Adiós Nonino

Piazzolla wrote Adiós Nonino in October 1959 in New York, a few days after the death of his father, Vicente "Nonino" Piazzolla. He was on tour in Puerto Rico with the dancers Juan Carlos Copes and María Nieves when the news came. Back in New York he asked to be left alone in his apartment and wrote the piece in under an hour. It is built on Nonino, a tango he had written in Paris in 1954, keeping its rhythmic part and rearranging the rest. Nonino is the Argentine form of the Italian nonnino, an affectionate word for grandfather.

With it Piazzolla settled the structure he used for years afterward, fast, slow, fast, slow and a coda. The piece has been recorded many times in many arrangements. A 1981 orchestral arrangement appears on the album Tangazo, with Daniel Binelli on bandoneon and Charles Dutoit conducting the Montreal Symphony. Reviewer Ian Lace wrote that it begins abrasively with rasping percussion before turning affectionate and nostalgic. In late 1984 Dutch television recorded Piazzolla and his quintet playing it in Utrecht, with a close projection of his bandoneon playing as the backdrop.

It was played at the 2002 royal wedding of Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Máxima Zorreguieta, in homage to her Argentine roots, and several figure skaters have used it, among them Jeffrey Buttle in the seasons that included his 2008 world title. It is also the fourth track on the album Libertango.