Accordion

The winner of numerous international competitions, the brilliant young accordion player Ksenija Sidorova here presents her debut recording; a recital for solo classical accordion. A particularly accomplished artist, Ksenija has collaborated with many leading musicians (including the Belcea Quartet, and Valergy Gergiev with the CBSO), and won numerous awards and accolades. Still an underexploited resource in western classical music, the accordion has had a fast-increasing amount of music written for it since the mid-20th Century. Here, Ksenija Sidrova brings a varied recital featuring some of the best contemporary compositions for the classical accordion, alongside transcriptions of well-known works. No composer has been transcribed more often than Bach; but the accordion - heard here in Bachs Overture in the French Style - brings an advantage that few other instruments can offer; its notes do not die away as soon as they are sounded. This allows an array of colouristic possibilities, denied to other musicians.

Master Iconic Russian Tunes Fast with No Sheet Music or Theory: Step-by-Step Piano Accordion Lessons with Backing Tracks

Ronald Stevenson (1928–2015) is best remembered for his huge output of music for the piano, an instrument he played with a rare understanding of tonal colour. It was thus entirely within character that he responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to explore the musical possibilities of the accordion, most impressively in a ‘Dance Poem’ of some scale. Stevenson was also an inveterate transcriber, producing hundreds of piano versions of pieces written for other forces.

Danish Bjarke Mogensen (b. 1985) is the new star of the accordion in a country where there are already fine accordion traditions. On this CD Bjarke is accompanied by the Danish National Chamber Orchestra conducted by Rolf Gupta in new Danish accordion concertos by Per Nørgård, Ole Schmidt, Anders Koppel and Martin Lohse – the last two written specifically for the young soloist.

Astor Piazzolla’s name is synonymous with Nuevo Tango, an experimental compound of traditional and contemporary influences, and this recording offers a bouquet of his finest music in wholly original arrangements for classical accordion and piano. This selection includes the unforgettable Milonga del ángel as well as the evocative suite The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. The Double Concerto ‘Hommage à Liège’ is one of Piazzolla’s most classically orientated works, by turns playful, catchy and lyric, while the examples drawn from his film music are among his most enduring.

Władysław Zolotaryow, Aleksandr Nagajew and Albin Repnikov are the great names of 20th-century Russian accordion literature. The sonatas presented on this album combine a tragedy, a reflection on life, but in the shadow of death. There are also musical references directly related to it, such as a quotation from a medieval sequence sung during the funeral Masses Dies iræ, dies illa in Władysław Zolotaryov's Sonata No. 3, or the use of the motif of the song Позабыт, позаброшен (Forgotten, abandoned), telling about a conscious child waiting for him death in the third movement of Albin Repnikov's Sonata. Sonata op. 13 Alexander Nagayev was created a year after the tragic departure of Zolotaryov and is a musical tribute to a friend.

Learn how to play an Accordion from basic to complex skill and techniques