Tango in Russia

26/11/2013 by Richard Stoll

Tango, both the dance and the music, was exported to Europe as a new product early on, during the tango craze of the first two decades of the 20th century. Soon after, tangos were being performed by European orchestras and singers. This popularity inspired European artists not only to cover Argentine classics but also to create their own music with a distinct regional flair. Well-known artists came from Germany, Poland, Finland, Russia, and the Mediterranean countries. Let’s begin a short blog series with these international offspring of our beloved tango, starting this journey in Russia.

The Russian soul (душа, dusha), a concept coined by Gogol, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky, describes Russian spirituality as filled with compassion, strength, and depth [1], but also as constant suffering, melancholic and deeply emotional. This view may be a relic of 19th-century romanticism, yet it is said that love and devotion still form the heart of the Russian soul [2]. This is the perfect basis for the tango, which, from its poetic side, expresses a wide range of emotions.

Piotr Leschenko

The most famous Tangosinger of Russia was Piotr Leschenko (Pyotr Konstantinovich Leshchenko) [3]. He was born in 1898 near Odessa, Ukraine, and died in 1954 in a Romanian prisoner-of-war camp, he was known as the ‘King of Russian Tango.’ He performed dances and sang to the accompaniment of guitar and balalaika. Besides tango, he also sang Gypsy music and traditional Russian songs, as well as foxtrots. Because some of his music was considered politically incorrect in post-revolutionary Russia, he primarily performed abroad throughout Europe, and many of his songs were copied and smuggled back to Russia [1].

His most popular tango was ‘Serdtse’ (Heart), but there are other tangos that might be more suitable for today’s tango listeners. Interestingly, one of his composers was the Polish composer Jerzy Petersburski, so there may be a connection to Polish tangos, which will be the subject of a future article.

Here are a few examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-o_JwnngkU

Russian non-tango songs.
If you attend European milongas, you will occasionally hear old tango music from all over Europe. This music is called ‘Old World Tango’ or ‘World Tango.’ Interestingly, even traditional Russian songs are used as waltzes. Some of these are performed by a trio from Ukraine called Trio Scho. ‘Scho’ (Шо) is a slang word from Odessa and means ‘What’s up?!’ [4]. The trio actually comes from Poltava and is now based in Berlin. Their music is available on a CD, which I can recommend [5].
Besides some tangos by Leschenko, they recorded one of the most beautiful waltzes for dancing at milongas. The song ‘Milaya moya’ (Милая моя, my darling) is a modern Russian song by Yuri Vizbor (Юрий Визбор), one of the most famous Russian singer-songwriters [6].
Vizbor, geboren 1934, designed the song as a romantic Ballad with the title „Solnishko Lesnoe“ (Sunny Forest, Waldsonne). Here [7] you can listen to his original interpretation of the song (track no. 1). Here are the lyrics with an English translation [8]. And for those who would like to play the song around a campfire, the guitar chords can be found here [9]. Interestingly, Vizbor plays the traditional Russian 7-string guitar [10].
Unfortunately, there’s no (copyright-free) source to listen to the Trio Scho version that’s usually played at milongas. So I’m including two more modern versions that I found on YouTube. But maybe you’ll recognize the song from a milonga where I DJ’d (and dance to it).