Today’s Tango Is… Plegaria - Eduardo Blanco 03-1937

PLEGARIA (Prayer) – Tango
Eduardo Bianco c. Mario Visconti 03-1937
   • Today’s Tango Is… Plegaria - Eduardo ...  
The story of the "Death Tango" on the video notes (Show More)
So much more with the Facebook Group: Today’s Tango Is…   / 627797383984208  

Eduardo Bianco arrived in Europe from Argentina in 1924 and began mixing with the international playboy set, the rich, social climbers, and the aristocracy. In 1925, he wrote Plegaria and dedicated it to King Alfonso XIII of Spain, who abdicated the same year. Bianco was a fascist sympathiser and dedicated his tango Evocación to Mussolini and, in Berlin, played Plegaria for Hitler.

The legend of The Death Tango comes from Ukraine. At the camp at Janówska, Ukraine, the Nazis conducted their tortures, beatings and shootings to the accompaniment of music. For this purpose, they organised a special orchestra of prisoners. They forced Professor Stricks and the well-known conductor Mund to lead this orchestra. They told composers to write a special tune, which they called “The Death Tango”. Not long before the camp was liberated, the Germans shot all the members of the orchestra. The musicians of this orchestra (40 people) were forced to play The Death Tango, during which the Nazis called out orchestra players one by one to the middle of the circle, made them take off their clothes and shot them in front of the other musicians. The conductor Mund was killed first. The Death Tango died with these poor musicians.
(With thanks to Zhanna Rabinska)

There is also evidence that Plegaria, along with other tangos and classical music, was used for the same purpose in other death camps. Aleksander Kuliesiewicz, a survivor of the Nazi Sachsenhausen death camp, recalls Das Todestango (The Death Tango) and sings it here:

http://www.folkways.si.edu/aleksander...

http://goo.gl/euuRUF

The words, however, are different:

Hear it, how the fiddle sobbing plays
Bloody notes of sweet string music
Hear it, how your heartbeat fades away
And so death tango plays
Have no fear, my dear

Sand will cover your body
Bright star candles be your nightlight
And your pillow be a single stone
But happy you will be so all alone

Shots are falling, bullets flying
Separation! Poison! Keep playing
And if death grabs for your hand
Just be ready, death’s a friend

The original lyrics with English translation are available on this channel here    • Today's Tango Is... Plegaria - Eduard...  

27 January is World Holocaust Remembrance Day

Let us with respect, fear and determination, remember.

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."



-uploaded in HD at http://www.TunesToTube.com