Roberto Firpo

Historical background

A pianist and composer, Roberto Firpo was one of the key figures behind tango's shift from guitar to piano in the 1910s: in 1913, at a contest held by the Armenonville restaurant, he formed his own trio rather than play in Genaro Espósito's guitar band — a disgruntled guitarist, the story goes, went so far as to stab him in the back while pretending to congratulate him. It was this same Firpo who, in 1916, was handed the sheet music of a march and asked to arrange it as a tango: it became La cumparsita, and he would regret for the rest of his life not putting his own name on the arrangement.

According to Michael Lavocah, Firpo's orchestra — more than 2,800 sides cut between 1926 and 1935 — remains the most forgotten in tango today, overshadowed by the guardia-vieja-style quartet he formed at the end of 1935 to ride the D'Arienzo revolution. His writing for violins, played slightly sharp with such a pronounced vibrato that they almost wail, would not find a comparable echo until much later, in the orchestra of Carlos Di Sarli.

Source: Michael Lavocah, Tango Masters: Tango Stories, Musical Secrets, chapitre 14 « Roberto Firpo: the forgotten hero ».