Fabrice Knecht Tango DJ
Fabrice Knecht Tango DJ
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These Tangos, Valses, and Milongas were recorded around the same time. Take a look to discover what else this orchestra—or others—may have recorded during the same week or even on the exact same day.
La novena is a Tango written by Alfredo Bigeschi and composed by Miguel Bonano.
The narrative of “La novena” takes the listener through a poignant scene set in the evening shades of a city, transitioning from the hustle to the mystical calm of religious devotion. It encapsulates the profoundly intimate and communal act of prayer during ‘La Novena’, a religious event involving nine days of prayer. The lyrics poignantly depict the gathering of individuals in a church, where the air is thick with personal histories and shared sorrows, from mourning old women to young girls, all converging in hope and collective solace.
The visceral image of an old woman weeping quietly in the church corners, her prayers infused with the pain of losing her son to war, underscores the central theme of loss and the plea for peace. This tale crystallizes around her solitary figure, a mother whose devotion now intertwines with her grief—a poignant reminder of the war’s enduring scars on its survivors.
The bronze bells, a recurring symbol in these lyrics, resonate as ‘the voice of God’, heralding the commencement of La Novena and symbolizing a call to a higher spiritual state beyond the mundane. The act of kneeling and the whispered Hail Marys juxtapose the sacred with the ordinary, illustrating the community’s collective turning towards divinity to seek respite from their worldly pains.
The old woman, kneeling and sobbing, becomes a powerful image of enduring sorrow, with her tears metaphorically likened to the beads of a rosary. The rosary itself, a symbol in Catholicism of meditation and prayer, represents in these lyrics a sequence of memories and losses stitched together like its beads—each a poignant reminder of bereavement.
Coming from Argentina in 1953, a period marked by political instability and the shadow of World War II still lingering, “La novena” speaks vehemently about personal and collective grief. This year, not far from the rise of figures like Juan Domingo Perón, saw society grappling with the residual impacts of global conflicts and national politics influencing everyday life. The mention of a son ‘taken by the country’ for war efforts, and never returning, reflects a universal storyline of loss and sacrifice familiar to many families of the time—not just in Argentina, but globally.
Alfredo Bigeschi was a noted figure in the Tango scene, often recognized for his evocative lyrics that beautifully meld storytelling with deep emotional undercurrents.