Concertina arrangements from early-1900s Chicago music books, from the scans in the Tomiak Chemnitzer manuscript archive. Each piece was transcribed into MIDI by Claude Opus 5.5 and played back on the Tomiak Chemnitzer digital instrument. The melody is read from the printed staff. Where the book gives the left hand only as button numbers, the bass and chords were worked out from the harmony.
—Lysander
“Cikanka” means “Gypsy Girl”. This is a lively polka in D major from one of W. H. Sajewski’s Milwaukee Avenue concertina books. It has the classic oom-pah left hand (bass note, chord, bass note, chord) under a bright melody, and ends with a trio section. It was the first piece in this project.
The “National Polka”. It opens with a strain in D major and a second strain in A major, then returns to the opening. A lead-in carries it into a trio and a final repeated strain. Sitek’s books don’t mark the bellows direction, so each bar was matched against the printed notes.
A 1929 popular song arranged as a concertina waltz in A major. Silberhorn’s books print chord names under the left-hand part, so both hands here come straight from the page. Only the exact voicing of the chords was chosen for playback.
A 1933 song, arranged as a waltz. After an opening strain, the refrain is in D major and is played twice. The second ending modulates into a trio in C major, which also repeats before the close.
J. S. Zamecnik’s “Oh, Nights of Splendor”, a 1925 hit, in a G-major concertina waltz setting
from Patek’s Music Co. on Milwaukee Avenue. This book marks the bellows pull with a small
^ over the button numbers instead of the usual wavy line, and prints the chord
names for the left hand.
The only handwritten score here so far, in pen over faint pencil staff lines. A margin note cites Brunswick record 6779. There is a short intro, then a 32-bar chorus in C major that is played twice. The notes were read mostly from the button numbers, because the handwritten note heads are only roughly placed.
The Dubin and Warren song from the Warner Bros. film Broadway Gondolier, arranged in cut time. The chorus is in G, followed by a verse in A minor. The chorus then comes back a fourth higher in C. This recording is played with a light swing.
“Our Beloved Kościuszko” (the sheet also gives the title “Bartoszu! Bartoszu!”) is a krakowiak, a quick Polish dance in 2/4 from the Kraków region. It moves from D major to A major, back to the opening, and on to a three-part trio in G. Then the trio’s first two parts come back to finish on the fermata.