★★★★ He was born in Morón. on September 15, 1923, so this year is commemorating his centenary. Those who knew him know that he preferred to say that he was from Saladillo, some 200 kilometers from the city of Buenos Aires; It is that he spent a lot of time there during his childhood and it was there that he felt that his “pampean” way of thinking, writing, relating to texts and politics was forged. A communist militant, poet, lyricist, journalist, he was a fundamental figure in the “folklore boom” and the New Songbook. He published lots of poetry books in which he appealed to emotion, talked about human relationships, reflected on injustices. But in addition, he shared the bill with enormous composers and, beyond his beauty, many of his songs, the vast majority of which have a folkloric air, became eternal classics. And always with a superior pen.
With irrefutable merit, the Argentine National Music Orchestra Juan de Dios Filiberto honored him with a show that was designed and put together by his son Felipe. A handful of poems and songs were selected. The arrangements were entrusted to Guillermo Cardozo Ocampo and Nahuel Quipildor. And the Venezuelan director Manuel López Gómez and a group of soloists were summoned: the actor/reciter Juan Palomino and the singers Mónica Abraham, Julia Zenko and Juan Iñaki. With all this, and in front of a packed National Auditorium, the official cast produced an emotional tribute that showed no fissures.
Palomino set a very good tone in the “intermissions” without music with the poet’s texts and had his high points with his reading of “Testamento” and “Gente” (“There are people who just say a word lights up the illusion and the rose bushes , which just by smiling between the eyes invites us to travel to other areas, makes us go through all the magic”). The three singing voices were strongly committed to the repertoire and also left particularly excellent moments: Abraham with the milonga “Hermano” (music by Carlos Guastavino) and the imposing zamba “La amanecida”; Iñaki with the “Zamba del duraznillo” (music by Oscar Alem) and “Los pueblos de gesto antiguo”; and Zenko with “Juanito Laguna remonta un barrilete” (music by Iván Cosentino) and the very popular “Zamba para no morir” with which the concert closed. The Venezuelan conductor was the right hand for a repertoire that seems to have sucked since he was little, for simple, austere arrangements, with a popular overtone, very well constructed by Cardozo Ocampo and Quipildor. And the orchestra completed a task –which it started with an instrumental for the “Triunfo de las Salinas Grandes”- that was up to the occasion and offered an excellent start to the season in that beautiful room of the Buenos Aires bass.
