Astor Piazzolla

Astor Piazzolla spent his life with a bandoneon, the button accordion at the heart of Argentine tango. Born in Mar del Plata in 1921 and raised partly in New York, he played in Buenos Aires tango bands as a young man while secretly wanting to be a classical composer. In 1954 he went to Paris to study with the famous teacher Nadia Boulanger, who heard his concert works politely, then heard him play a tango and told him that was where his real voice lived.

He took the advice and invented what he called nuevo tango, tango enriched with the harmonies of classical music and the freedom of jazz. Traditionalists in Buenos Aires were furious; the rest of the world gradually fell for it.

Start with Libertango, three minutes of pure momentum, then try the Aconcagua concerto for bandoneon, strings, and percussion to hear him stretch out.