Voicing: SATB a cappella
Arranged by Vivian Tabbush
Singer, songwriter and actor Carlos Gardel was born in France, but moved to Argentina at age 2. He was instrumental in popularizing the Argentine tango and rose to legendary fame in the late 1920's and early 1930's in Argentina and throughout Latin America. Tragically, Gardel ded in 1935 in an airplane crash in Medellin, Colombia, in which his friend and lyricist Alfredo Le Pera also was killed.
It is well known that Gardel was a horse racing amateur, and so it is not unusual that in his compositions he frequently refereed to jockeys and horses. The Argentine tango "Por Una Cabeza" (By Just One Head) was composed for Gardel's last film, Tango Bar (1935), and was used more recently in the American film Scent of a Woman (1992) starring Al Pacino. In this tango, love and women are compared to the dangerous chance of a horse race, where luck is often elusive. Hence, the sub-title "Turf and Love are Dangerous."