Laughing at their shadow, the band Les Luthiers

A rigorous text based on a tour of 50 recordings by Les Luthiers and more revealing (many of them funny) about the interiors of this band than anything else. In 1964, at the suggestion of its first ideologist, the late Gerardo Masana (grandson of Catalan immigrants), he started a toddler combo under the name I Musicisti. A parody of Bach’s ‘Passion According to St. Matthew’, changing his words and putting the laxative text. “Swear!” Núñez Cortés is still a fan.

don’t make fun of smugness

This is how their ‘Cantata laxatón’ came into existence, an irreverent number that they continue to perform in the most unorthodox way. “Cantatas are accompanied by an organ or an orchestra, and since we didn’t have any of that, we made the instruments with everyday elements such as hoses, balloons, reeds … that we tuned the instruments as best we could”. The pianist explains that all this radiates a certain whimper at the expense of the “culture’s vanity and elitism.”

All were musicians with academic backgrounds and knowledge of both classical and folklore catalogues, and this is reflected in their repertoire, which alternates between operatic quotations and tango and chacarera. or bossa nova, included it in double bills at Mar del Plata and Punta del Este “after hearing Vinícius de Moraes, Maria Creuza and Toquinho sing every night.” They didn’t even get discouraged by avant-garde music: the piece “Atlantic 3.1416 (Tragic Overture)”, consisting of “a series of terrible noises ending in a railroad accident” and suggesting a “parody of concrete music”. (and Swiss composer Arthur Honegger).

left parody

Núñez Cortés still boasts when he remembers all these skits and events, including the subject with a political background. ‘The value of unity’ is a cartoon about the endless divisions of left parties. “We finished by saying six different letters that combine in the word ‘Unity’,” he recalls without suppressing his laughter. “And each group was getting smaller, but with a longer name.” In another sense, the ‘Tango-shaped piece’ refers to ‘that awful Oedipal thing tangueros have with their little mother,’ he thinks. The composition, like the others, attributed to a collective ‘alter ego’ named Johann Sebastian Mastropiero.

Núñez Cortés is also not shy when he remembers it. Les Luthiers’ disastrous debut at the Poliorama theater in Barcelona in 1974. “We were there for at least a month and no one showed up: ten, twenty people per show,” he says. But the later dissemination of their recordings in cassette format, which began to pass from hand to hand, led them to fill venues like Tivoli or Palau d’Esports from the 1980s onwards.

Farewell

He left the group for their 50th anniversary in 2017. “I was tired, I had back problems,” says the musician, who turned eighty in October. At that moment, he offered to announce to his friends a grand farewell concert at the Buenos Aires Obelisk. “They looked at me with a face I’ll never forget, and I knew I was alone in that crusade.” One of the pioneers had already disappeared. Daniel Rabinovich (2015), “Funniest, Most Cantinflas”, and he would die five years later Marcos Mundstock, “the man of the script, the red carpet”.

And Les Luthiers has continued to this day. Two historic in their ranks, Jorge Maronna and Carlos López Puccio. “I don’t share the experience they’re doing right now,” he admits without being willing to go any further. His former colleagues are now facing a farewell tour that will soon bring them to Barcelona (July 4, 5 and 6, Auditori del Fòrum) and have received their approval to publish this book. “After all, I’m still a luthier.”