Creating and re-creating tangos : artistic processes and innovations in music by Pugliese, Salgán, Piazzolla and Beytelmann
In this dissertation, Barbara Varassi Pega digs into the constituent elements of River Plate tango in order to decode how specific musical materials were organized and combined by four outstanding musicians: Osvaldo Pugliese, Horacio Salgán, Astor Piazzolla and Gustavo Beytelmann. For this purpose, Varassi Pega has analysed a select number of representative pieces through a study of their scores and recordings. This led to the definition of certain artistic processes and innovations within the genre, theoretical foundations for such processes, and, in all, a deeper understanding of the art of creating tango music, in addition to an overall, chronological view of its development and techniques. The articulation of this (partly) embodied knowledge has resulted in an original contribution to the field, providing new insights with which both Varassi Pega and the greater artistic community can enrich our skills in arranging, composing and performing tango music. The formulation of hypothesis and conclusions, and the translation of the findings into the own production through empiric methods and experimentation were executed alongside the analytical part of the work. The continuous exchange between the practical and theoretical aspects of this research project was fundamental, always strengthening and feeding back each other.
Author: Barbara Varassi Pega
