The 11 July Bandoneón Day was celebrated in honor of the birth of Aníbal Troilo, who he is known as the 'Mayor of Buenos Aires bandoneon'. But nevertheless, this instrument emerged as a portable church organ in nineteenth-century Germany. Then he moved to America and became the emblem of tango.

The bandoneon is defined as a portable wind instrument with buttons, driven bellows, with simultaneous execution of both hands. Today it is impossible to think without associating it with tango, But it was not always like this.

According to Argentine writer and music critic Diego Fischerman, It was created in Germany to accompany the Mass as a replacement organ in small Lutheran churches which did not have this instrument. But it ended up being the seal and the sound of a “music bastard”, “casi prostibularia”, as was the tango in the Rio de la Plata.

“The bandoneon is the clearest proof that there is no culture purity and precisely formed mixtures, the bastard, and misunderstandings”, said Fischerman.

That is closely linked to tango does not mean that other genres, like jazz and Argentine folklore, they have not adopted. For example, It is used in chacareras and sambas of Salta and Santiago del Estero, and in some cases as a replacement of the accordion in the chamamé. But for the Argentine critic these are “exceptions” and accordion “It belongs to tango”.

“It's like there before tango. And it's as if it did not exist before the bandoneon. Here is a kind of symbiosis absolutely strange and extraordinary”, he pointed.

He added that neither of these two have the popularity it had in the twentieth century but this does not mean they can not resurface with “more contemporary feeling”, as it has happened with jazz and folklore. By last, large bandoneonistas highlighted as Astor Piazzolla, Ernesto Baffa, Leopoldo and Domingo Federico, and Julio Ahumada.

Source: https://mundo.sputniknews.com/ – 13 July 2019