Beautiful 20-keys anglo arrangements by "weltsauerstoff"

[ritonmousquetaire]

Hello everybody,

 

this is not entirely new, as we had already discussed that player's achievement here a while ago, but I stumbled upon his work again yesterday while searching for concertina arrangements of german well-known air "Puppchen, du bist mein Augenstern", for which he made a good arrangement.

 

But what really caught my ear is his version of the Marino Waltz : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIhQ_NF5wbI

 

He's playing a basic, two-reeded, 20 keys anglo - but in my opinion he has fuller arrangements, and a more beautiful sound than many of the more high-end concertina players that can be heard online. I also love the way he makes a good use of the lowest notes available on the anglo - which brings me back again to my point that duets makers are losing something by making their instruments often limited to the c below middle c. But I'd love to see more duets - and why not, english - players try to delve more into that kind of playing, and use the chromatic abilities of their instruments to make even richer arrangements - using chromatic runs and without any push-pull limit, you could get closer to what (in my opinion of course) would be the graal of the "full sound", the barrel organ!

 

Thoughts aside, I hope you'll enjoy these videos as much as I do. He's really using the 20-keys anglo to its full harmonic potential.

[wunks]

Great playing and I share your thoughts about extending the lower range of duets (mine is a Jeffries which due to it's grid arrangement looks to have more usable space than a radial set up.  I also have a Wheatstone/Jeff which although much larger,  restricts the reed chambers to the outer margins.  I posted some pic's in a recent post;  Donut holes and lever arms.).  I think there are a few strategies that are workable with reasonable alteration, one being a couple of bi-sonoric buttons such as Little John's approach although I'd rather have bellows direction as an option than a mandate.

[Daniel Hersh]

Regarding the low notes, be aware that this is a double-reeded concertina, with the two sets of reeds likely tuned an octave apart.  If that's the case, the low set of reeds are likely to be an octave below the notes you'd hear on a standard Anglo.

 

Silvetta concertinas were pretty good for low-priced instruments.  Their manufacturer went out of business a few years ago.

[Sebastian]

On 2/23/2019 at 8:53 PM, Daniel Hersh said:

the two sets of reeds likely tuned an octave apart.  If that's the case,

 

Yes, they are indeed tuned an octave apart (more or less), and the second set of reeds sounds one octave below the normal register of an anglo-german concertina (à la bandoneon or Orgelstimmung). I am not shure whether Puppchen would sound acceptable or not on a single-reeded 20-button concertina, because it makes frequent use of the highest notes of the G-row. The same may apply to the Marino Waltz. Single-reeded german concertinas shouldn’t be tuned in C/G in my opinion, but a bit lower, e. g. in A/E or G/D.

 

Even on the double-reeded C/G concertina the Puppchen-melody sounds a bit high pitched. Therefore it is advantageous to underpin the high melody notes by some lower notes from the current chord (normally a third or a sixth below the melody note), I think.

Edited February 25, 2019 by Sebastian