Les Luthiers is an Argentine comedy-musical group, very popular also in several other Spanish-speaking countries including Paraguay, Guatemala, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, Cuba, Costa Rica and Venezuela. They were formed in 1967 by Gerardo Masana, during the height of a period of very intense choral music activity in Argentina's state universities. Their outstanding characteristic is the home-made musical instruments (hence the name luthiers, French for "musical instrument maker"), some of them extremely sophisticated, which they skillfully employ in their recitals to produce music and texts full of high class and refined humor. From 1977 until his death in 2007, they worked with Roberto Fontanarrosa, a renowned Argentine cartoonist and writer.
Musical stylings
Les Luthiers began writing humorous pieces primarily in a Baroque style, especially imitating vocal genres such as cantatas, madrigals and serenatas. Later, they diversified into humorous renditions of music in other genres, from romanticlieder and opera to pop, mariachi, rock and even rap. Their stage show is often intermingled with humorous skits, frequently involving absurd situations, the music and biography of fictional composer Johann Sebastian Mastropiero and a heavy reliance on fairly sophisticated puns and word play. Much of the humor derives from the basic contradictions between the formality and highly developed vocal and instrumental technique of classical musicians and the sheer silliness of their show. All members of the group provided their voices for the pigeons in the Latin American and Spanish dubbings of the 2008 Disney film, Bolt.
Les Luthiers have acknowledged the influence of Gerard Hoffnung and Peter Schickele in their work.[1] "Professor" Schickele invented in 1965 the fictional character of P.D.Q. Bach, son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He also invented many unusual instruments based on real ones, in the same style of the group. He also used the fictional biography of his imaginary composer as a running gag in his musical act.
Mr. Hoffnung predated both acts, starting in 1956 the Hoffnung Music Festival and publishing many cartoons with imaginary instruments for a classical orchestra. Malcolm Arnold probably was the first person to write a parody of classical music using odd instruments when he wrote for a Hoffnung Concert the score of A Grand, Grand Overture, a piece for orchestra and vacuum cleaners dedicated to US President Herbert Hoover.[2]
Informal instruments
Les Luthiers are known in particular for employing a diverse ensemble of invented instruments created from common, everyday materials. The group's first home-made musical instrument, the bass-pipe a vara (a sort of trombone), was created by Gerardo Masana, the founder of the group, by joining paperboard tubes found in the garbage and miscellaneous items. Forty years later, this instrument is still being used on stage. It produces a deep sound.
The first informal instruments were relatively simple, like the Gum-Horn, made with a hose, a funnel and a trumpet's mouthpiece, and some of them were born as a parody of musical instruments, which is the case of the latín (referred to in English as fiddlecan) and the violata (a sort of a viola da gamba), bowed instruments whose resonating chambers are made out of a large tin for processed ham and a paint can respectively, the contrachitarrone da gamba, which is a blend of Masana's old guitar with cello strings and pieces, and others.
Inventor and instrument-maker Carlos Iraldi (1920–1995), as "Les Luthiers' luthier", was responsible for inventing several more sophisticated instruments, including the mandocleta, a wheel moves the strings of a mandolin, the bajo barríltono, a double bass whose body is a giant barrel, and others.
After Iraldi's death in 1995 Hugo Domínguez took his place, and made instruments such as the desafinaducha, the nomeolbídet etc.
Current members
Carlos López Puccio: Bowed Strings (violin, viola, cello), synthesizers, piano, vocals, percussion (in some jazz songs), dactilophone, etc.
