- Royce Chau
What you can get about tango in El Corte during the International Week is quite comprehensive.
To know about tango, we should not only look at its dance movements, but also its history and its music - especially the music - because that's the crucial part that makes tango tango.
On the second day of the event, after lunch, Eric gave a lecture about tango history, and with a strong emphasis on its music. He talked about the development of tango, the great orchestras of different period and their styles, showed us examples or great pieces of these orchestras, explained to us the characteristics of different orchestras, so that we could try to compare the music we heard, we could appreciate the music we danced to, and picked up what we like. Here's my short note/summary of that lecture:
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Julio De Caro  Lovely melody, complicity of its musical interpretation. |
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Juan D'Arienzo
Clear rhythm, clear musical structure, clear phrases, music that is easy to dance -> El Rey De Compas |
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Carlos Di Sarli Two periods: Before 1942: faster After 1942: slower, with strong emphasis on melody |
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Osvaldo Pugliese A lot of elements in his music, complicity (Pugliese loved De Caro's music) |
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Rodolfo Biagi
Rhythm is everything!! |
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Anibal Troilo
Well balanced between melody and rhythm (that's why most dancers love him!) |
Of course you will hear the above music during milongas every night, like any other milonga in any part of the world, but you can also hear many rare stuff or non-tango here in El Corte.
People here in Nijmegen and most of the participants and visitors of the week are very open-minded about tango music. I was very lucky to meet two DJs here in Nijmegen, they like to collect and play some different tango music. It was very nice to talk to them, and we have great discussion about tango music. I forgot to bring my own alternative tango selection with me this time, but I did give them one piece of Mandarin pop which I love very much. Not sure if they will play it for tango in the future *smile*. It is such a nice experience to share my feeling and view of tango music with other tango DJs.