Bandoneon

a. 1989, Paul Honigsheim, “Governmental Control of Music in Hitler Germany”, in Paul Honigsheim (auth.), K. Peter Etzkorn (ed.), Sociologists and Music: An Introduction to the Study of Music and Society, Second Edition, Transaction Publishers (1989), →ISBN, page 203, Another indication of these changes in musical practice was the emphasis given to instruments that had either been eliminated from symphonic orchestras or had never been so used, such as mandolins of all classes (including mandolas and mandacellos with had lower ranges) and the bandoneon in all of its ranges. These instruments had always been popular with the German people, and with Hitler’s rise to power were included in various public bands.

Piazzolla studied piano in New York with Rachmaninoff and went to France to study with Nadia Boulanger, but his first and favorite instrument was the bandoneon, an accordion-like instrument invented in 1854 by Heinrich Band that has a series of buttons instead of piano keys.

Created as an aggressive dance, expressing the dancers’ sexual instincts more than their feelings, and with the addition of the bandoneon as a predominant musical instrument, the tango acquired its characteristic, definitive rhythm and sound.