regarded in Buenos Aires? - Lydia: How do you regard in Buenos Aires the love that there is in Europe for tango? - Osvaldo Pugliese: The contribution? - Lydia: The love that there is in Europe for tango? - Osvaldo Pugliese: Well, actually we can say that, for example, at the beginning of the century, at the time when tango went to Paris through Villoldo, the couple Gobbi and Alfredo*, who introduced it; then Bachicha, Bianco, tango entered Paris, something that in Paris they admitted and in Buenos Aires they ignored. It was ignored by some social classes that did not want to know anything about popular, Creole, porteño music which tango was. That's why the tango spread a lot in the neighbourhoods, in the conventillos and in the brothels at the beginning of the century. But then they had to cross themselves and say, "hey, the people are in charge and we have to accept it". * [Flora and , parents of Alfredo Gobbi, famous violinist and orchestra leader of the 1940s] - Lydia: Now, in Europe, the success of now. - Osvaldo Pugliese: Just as it was, through Villoldo, Bianco, Bachicha, the Gobbi couple at the beginning of the century in 1910, it is now well received. For which we are very grateful. And also, we owe a lot to this great musician and composer who passed away recently, . - Interviewer: Yes...emm...I understand that tango is ... it's not about Buenos Aires, but it's about the feeling. Because in Europe they say that you can't play tango because you are not from Buenos Aires, but I think it is not so. - Lydia: She thinks that tango is a feeling that can be played everywhere and that they can play it. - Osvaldo Pugliese: And dance. - Interviewer: … alright. - Osvaldo Pugliese: As Enrique Santos Discépolo said, may he also rest in peace: tango is a feeling that is danced and sung. - Interviewer: Yes, I agree ... think it's a shame there's a division now, you dance to recorded cassettes... but you only listen to the music. How do you like this? How do you think there's this division? - Lydia: With respect to singing and dancing, you mean? - Interviewer: Yes, because when we dance ... before there was the orchestra... it was for people who danced, now it's heard in a concert that is very... - Lydia: Ah! Well, she says what do you think about the fact that in the past the dances, the orchestras played for dancing and that now you have to dance with cassettes while the orchestras are only for concerts. What do you think about this? - Osvaldo Pugliese: In the past, at the beginning, tango was a danceable genre. But we must also appreciate the existence of poets like Contursi (Pascual Contursi father), Celedenio Flores; later on others came. We have to thank them for infusing lyrics in agreement with the feeling of the Argentine people who supported it. - Lydia: She's referring to the dances that they used to have and that now the orchestras play in concerts. - Osvaldo Pugliese: That was with respect to the lyrics. In the popular dances of that time, Buenos Aires was practically an emporium of work centers; patio dances, they danced in the street (including the guards), in cafés. For example, in the neighborhood of Villa Crespo, where I lived, there was the dance at the Peracca, the dance at Venturita's café. And that's also where the first Argentine female bandoneon player, Paquita Bernardo, was born. Well, there were many dance places, but they didn't dance. The managers who ran the dance places forbade to dance with corte ... - Lydia: In those days. - Osvaldo Pugliese: ...which is impossible for tango, because tango was born with a corte and a quebrada, and some dancers still do it. - Lydia: She's referring to the performances of the orchestras in the clubs and now in the concerts. What's the difference and why? - Osvaldo Pugliese: The difference to the past, for example, is that there was a swarm of popular clubs in all the neighborhoods, in all the Argentine Republic, right? And the difference that there is now is that tango has grown musically with the incorporation of the talents that have... that did it. It has grown musically and technically. If we are going to talk about whether that one or this one was better, we can say that technically it is better now, because before the musician played by ear, today it has grown musically and it is played musically, both the bandoneon and the violin, as well as the piano. - Lydia: If you don't mind, I'll answer. Regarding the neighbourhood clubs of the past, because the people were dancing with orchestras.. What was disappearing were the clubs, the ones that did the dances. So, the orchestras had to limit themselves to San Telmo night clubs, or to recitals in theatres, which was one way. We have seen that you, the young Europeans, dance the tango better than the young Argentinians. And since in our country all fashions come from outside, the same thing will happen with tango; in a short time our young people will dance as you do, with the difference that we do not have so many places where they can learn or can dance. There are great teachers but no places to develop the dance. - Interviewer: Because of the music or because they didn’t have clubs for dancing? - Lydia: No, no, no. For purely economic reasons, because the economic crisis first makes itself felt in the pockets of the people who live more... - Osvaldo Pugliese: From work, the workers. - Lydia:...from the people who work. Then those people stop going to the neighborhood club where the whole family went, with the kids. So the clubs gradually shrink and the young people of the neighborhood want rock, so when they do something they do it for the rock, not for the young people. At the moment rock is also receding, so tango has those phases; it goes up, it goes down, but it doesn't die. - Interviewer: (laughs) Yes, I hope so. - Lydia: No, no, that's how it is. - Interviewer: With your music, you composed it to play it…like classical music? - Lydia: She asks whether you compose to play music like classical music or for what? - Osvaldo Pugliese: What? - Lydia: When you compose, do you compose for the music, to play it ...? - Interviewer: To listen to it. - Lydia: … to only listen to it or also dance to it? - Osvaldo Pugliese: No, no. There are two things, two aspects; one is the rhythmic tango, danceable as it was done in the guardia vieja, right? With the rhythm and dance coming from the cabaret. One example of this was a great piano player and a good director: Carlos di Sarli, right? Derived from another director: , Canaro also did his thing, has also done it through his tango. And all the others from the Decarian epoque of the year '26, Pedro Maffia, Pedro Laurenz combined the melodic part and the rhythmic part, called Canyengue. Well that is a historical aspect that one takes into account. And because of my age, at that time I started in the Decarian stage, combining the rhythmic and melodic parts, giving it form and content. - Interviewer: But with the music of Astor Piazzolla you can't dance. That's something else. - Osvaldo Pugliese: Sure. But the first stage of Astor Piazzola was danceable, then he changed. What happened was that he had a lot of diffusion in Europe and helped that, somehow, tango started to arrive to Europe. He also denied this, but later he accepted that he was returning to his roots. Regarding what you asked, when he started to compose and play, his father said "You, when you play, look at the feet of the dancers; if they follow you, you are doing well, if they don't follow you, you are the one who is wrong". - Interviewer: Ah, very wise (laughs). Well, thank you very much and I'll leave you now ... - Lydia: No, thank you .... - Osvaldo Pugliese: I hope that one day they will give me the oppurtunity to play in Germany. When I was in Germany, which I visited, the first thing I did was go to Bonn; to the city of Bonn and I went to visit Beethoven's house. And when I was in , I went to visit Chopin's grave.