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Villoldo pays homage to Mascagni
By León
Benarós
Poet, art critic, lawyer and researcher of daily life
and the city of Buenos Aires. He is member of the Academia Porteña
del Lunfardo.
n 1911, on a visit to Buenos Aires, the noteworthy Italian maestro Pietro
Mascagni (1863-1945) conducted his opera Isabeau at the Teatro
Coliseo. A little bit later, Ángel
Villoldo (1861-1919) paid a popular tribute to the great composer
of Cavallería rusticana, publishing the tango Don
Pietro (instrumental) which Villoldo dedicated "to the eximious
Italian maestro Pietro Mascagni" and which Alfredo O. Francalanci published
in Buenos Aires, with business address on 1702 Viamonte street.
On the cover of the printed edition, Mascagni appeared
when conducting his opera Isabeau, whose score is insinuated
on the music stand.
 Villoldo´s
musical personality has not yet been properly recognized. In the pericón
nacional which he named "El granadero", he innovatively
introduced into the melody the trot of the squadron's horses. In "Chiflale,
que va a venir" (tango), he utilised whistling as a melodic element.
Villoldo
did a thousand things to honestly work for a living. He was typographer
(with such a trade he is included in an electoral register), cuarteador
(a rider who helps vehicles to be dragged uphill), itinerant singer,
circus clown, author of lyrics for carnival costumed groups; one-man
orchestra (he had devised an implement which made another harmonica
hung from his neck, which he played simultaneously with a guitar).
A generous creole, good-natured and friendly man,
the publisher Andrés Pérez Cuberes told us that Villoldo
went to visit the sick and friends, whom he entertained with his guitar
playing.
He entered tango history with compositions so long-lasting
as the tangos "El
choclo" and "El
porteñito", or the lyrics of "La
morocha", but he was also an interesting writer of spicy
popular romances, lively little pictures of the Buenos Aires popular
life, published in Caras y Caretas and Fray Mocho.
As an example, here is an excerpt from the one he
titled Los cabreros, with illustrations by Juan Peláez,
which appeared on Fray Mocho, in the Christmas number of
1913:
— Güenas noches,
che.
— Pa algunos, lo qu'es pa mí, no es muy güena. — ¿Ya empezás con los resongos? ¡Cha digo, que sos cabrera! — Como que tengo razón. No se te ve la silueta desde ayer que t'espiantaste. — No me vengas con sonseras que no te llevo el apunta. Servime pronto la cena Que traig' un hambre feroz. — Al momento, su ex... celencia. — Dejate de retintines qu'es lo mejor, Magdalena, pues ya sabés que conmigo tenés que andar muy derecha, porque si no, v'a ligarte sin quererlo, una "miqueta". — Venís pesao esta noche. — Vengo... como me convenga. Hacé lo que t'he mandao y dejat'e cantileras mirá que traig' un estrilo fulminante en la cabeza, y si seguís machacando v'a calentarse la mecha y es fácil de que reviente la bomba de la pasencia. Published in the magazine Desmemoria vol. 4 nº
16.
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