Danny Boy arranged by Maggie Ferguson (bandoneón) as a tango milonga.
Film by Felix Ferguson (Galway Ireland). Sound by Jason Julian.
Danny Boy was composed in 1910 by Frederick Weatherly, and in 1913 his Danny Boy song was set to the old Irish folk tune Londonderry Air.
Who sang Danny Boy the best? 17 suggestions: Sinead O’Connor (Acapella), Jackie Evancho, Andy Williams, Judith Durham, Eric Clapton, John McDermott (Acapella), Mario Lanzo, Eva Cassidy, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Roy Orbison, Peter Hollens, Johnny Mathis, Jim Reeves.
The Bandoneón
The bandoneón is a bi-sonoric, free reed instrument invented in Chemnitz, Germany around 1834 by Carl Friedrich Uhlig. It is a square squeezebox, with bellows not unlike a concertina. Heinrich Band, a teacher, promoted the instrument to his students and modified and extended the keyboard. He called it ‘bandonion’, shorthand for Heinrich Band’s accordion. Created primarily as a religious instrument, the bandonion was a substitute for the organ in churches of small rural communities, in contrast to its cousin, the German concertina, which was a folk instrument.
The original instrument, manufactured by Ernest Louis Arnold (ELA) arrived in Argentina in the 1890s in the hands of German immigrants. It was immediately recognized as being highly suitable for tango. In fact, it changed the voice of the tango from cheeky insouciance to nostalgia and lament, which matched the volatile, homesick tendencies of the immigrants. Tango saved the bandonion from extinction and the name was modified from bandonion to the Spanish ‘bandoneón’ to reflect its new role. In 1911, Alfred Arnold (AA) began manufacturing bandoneons in Carlsfeld exclusively for the Argentine and Uruguayan market. Its popularity grew at such a rate that in 1930 alone, 25,000 instruments were exported to Argentina.
Technical aspects
The bandoneón has up to seven bi-sonoric tones, or fourteen rectangular shaped reeds on one zinc or aluminum plate. Each tone has a fundamental and an octave mounted on a separate reed plate, which must be tuned separately without vibrato. In contrast to the accordion, the bandoneón has no pre defined chords. It has no piano-like keyboard, but a complex layout of buttons which varies from instrument to instrument. An average is thirty seven buttons on the right hand and thirty three on the left hand. It is played resting the instrument on both knees while sitting, opening (abriendo) and closing (cerrando) while depressing one or more buttons with each hand. Most buttons make a different tone opening and closing, although there is no pattern to the layout. The bandoneón has been incorrectly termed ‘diatonic’ in contrast to the so called ‘chromatic ‘instrument, created in 1925 by Charles Peguri in Paris.
The bandoneón has two different layouts for the right keyboard (opening and closing) and two different layouts for the left keyboard, again for opening and closing. Therefore one has to learn four different patterns to play it. In addition, there are different tones on the button layout of the Argentine tuned instrument versus the German tuned version.
Given these facts, the bandoneón is regarded by tango musicians as devilishly difficult to play, with a chaotic layout devoid of logic. It is however impossible to conceive of the tango without it.
Reference: Alejandro Marcelo Drago