Customer Reviews

Breaking Boundaries

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The accordion is perhaps the most misunderstood instrument in the United States. Customarily, one relates it to dance music such as polkas, zydeco, tex-mex and so forth; it does not occur to the average American to relate this instrument to any type of classical repertoire. Quite accidentally, after having purchased a used accordion of my own, I came upon the website of Lidia Kaminska, a rising star in classical accordion performance and the first person ever to earn a Ph.D. in accordion performance in the United States. Her first major American cd release tackles compositions by, among others, J.S. Bach, Jaroslaw Bester, Astor Piazzola and Domenico Scarlatti. The level of musicianship throughout this release is very fine. While her performances of classical compositions are enjoyable, it is in the newer compositions that she truly shines.

While this cd stands excellently on its own, it serves well as a gateway into the marvelous and largely invisible world of accordion and bayan virtuosity in their several idioms. Buy this cd and explore further: sway to the tangos of Astor Piazzola and Alfredo Marcucci, to the classical performances of Friedrich Lips, his student Stas Venglevski, Carmen Carozza and Henry Doktorski (among those first rate performers whose cds are sadly not widely available); to the historic Vaudeville recordings of Guido Deiro, who with his brother made the accordion famous in the U.S. at the turn of the last century (he and his brother named the piano accordion and opened a famous accordion school in New York). Russian and French styles also offer great wealth in listening.

This disc is a wonderful journey toward a deeper appreciation of a much maligned and misunderstood instrument.