urely most readers have no idea of who he was and very few may have heard his name. But Miguel J. Tornquist belonged to a family of what was called then aristocracy, and his present relatives and descendants devoted to the financial world, possibly know nothing about him.

He was an impenitent bohemian and had a passion for playing on piano all kind of classical melodies as well as popular ones. He composed numerous tangos, which I mention partially later, and that I keep in my file, fortunately fairly complete. We have to take into account that the musical activity carried out by Tornquist took place in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century when there were many prejudices about what was popular, especially if you belonged to a family of the high society. I think he was surely regarded as a kind of "son of a gun".

During my long years as researcher, I was able to find out that only the most informed collectors, that are not many, know the oeuvre of the musician here mentioned. And it is fair to name some of them: Bruno Cespi, a collector of the past; the historian and researcher Hugo Lamas; Salvador Lo Nigro; the writer of these lines, and some other I do not know. That shows that very few know something of Tornquist’s work.

The radio stations which air tangos use in most cases the pieces which are widely known, because their conductors do not care about researching the past or the present a bit, save for a few honorable exceptions.

As from this sketch, I imagine that some people interested in the forerunners of our music, will keep it in mind.

As for the subject concerning Tornquist, I acknowledge that I have taken some data from the historian Vicente Gesualdo and others, in my search for characters of the past.

Miguel Tornquist was born in Buenos Aires in 1873 and here he died on August 25, 1908.

Like his colleague of that time, Alfredo López Buchardo, both possessed the same characteristics, specializing themselves as piano players.

The famous theater playwright Enrique García Velloso wrote in his memoirs, that at any time of the day or the evening, Tornquist used t sit at the piano like a madman, reflecting the merry incoherence of his temper, and played a strepitous mixture of soleares, peteneras, Neapolitan and French songs in vogue, milongas, tangos, estilos, etc. García Velloso states this textually.

I complete the reminiscing of this so many-sided musician, by citing some of his pieces: "El maco", "El estopín", "El batarás" (dedicated to Belisario Roldán in 1904), "El casimiro", "El chinchorro", "El histérico" (dedicated to José Ingenieros), "El trombón", "El movedizo", "El ñato", "El travieso", "Don Robustiano". All these are tangos composed by him and whose sheetmusic I have.

I think I have partly brought to the knowledge of the readers the portrayal of an authentic musician of the past -like many other unknown ones. We would have had other creations maybe of a higher level, since he was a restless spirit, but he only lived 35 years.

Published on Cuadernos de Difusión del Tango, Nº 28.