Nashville Symphony pays tribute to the steamy music of legendary Argentine bandoneon master Astor Piazzolla

Today's casual observer might be forgiven for thinking of Astor Piazzolla simply as an avuncular accordion-wielding avatar of Argentine tango traditionalism. But he called his music "nuevo tango" for a reason, and it doesn't take much listening to discover that he was working way beyond any dance-class musical stereotypes.

Piazzolla is credited—or blamed, if you prefer—for taking tango music out of the dance hall to the concert stage. He dramatically expanded the traditional style's expressive and technical range, weaving in elements of both jazz and classical music.

The Nashville Symphony's program this weekend demonstrates the broad scope of his career, from a symphony that NSO conductor Giancarlo Guerrero calls a "lost treasure" of the orchestral repertoire, to a concerto that showcased Piazzolla at the height of his performing skills.

Also featured is an arrangement for solo violin and strings of The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, a set of tangos that Piazzolla assembled with a nod to Vivaldi. And Ravel's ever-popular Bolero extends the program's Hispanic dance motif.

Piazzolla was both a prolific composer and a virtuoso of the bandoneón, a concertina-style accordion prevalent in Argentina and Uruguay. Daniel Binelli, visiting soloist for the Concierto para Bandoneón, played in Piazzolla's sextet and is a master interpreter of the late composer's music.

The wealth of industrialized Buenos Aires around 1900 attracted an influx of immigrants, largely Spanish and Italian, who helped balloon the city's population from around a quarter-million in 1880 to well over 2 million by 1930. Anyone doubting that immigration can enrich a national culture should note how the distinctively Argentine tango emerged in the Buenos Aires slums during precisely this period. Even the bandoneón itself was originally a German import.

By Piazzolla's birth in 1921, the classic orquesta típica—a tango orchestra featuring violins, bandoneón, double bass and guitar or piano—was well-established. Tango dance forms had already enjoyed a wave of popularity in France and England before World War I, and singer Carlos Gardel was on the brink of a superstar film career that would cement the form's international image and help give rise to the golden age of tango beginning in the mid-1930's.

Piazzolla's family moved to New York when he was just 4, and he remained there well into his teens. His father bought him a bandoneón and set him up with lessons, no doubt in a nostalgic gesture, but the boy's musical world consisted also of the Bach he learned from a Hungarian neighbor and the jazz he heard in nightclubs.

At age 13, Piazzolla actually performed in New York with Gardel, though his parents declined to let him join the tango idol's touring band. When the family returned to Argentina in 1936, Piazzolla began working in tango ensembles, and three years later landed a gig playing and arranging for Anibal Troilo, one of the era's top tango bandleaders.

But Piazzolla harbored ambitions as a classical composer, and in the 1940s he embarked on a phase that culminated in the 1953 Tres Movimientos Sinfonicos featured on this weekend's program. He studied for five years with the great Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera and then formed his own ensemble, moving gradually further from straight tango as he absorbed the music of Ravel, Bartók and Stravinsky.

His symphonic piece won the blossoming composer a grant to study in Paris, where he sought out the legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger. As Piazzolla tells it in his memoirs, Boulanger sensed that something essential was missing from the scores he'd brought her, and she pried until he reluctantly confessed his dance-hall credentials and played her a bit of his tango music.

Her enthusiastic response led Piazzolla more or less to abandon his work of the previous decade. In 1955 he returned to Buenos Aires, took up his bandoneón, and began to forge a new tango sound that incorporated both jazz-inspired improvisation and his assimilated compositional sophistication.

The world of tango, though, had become tradition-bound in just a few decades, and there are stories of Piazzolla being threatened in the streets by partisans of the orthodox style. Tango itself was associated with the nationalist populism of recently deposed Argentine president Juan Perón, and it was discouraged by the new regime—hardly a ripe environment for stylistic innovation.

Piazzolla persisted. In 1959 he opened a New York-style nightclub in the Argentine capital and formed a quintet featuring electric guitar along with the traditional tango instruments. In decades to come, his collaborators would range from writer Jorge Luis Borges to jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan to the progressive Kronos String Quartet.

By the time of his 1979 bandoneón concerto, Piazzolla was acknowledged at home and abroad as an Argentine national treasure. A resurgence of interest in the tango from the 1980s forward has continued to enhance his reputation internationally, bringing high-profile tributes like Yo-Yo Ma's 1997 Heart of the Tango album.

The NSO will record this weekend's concerts for a planned Naxos CD, which should contribute to a deeper general understanding of Piazzolla's career. It will be especially interesting to compare his treatment of Argentine materials before and after the encounter with Boulanger. And though dancing in the aisles is probably discouraged, it's a safe bet that plenty of concertgoers will be tangoing on the inside.

Email arts@nashvillescene.com.