Adiós Nonino (Farewell, Granddaddy in Rioplatense Spanish) is a composition by tango Argentine composerÁstor Piazzolla, written in October 1959 while in New York, in memory of his father, Vicente "Nonino" Piazzolla, a few days after his father's death.[1][2]
History
In 1959, Piazzolla was on a tour of Spanish speaking America when, during a presentation in Puerto Rico with Juan Carlos Copes and Maria Nieves Rego, he received news of the death of his father, Vicente Piazzolla, nicknamed Nonino, due to a bicycle accident in his hometown of Mar del Plata. This news, coupled with the tour's failure, economic problems and homesickness, led Piazzolla to depression. There after receiving such devastating news he composed this work in about 30 minutes as a tribute to his father, based on "Nonino", another tango Astor had composed five years earlier in Paris, also dedicated to Vicente Piazzolla.
Dad asked us to leave him alone for a few hours. We went into the kitchen. First there was absolute silence. After a while, we heard dad playing the bandoneon. It was a very sad, terribly sad melody. He was composing "Adiós Nonino".
— Daniel Piazzolla, his son. Astor, Diana Piazzolla, 1986.
Because of its melancholic melody and the fact that Piazzolla wrote it so far from his native country while suffering from severe depression, Adiós Nonino evokes a strong sense of nostalgia and has become a symbol of the Argentine diaspora.
Background
The piece was based on Piazzolla's earlier tango Nonino, composed in Paris in 1954, of which he kept the rhythmic part and re-arranged the rest with some additions. It would prove to be one of Piazzolla's most well-known and popular compositions, and has been recorded many times with many different arrangements and with various instruments.
Nonino is the Argentine variation of the Italian nonnino, a diminutive of the affectionate word for "grandfather" in that language (nonno). The piece was written in honor of Piazzolla's recently deceased father who was a grandfather and therefore called familiarly Nonino.