La Cumparsita - Juan Vicari y su Genial Orquesta

The cafe 'La Giralda' in Montevideo, Uruguay, occupies a special place in Tango history. It was there in the year 1917 that a young Gerardo Matos Rodriguez gave (anonymously) the music score of a tango he had written to the orchestra of Roberto Firpo to play for the first time.

Gerardo was then an adolescent (17 years old) who was barely making it as a student in the faculty of Architecture in Montevideo. Was it modesty? shyness? fear of ridicule? who knows why he wanted to remain anonymous? Firpo only knew that the name of the young composer was Gerardo. It was only later that the full identity of the author was known. He was young, educated, well mannered and sensible. He was also a bit naive. He sold for 20 pesos his rights of authorship to the Breyer publishing house. After some moderate success the composition was forgotten.
Seven years later, in 1924, Gerardo was living in Paris and he met Francisco Canaro who had just arrived with his orchestra. That's when he found out that La Cumparsita was a major hit. The tango lyricists Enrique Maroni and Pascual Contursi had added words to the tango and renamed it 'Si Supieras'—(If you knew). All of Buenos Aires was hearing, dancing, and demanding to buy the score for the tango that was seemingly everywhere in shows, recordings, and broadcasts. Shortly after, La Cumparsita arrived in Paris where, in the full grip of the roaring 20's, people danced charlestons, shimmys, one-steps, bostons, and when the crowd asked for a tango, they danced La Cumparsita.
From Paris La Cumparsita spread to the four corners of the world and has since and forever after become synonymous with Tango.

Juan Vicari "Genial Orquesta" is mentioned in the sources as a poular tango, rhumba & mambo band in Buenos Aires in 1940s.
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Dec 2007:
Thanks to the information from: vincenz55, I can add, that "his real name is Giovanni Vicari, an amazing mandolin and banjo player. You can hear some of this instrument in this recording".

Category:

Music

Tags:

• 1930s
• old
• tango
• Argentina
• 768s
• shellack
• nostalgia

[enero152007]

solamente, fantastico....

[123aktion]

Hay que notar que Roberto Firpo convirtion la marcha en un tango, aportando toda la armonizacion Y escribio las partes 3 y 4 del tango (por lo cual nunca recibio credito).

[123aktion]

It should be noted that Roberto Firpo made the march into a tango, provided the entire harmonization AND wrote the melodic parts 3 and 4 of the song (for which he never got credit).

[gatouno7]

Just amazing!!

[elqsfue]

@RicardoAmicone si si, que se lamente mucho, y que bailen la letra.

[RicardoAmicone]

@elqsfue Cuanto se lamentan por ello....

[RicardoAmicone]

Es correcto, la compuso como una marcha, el La Giralda fue Roberto Firpo el que primero la interpreto, cambia a tango por que Enrique Maroni y Pascual Contursi le ponen letra, Si Supieras, y la llevan al tango canción, que es como la interpreta Carlos Gardel, fue inscripta como tal por Gerardo Matos Rodriguez en 1924 eh SADAIC en Buenos Aires. La marcha La Comparsa, es uruguaya, LA CUMPARSITA, es de un autor uruguayo inscripta, difundida y hecha famosa en Argentina.

[Mike16011]

¿Será cierto esto?; lo escuché decir en una radioemisora: Que Matos Rodríguez con esta melodía compuso ¡ una marcha !; pero que a un pianista se le ocurrió interpretarlo como un tango.., ¡ y todos salieron a bailarlo ! Mike.

[Sorrotti]

Foolish is the man (nation) that does not distinguish between friend and foe. When the British, with the support of Argentina's supposed friend the U.S, attacked the Malvinas, Uruguayans like myself and my family defended Argentina against the ignorance if many Americans, who considered Argentina just another Banana Republic.

[Sorrotti]

As a Uruguayan living in the states for over 20 years now, I know how much other Latinos rejoice when tragedy befalls Argentina. They can't wait for something bad to happen to Argentina, and yet, the only ones to ever speak in Argentina's defense are Uruguayans, despite how badly Argentinos treat us. We know you can be arrogant assholes, but you are our arrogant assholes. Charlyslim, open your eyes and grow up. Uruguay is the only friend Argentina has.