A listening route through Troilo

Lavocah presented the route as a way to hear the orchestra’s development through changes of musicians, singers and style. He said the selection was not a list of personal favourites: most entries represented stages in that development, while two deliberately showed other aspects of Troilo’s art. ^[1][2]

The route began with Comme il faut in 1938 and ended with Nocturno a mi barrio in 1968. Its sequence gave listeners a manageable path through the catalogue without treating any one period as the whole story. ^[3][1]

Lavocah’s sequence paired several titles with a named singer, making those changes part of the route. The years below are the years printed in his list; the chapter did not identify them as premiere dates. ^[3][4]

The first four selections moved from Comme il faut to two Fiorentino entries and then a Marino entry. The middle stretch placed Recuerdos de bohemia before Sur and Responso; the final stretch moved through Casal, Rivero and Troilo. Heard in order, the ten selections followed the development that Lavocah intended the list to illustrate. ^[3][4][5][1]

Lavocah singled out Recuerdos de bohemia and Nocturno a mi barrio as atypical choices. Their place in the route was deliberate: he included them to reveal another aspect of Troilo’s art, rather than to make every selection representative of its period. ^[2]