[Tango-L] Longer Bandoneons for longer arms ... Re: Bandoneones -- smaller instruments bein g made forlittle hands

[Christian Lüthen]

On 1 Apr 2007 at 16:02, Anna Zelenina wrote:

> The history of bandoneon began with a certain Heinrich Band.
Initially as a replacement of a church organ (the Bandoneon was cheaper than an 
Organ).

> The company Alfred Arnold, Carlsfeld, Germany got well known for producing
> the Bandoneon.
Their 'doble A' have the reputation of being the best bandoneons ever build - although 
not through the whole period of the existance of the company.

> A major part of the production was exported to South America.
Perhaps not the major part, but a big part.
Bandoneons played / sold to in South America had a different keyboard layout and a 
different tuning than the majority of the Bandoneons played / sold in Europe and mostly 
Germany. In the mining regions (as the Ruhrgebiet but also the Erzgebirge area in 
Germany) a lot of Bandoneon Orchesters existed, allthough playing a slightly different 
music than tango.

>  Production of the company ceased in 1964.
When the company was allready part of a 'state owned company', as typical for former 
socialist east germany. 

A couple of initiatives have eventually started and succeeded in producing new 
bandoneon, build our days now! I.e.: Bandonion-Fabrik Carlsfeld - Uwe Hartenhauer, 
Klingenthal - Harry Geuns in Belgium - to name but a few. Some of these new / modern 
instruments a of extremely good quality even played by modern professional 
Bandoneonist as ie. Victor Villena of Paris / Buenos Aires and others.


Btw: in rare cases the Bandoneon makes it back to it's roots ... and is played in 
churches again. One very popular moment when a Bandoneon was played in a church 
was the royal dutch wedding a couple of years ago when argentine Maxima married 
dutch throne-prince Willem-Alexander ... and the dutch Bandoneonist Carel Kraayenhof 
performed "Astor Piazzolla's" "Adios Nonino" at the church. (the father of Maxima 
wasn't allowed to be part of the ceremony due to his role in former junta times in 
Argentina ... . 
Even this performance could be found on youtube as I just discovered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gjecwPc_lU 

The bellow of the instrument Carel is playing is a special long one, with one extra fold in 
each of the three sections. (Carel is a very tall guy with long long arms). As far as I 
know Carel's instrument is a historic 'doble A' restaured by german restaurator and 
bandoneon player Rocco Bonness.

Christian
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