Gerardo Matos Rodríguez & a cura di Francesco Leone 
La Cumparsita – Woodwind Quartet (parts) 
Tango

Arrangement for Woodwind Quartet (intermediate) by Francesco Leone .

Set of parts (5): Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet and Bassoon, included Bb Bass Clarinet instead Bassoon (score available separately).

• ‘La cumparsita’ (little street procession, a grammatical diminutive of la comparsa) is a tango written in 1916 by the Uruguayan musician Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, with lyrics by Pascual Contursi and Enrique Pedro Maroni. It is among the most famous and recognizable tangos of all time.


• Appearances in films: Gene Kelly dances to ‘La cumparsita’ in the film Anchors Aweigh (1945). The song was included in a ballroom scene of the film Sunset Boulevard (1950), in which Gloria Swanson and William Holden danced the tango. In the 2006 dance movie Take the Lead,  Jenna Dewan,  Dante Basco and Elijah Kelley danced to a remixed version. In the 1959 film Some Like It Hot, ‘La cumparsita’ is played by a blindfolded Cuban band during a scene in which Jack Lemmon dressed in drag dances with overstated flair in the arms of Joe E. Brown who thinks Lemmon is a woman (‘Daphne – you’re leading again’). During the filming in 1958, actor George Raft taught the other two men to dance the tango for this scene.