General Observations

The 1924 tango A Media Luz illustrates one of the oldest of human customs, that of visiting a woman who is not one's wife or fiancée under the protection of anonimity and ready cash. But differently from other scenarios of hot tears and cold steel (García Márquez defined the tango as "this tragic music wherein someone always dies and seldom from natural causes") Carlos César Lenzi paints a semi-clear painting in the impressionists' style of the interior of a small apartment especially set up for romantic encounters.

Nothing is mentioned in the lyric, but the simple description of the furniture, the drink and the dance makes it obvious that one does not have to be Gardel to establish what the whole image is all about. The small apartment at 348 Corrientes Street has a piano, a telephone (Juncal 12 24) and has been furnished by Maple, an English decorating firm with a Branch Office in Buenos Aires of very high prestige in the first half of the 20th century. On offer among other things are Tea with Dancing on Sunday -- the place is closed on Monday -- comfortable cushions, deep carpets to hide noise, and, like at the drugstore: coke (slang for cocaine).

Score of A Media Luz as originally published by Edgardo Felipe Donato
The poet Horacio Ferrer in his Libro del Tango writes that A Media Luz will always be one of the most successful works of national and international cultural endurance. On the other hand, José Gobello, President of the Academia Porteña del Lunfardo, states that Lenzi applied lyric that is more enticing than erotic to this one particular tango.

But those who write in this vein are a minority, as evidenced by the thousands of orchestras and soloists who gave the world recordings of this tango: from Gardel in 1925 to Piazzolla in 1967; from Ray Conniff in 1981 to Julio Iglesias in 1996. Over the decades, its fan-base has increased into the millions among whom it can even claim the unforgettable Pepe Carvalho of black Hispanish literature, the legendary detective created by the Catalan author Manuel Vazquez Montalbán. In the novel "Buenos Aires Quintet" (1997), Pepe, arriving in Buenos Aires for the first time in his life, asks his host for a sentimental concession: to visit Corrientes 348.

In an 2005 interview with Natalia Espasandín and Marianna Germano of the Universidad Católica, Ada Donato, the elder daughter of the tango's composer Edgardo donato, reminisces that the last time she visited Corrientes 348 was in 2002 when they set up a commemorative plaque honouring the composer. Ada and her younger sister, Gipsy are the only children of Don Edgardo Felipe Donato, a violin virtuoso born in the San Cristobal district, who by 1924 had already worked with several orchestras and was by then devoted entirely to composition. As an emerging 27 year old composer, he decided to premiere a special piece in one of the famous theatres of Montevideo, where at the time Carlos César Lenzi, a local playwright was living and working.

Statue of Gardel in downtown Buenos Aires commemorating the singer and the Medellín air crash. In the background is the Abasto Shopping Centre, owned and run by the Soros Corporation, on the site of the old Abasto Fruit and Vegetable Market. Some of the original architecture was retained during the reconstruction and refurbishing.

Judging by the limited number of times the two sisters heard the name of Lenzi mentioned in their home, it is to believe that the friendship between Donato and Lenzi was limited to the creation of A Media Luz. Other tango greats, on the other hand, like Santiago Adamini, Francisco Lomuto and Francisco Canaro were often seen walking in and out of the Donato house on a daily basis. Both Ada and Gipsy recall when Gardel used to pick them up and carry them around in his arms; a meory which to both of them is still partly incredible. In fact, the witness at Ada's wedding was Armando Defino, Gardel's executor who years after the plane crash in Medellín that took the life of the famous singer received his entire estate.

Edgardo Donato got the inspiration for the tango one evening when he turned the lights on and then off again and said, 'Look, everything is in half light!' He then sat at the piano and gave this title to his tango. Don Lenzi who was standing nearby wrote the lyric on the spot for him. Later, in 1924, the famous Lucy Cluny introduced the composition to the public during a theatrical presentation by Lenzi called Su Majestad la Revista in the Catalunya Theatre on Calle Ibicuy in Montevideo.

The success was instant. The editor Armando Perrotti immediately published the tango through his publishing house. Perrotti, Lenzi and Donato must have done a good job because today, over 80 years after its creation, A Media Luz still brings a quarterly cheque to the Donato sisters. They are the only ones who can give permission for the use of their father's tangos in commercials, TV shows or movies. When it comes to A Media Luz, the heirs of Don Lenzi, who currently live in Spain, must also approve the commercial use.

Actually neither Donato nor Lenzi knew what there was at Corrientes 348 because they wrote the composition in Montevideo, Uruguay. It was just a matter of inventing an address for the apartment and Corrientes 348 fit the rythm. When towards the end of the 20s Donato visited Buenos Aires he was more than surprised to discover that the neighborhood of Corrientes 348 was crowded with cobblers and shoe-shines.