la cumparsita

The song was originally a march, whose melody was composed in early 1916 by an architecture student in Montevideo, an 18-year-old man named Gerardo Hernán "Becho" Matos Rodríguez, the son of Montevideo's Moulin Rouge nightclub proprietor Emilio Matos. On 8 February 1916, Matos Rodríguez had his friend Manuel Barca show the music sheet to orchestra leader Roberto Firpo at the cafe called La Giralda. Firpo looked at the music and quickly determined that he could make it into a tango. As presented to him it had two sections; Firpo added a third part taken from his own little-known tangos "La gaucha Manuela" and "Curda completa", and also used a portion of Giuseppe Verdi's "Miserere", a chorus and duet from the opera Il trovatore.{{cite web |first=Ricardo García |last=Blaya |url=http://www.todotango.com/spanish/biblioteca/cronicas/la_cumparsita.asp |title=La cumparsita |publisher=Todo Tango |work=Las Historias: Tangos y Leyendas |language=es |access-date=1 March 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110310014915/http://www.todotango.com/spanish/biblioteca/cronicas/la_cumparsita.asp |archive-date=10 March 2011 }}{{cite web |first=Carlos |last=Rios |url=http://www.quienesgardel.com.ar/trabajos/cumparsita.html |title=Historia de "La cumparsita" |publisher=Congreso Internacional Quien Es Gardel |work=Trabajos |language=es |access-date=1 March 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706082148/http://www.quienesgardel.com.ar/trabajos/cumparsita.html |archive-date=6 July 2011 }} Years later, Firpo reported the historic moment as follows:

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{{blockquote|In 1916 I was playing in the café La Giralda in Montevideo, when one day a man was accompanied by about fifteen boys – all students – to say he brought a carnival march song and they wanted me to review it because they thought it could be a tango. They wanted me to revise and tweak the score that night because it was needed by a boy named Matos Rodríguez. In the 2/4 [march time signature] score there appeared a little [useful melody] in the first half and in the second half there was nothing. I got a piano and I remembered my two tangos composed in 1906 that had not had any success: "La gaucha Manuela" and "Curda completa". And I put in a little of each. At night I played the song with "Bachicha" Deambroggio and "Tito" Roccatagliatta. It was an apotheosis. Matos Rodríguez walked around like a champion... But the tango was forgotten, its later success began when the words of {{ill|Enrique Pedro Maroni|es|Enrique P. Maroni|lt=Enrique Maroni}} and Pascual Contursi were associated with it.{{cite web |first1=Roberto |last1=Selles |last2=Pinsón |first2=Néstor |url=http://www.todotango.com/Spanish/Creadores/rfirpo.html |title=Roberto Firpo |publisher=Todo Tango |work=Los Creadores |language=es |access-date=1 March 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417003207/http://www.todotango.com/spanish/creadores/rfirpo.html |archive-date=17 April 2019 |url-status=dead }}}}

Firpo recorded the song in November 1916 for Odeon Records: Odeon release number 483. He used the recording studio of Max Glücksmann in Buenos Aires, and employed two violinists, one bandoneon player (Juan Bautista "Bachicha" Deambrogio), and one flute player to join him as bandleader on piano.{{cite web |first=Eran |last=Braverman |url=http://www.verytango.com/la-cumparsita.html |title=La Cumparsita – The Most Famous Tango Song |publisher=Very Tango |access-date=1 March 2011}} The song was pressed as the B-side of a 78 rpm release, and had only a modest success, fading in familiarity after several years.

Lyrics to the song were written by the Argentine Pascual Contursi in 1924, and soon became a hit. This version of the song is considered the most widely known tango song in the world, closely followed by "El Choclo".{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/misc/newsid_6571000/6571557.stm|title=Los 90 del "Tango de los tangos"|date=19 April 2007|via=news.bbc.co.uk}} Contursi recorded the song under the title "Si supieras" ("If you knew"). Living in Paris at that time, Matos Rodríguez discovered, that the song was a big hit, when he talked with Uruguayan violinist and tango orchestra leader Francisco Canaro, who was playing the tune at Paris engagements as "Si supieras". Canaro told Matos Rodríguez the song was "all the rage by all the orchestras". Matos Rodríguez spent the next two decades in various court battles over royalties, and finally succeeded in ensuring, that "La cumparsita" was re-established as the title of the song. However, Contursi's lyrics became intimately associated with the song.

