From Musica y poesía del tango, pp. 133-134, by Antonio Pau (Editorial Trotta, Madrid, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Antonio Pau Pedrón. English version by Michael Krugman, Copyright © 2013.
Rarely has it happened that a single tango, especially one specific recorded version of it, could stand as the summit of a composer’s output. Nevertheless, it happened that way in the case of Osvaldo Pugliese’s Recuerdo, penned when he was just nineteen, and the recording made by Julio de Caro’s orchestra on November 9, 1926. It is inarguably the high point of that composer’s long and brilliant career.
When Recuerdo was played, one had the sensation that a window had been opened, a gust of fresh air rearranging the contents of the room. Everything bright and vital had been buried under a pile of dull, repetitive stuff. Recuerdo sorted it out in an instant, bringing the brightness to the top where it could be seen.Pugliese’s rhythms showed that what had come before was not the whole story, that tango could be much more than that. You didn’t need the singer, with his song of sorrow, suffering, and love betrayed. It was enough to draw a circle from which sound struggled to escape, tracing jagged, anxious silhouettes in its desperate flight. And the composition of Recuerdo is just that, the wake that trails behind a fleeing melody.
The notes of Recuerdo were not written all at once; they are not the fruit of ecstatic inspiration. Over many months Pugliese kept polishing the rhythms, honing them, until he could do no more. Then he wrote out a clean copy. Starting out this way is not without risk. To create a masterpiece like this at the age of nineteen would seem to have only two possible outcomes: to repeat oneself or to go silent. Pugliese did neither. He knew that for him, inspiration lay there, on the lined music paper, his hands skimming over the keys. And so it was. Inspiration came. Not always, of course. Some Pugliese tangos are merely workmanlike, others are truly inspired. The former are good, because he was a dedicated, industrious composer. But the latter are extraordinary: La Yumba, A los artistas plásticos, Adiós Bardi, Corazoneando, Cardo y Malvón. There is no other tango composer who renews himself with each composition.
To Recuerdo, which was conceived as an instrumental, lyrics were added by the poet Eduardo Moreno. The composer didn’t object.
Mujer, de mi poema mejor;
Mujer, yo nunca tuve un amor.
Perdón si eres mi gloria ideal,
Perdón, serás mi verso inicial.
The lyric, equal parts touching and awkward, is explained by the age of the author: fifteen.
Recuerdo has been one of the most frequently recorded tangos, with or without vocal. But seventy-five years and several generations of musicians have passed, and the most definitive version, the tightest and most precise, continues to be that of Julio de Caro and his Sextet.
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