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Along with Ángel Villoldo’s El Choclo (GT334), La Cumparsita is one of the earliest examples of the tango style, and certainly one of the most definitive. Written by Uruguayan musician, composer, and journalist Gerardo Hernán Matos Rodríguez, the tune was first premiered in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1916 at the old Café La Giralda; now the Montevideo Tango Museum. La Cumparsita actually started life as a march - the title translates as ‘processional march’- but the orchestral leader of Café La Giralda at the time, a musician named Roberto Firpo, tweaked Rodríguez’ version and incorporated some of his own lesser-known tangos and a section of Verdi’s Miserere to create the version we are familiar with today.
Born in Montevideo in 1897, Rodríguez was the son of don Emilio Matos,
