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7. El viejo (The Old Schottische) chotis
Walter Roldán, button accordion; Chichí Vidiella, bandoneón; Ricardo Cunha, guitarrón; Bernardo Sanguinetti, guitar
“In those days, my grandma would tell me they played polcas, chotis, valses. Tango didn’t even
exist at that time. In the interior, polcas and that kind of thing were always played on the bandoneón
[even though] people think that the bandoneón is more for tango than anything else,”
explains Chichí, remembering his grandmother Celestina Silva, who played button accordion.
8. Como polca suena / La polanquera (It Sounds like Polca / The Girl from San Gregorio de
Polanco) polca
Walter Roldán, button accordion; Chichí Vidiella, bandoneón; Ricardo Cunha, guitarrón and vocals;
Bernardo Sanguinetti, guitar and vocals
“Como polca suena” was learned by Walter from Tacuarembó rancher and accordionist Edgardo
“Pirulo” Martínez, father of the accordionists of the group Los Aparceros. “La polanquera” is a
polca collected by the late master bandoneonist Abayubá Rodríguez from button accordionist
Segundo Severo Alonso, both from Tacuarembó.
Abayubá reflects, “The bandoneón is beautiful for its expressions, the sonority of the instrument
adapted very well to the environment in which we live. When I heard a bandoneón for the
first time, I was a boy living in the country, where I only knew the sounds of the countryside: the
birds, the animals, the calves calling for their mothers. The first time I heard [a bandoneón], to me
in its sound, all of that was represented.”
9. Colonia Lavalleja (Lavalleja Township) habanera
Walter Roldán, button accordion; Chichí Vidiella, bandoneón; Ricardo Cunha, guitarrón and vocals;
Bernardo Sanguinetti, guitar and vocals
This song Walter has played since his youth and is one of the “songs that my father played, . . . (a)
habanera from the 19th century. We named it “Colonia Lavalleja” because that is the area where
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