Borges and the Tango
Jorge Luis Borges fans might be interested to learn that some of his poems were set to music by Astor Piazzolla.
Piazzolla is, according to allmusic.com the â€?single most important figure in the history of tango, a towering giant whose shadow looms large over everything that preceded and followed him. Piazzolla’s place in Argentina’s greatest cultural export is roughly equivalent to that of Duke Ellington in jazz — the genius composer who took an earthy, sensual, even disreputable folk music and elevated it into a sophisticated form of high art.â€?
Amazon.com sells �Tango and Milongas� by Jorge Luis Borges & Astor Piazzolla, but as I have yet to buy the disc, I can’t comment at the moment. It seems that it is not his best album. Allmusic says the finest Piazzolla recording is �Tango: Zero Hour�, whilst Piazzolla.com also mentions �La Camorra: The Solitude of Passionate Provocation�. So, there are a couple to go and check out.
Whilst we are on the topic of Borges, here is a little animated flash interpretation of his story The Aleph: http://www.e-merl.com/hyper/alpeh5.swf