Accordion concerto

[Miroslav1806]

Does anyone have experience with an accordion or bayan concerto? I am very curious how the instrument compares to the orchestra and whether it needs amplification.

 

[Big Squeezy Accordions]

It should not need amplification if the concerto is well orchestrated. After all, there are tons of concerti for quieter instruments than accordion, and a concert level accordion will have a very wide dynamic range. Here's an example of an accordion concerto:

 

[Siegmund]

A concerto for any instrument requires the orchestra to get out of the soloist's way during the solos.

To a rough approximation, the accordion can be louder than any one string or woodwind instrument, but can get submerged by the string section or several woodwinds in unison, and (just like any string or woodwind concerto) has no chance against the brass.

All 3 movements of the Chaikin linked above are worth a listen (while watching the score, if you can - I think there is a youtube video of the Chaikin with the score displayed.)
If you have a taste for more dissonant modern music, Zolotarev wrote two - he called them 'Sinfonia concertante' rather than 'Bayan concerto'.

Several artists enjoy transcribing concertos for other instruments to play them on accordion. Generally these are examples where the accordion is louder than the original instrument, and if there's a balance problem, it's in the direction of not hearing the accompaniment much.
There are also some number of concertos for bayans and orchestras of Russian folk instruments (other bayans, balalaikas, and so on) rather than western orchestras, but that's quite a different animal - one bayan can stand against a whole army of balalaikas and not be drowned out.

 

[debra]

A concerto for any instrument requires the orchestra to get out of the soloist's way during the solos.

...

And that's really the hard part, especially when combining an accordion with wind instruments. The practical dynamic range of many wind instruments is much more limited than that of an accordion and depends a lot on the skill of the player. With woodwind instruments especially the frequency changes quite a bit depending on the sound volume and learning to compensate it to keep the "tuning" volume-independent is very hard. I believe this is less of an issue with brass but there if you try to play at very low volume it's hard to still get any tone at all.
Music written for orchestras have a lot of "solo" (or duo or trio) parts for the wind instruments to go softer than what they can achieve when "tutti" are playing. With music written for an accordion orchestra a solo part is sometimes used because an accordion solo sounds very different from several accordions playing the same part together, but very softly.
I have played accordion solo together with some amateur wind orchestras (woodwind, brass, and percussion) and it would have been completely hopeless without some serious amplification for the accordion solo. Part of the problem is the amateur players cannot play as softly as professionals but part of the problem is that the arrangements did not use enough solo versus tutti parts to increase the dynamic range of the wind orchestra (on the "soft" end of the spectrum).

 

[Siegmund]

Here is one more example, Semionov's "Frescoes." (disclaimer: yes, it's modern, and harsh at times, but not full-on cover-my-ears no-melody-at-all atonal):
This is for accordion and a small chamber orchestra, strings, a very few woodwinds, no brass --- and the accordion is almost but not quite able to play on equal terms with that size orchestra. There is a lot of interplay where the soloist sneaks in or fades out behind the orchestra's sound.

This would be a really nice size of orchestra to write for. And a lot easier to get performances than a full symphony, I expect.



If this sort of thing is to your taste there are some other specimens in the same artist's youtube channel. (Some of the others are too out-there even for me.)