Composed by a teenaged Uruguyan student, Gerardo Matos Rodriguez in 1920, and sold for a pittance to a publishing house before it became popular, this music has become synonymous with tango - it is undoubtedly tango's best known song.
Keith Elshaw explains more about his passion for restoring Tango music to the way it was when it was first recorded on his website Totango ... watching this video will have you wanting to know more about how the music should sound - and about Keith's project.
The Golden Age of Tango in Argentina was a time of prosperity – Argentina was among the wealthiest nations in the world – and a time when culture, the arts, music and literature flourished..
Osvaldo Fresedo lived tango for most of his long life of 87 years and his recordings span the early years, the Golden Years and the schmaltz of the 1950s and later. In that time his playing changed so much that is it difficult to reconcile the earliest recordings with those he made in his last years.
"The combination D'Agostino/Vargas stands with Troilo/Fiorentino as one of the greatest of the 1940s" writes Michael Lavocah on his excellent tango website milonga.co.uk. This film clip from 1945 of one of their favourites ' A pan y agua' exemplifies why the orchestra was so popular in its heyday.
