HOW THE CARDS WERE DEALT

By Pedro Ochoa

It is difficult and even pointless to try and understand the process of creation of the score of  La Cumparsita. It seems to have grown by accretion. Its origin was not the customary work in the composer’s studio, followed by première, publication and recording. It is quite more complex than that.

The tune, as was previously said, was perhaps created not as a tango but as a Carnival march. Since Gerardo could not write music, the great bandoneon player Minotto Di Cicco transcribed the tune on paper, on his request; perhaps as a tango, perhaps as a march, perhaps as a simple melodic line without indication of genre. We don’t know. And that is how it went.

During his presentations in Montevideo, somebody (perhaps Manuel Barca) gives the Minotto manuscript to Roberto Firpo, who decides to première it. In order to play it with his quartet, Firpo adds a violin countermelody, which henceforth becomes an inseparable part of La Cumparsita. Besides, and according to his own testimony, Firpo adds a second and third part to the tango, even though the authorship of these parts is subject to debate. Afterwards, pianist Carlos Warren makes a second copy of La Cumparsita, adding Firpo’s melody, that is, he copies the new version.

The day when Firpo played La Cumparsita with his quartet at La Giralda in Montevideo is considered the official première, but it is worthwhile remembering that it had already been played, perhaps at Carnival time and certainly by the author at the Student Federation of Uruguay hall.

Since then and led by Roberto Firpo, the tango begins to be heard on both sides of the river Plate, as it is a well-known fact that Buenos Aires and Montevideo are two districts of the same city crossed by a wide river.

Shortly afterwards, Breyer, the Buenos Aires publishing company, publishes the tango as a piano score and includes some changes to Warren’s version. A normal procedure in those times. Since the original presented by the composer to the publishing house is not extant, it is difficult to judge the depth of the changes (neither do we have access to the Arista y Lena version, with which we shall deal later on).

In 1924 Pascual Contursi and Enrique Pedro Maroni write the lyrics for La Cumparsita, meant to be sung by actor Juan Ferrari in the comic sketch Un programa de cabaret. That same year Gardel records the lyrics under the new title Si supieras… Thanks to Gardel the tango achieves a resounding success, but what is important to us is that in order to sing it his way (we do not know how Ferrari sang it) he substantially modifies the tune of the first part, taking partially Matos’ melody, partly Firpo’s melody, and introducing his own notes, principally an additional bar at the beginning of the piece. He also modifies slightly the second part, leaving the third part as it was. It was not an adaptation of the melody to make the singing easier or to incorporate the lyrics, but a truly creative task.

As time went by, tradition would add to La Cumparsita an introductory bar: four descending chords. The name of the creator is not remembered, but out of custom musicians cannot do without them. Adolfo Carabelli used to include the bar as far back as 1933, although it might date to earlier still; later, it was confirmed by Troilo.

Finally, in the late twenties a variation for bandoneon was created by Luis Moresco, as recalled by Horacio Ferrer, which was recorded in 1929 by Cayetano Puglisi. This variation was accepted by the bandoneon fans, thus becoming “the” variation which all bandoneon players learn and play with instrumental bands without having to reach a previous agreement.

Fragments of La Cumparsita were also used in other compositions. This is the case of the instrumental padding joining the first and second parts, used by United States lyricists and composers Richard Adler and Jerry Ross in the tango Hernando’s Hideaway, which was very popular in the United States in the fifties. Adler and Ross were not gullible, rather they were deliberately searching for a reference to the very famous La Cumparsita. Probably this padding (which does not turn up in Firpo’s recording) was the work of the anonymous musician who corrected the original score for the Breyer publishing house.

Let us vindicate Matos Rodríguez: he is undoubtedly the creator of the melody of the first part, which is what characterizes La Cumparsita. (Traslation: María Ferrante)