Canaro formulated a binding agreement in 1948, one which would end the lawsuits. He determined that 20 percent of all royalties would go to the estates of the lyricist Contursi and his business partner Enrique P. Maroni. The other 80 percent of recording royalties would go to the estate of Matos Rodríguez. Canaro established that future sheet music printings would show Contursi's lyrics in addition to less well-known ones written by Matos Rodríguez, and no other lyrics.

Famous versions of this tango include Carlos Gardel's and performances by orchestras led by Juan d'Arienzo, Osvaldo Pugliese and Astor Piazzolla. "La cumparsita" is very popular at milongas; it is a common tradition for it to be played as the last dance of the evening.{{cite web |url=http://www.so-tango.com/blog/miscellanea/lacumparsitafirstdancelastsong|title=First Dance... Last Song}}

The song was named cultural and popular anthem of Uruguay by law[http://www0.parlamento.gub.uy/leyes/AccesoTextoLey.asp?Ley=16905 Ley Nº 16.905] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150709092033/http://www0.parlamento.gub.uy/leyes/AccesoTextoLey.asp?Ley=16905 |date=2015-07-09 }} in 1997.{{cite news|url=http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/3-2007-04-09.html|url-status=dead|newspaper=Página 12|title=¿Quién no conoce 'La Cumparsita'"?|language=es|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926225303/http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/3-2007-04-09.html|archive-date=2007-09-26}}{{cite web|url=http://www.globovision.com/news.php?nid=53991|url-status=dead|publisher=Globovisión|title=La mítica Cumparsita jalona triángulo turístico Argentina–Chile–Uruguay|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070906062017/http://www.globovision.com/news.php?nid=53991|archive-date=2007-09-06}}

In Billy Wilder's 1950 film Sunset Blvd., Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and Joe Gillis (William Holden) tango to “La cumparsita" during her New Year’s Eve party on a tile floor recommended to her by fellow silent movie star Rudolph Valentino. When Norma opens her arms, Joe jokingly replies “Not on the same floor with Valentino!”

In the 1951 film Valentino, when Valentino (Anthony Dexter) and Joan Carlisle (Patricia Medina) appear at the producer Mark Towers' (Otto Kruger) birthday party, they dance to the tune of "La cumparsita", which persuades Towers to cast the unknown Valentino in a major film.[https://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/explore/item/53530/ "Valentino La Cumparsita: Masks and Faces – sheet music cover"], Bill Douglas Cinema Museum

In Wilder's 1959 film Some Like It Hot, "La cumparsita" is played by a blindfolded Cuban band during a scene in which Jack Lemmon dressed in drag dances with overstated flair in the arms of Joe E. Brown who thinks Lemmon is a woman ("Daphne – you're leading again").{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OfpFCblxobkC&pg=PA930 |page=930 |title='Have You Seen...?': A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films |first=David |last=Thomson |publisher=Random House Digital |year=2008 |isbn=978-0307264619}} During the filming in 1958, actor George Raft taught the other two men to dance the tango for this scene.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SPD8-VGnMoEC&pg=PA219 |page=219 |title=George Raft |first=Lewis |last=Yablonsky |publisher=iUniverse |year=2000 |isbn=0595010032}}

• Music of Uruguay

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book|last=Groppa|first=Carlos G.|title=The Tango in the United States|year=2018|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9780786426867|ref=none}}

• {{commons category-inline|La Cumparsita}}
• {{YouTube|W8Ud0PS0H_k|"La cumparsita"}}, from the 1998 film Tango

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Category:Tangos

Category:Songs in Spanish

Category:1916 songs

Category:Tango in Uruguay