The one that is newish to me (although probably not to anyone else) is Zolotaryov, and to my ears it's in a completely different league to all of these. The guy was a genius - original, tuneful, witty, economical and had a lot to say. I'd put him at the very very top of all composer's that wrote for the accordion ever. The so called children's suites are amazing music, up there with Mussorgsky or Tchaikovsky.
I very much enjoy a lot of Zolotarev too. Indisputably a genius as both composer and performer. I
almost named him in my reply to your thread. If your focus is only on music for solo freebass accordion, I've no objection at all to putting him at the very top of your list. He wrote things that noone before him came close to and few people after have successfully matched.
I would dispute "economical." I see him more as testing the limits of what was achievable on his instrument. The first movement of your linked suite is a prime example: it's a pleasant tuneful piece - which requires you to dance vigorously with your thumb and pointer finger while you hold your other three fingers down, and requires you to own a 5-octave LMMH CBA with freebass. Yes, it's written very well for that instrument; you only have to span a eleventh with your right hand, and the alternative arrangement of putting the held notes in one hand and the melody in the other would require you to span a thirteenth and have a very agile pinky. (If we looked outside the Children's Suites we'd find him pushing a lot more extremes.)
The Children's Suites are as good accordion music as anybody else's piano miniatures ever were. On the other hand, I don't think his two sinfonia concertantes are anything all that special, and I think a lot of his work is out of reach both of the audience's ears and most performer's fingers.
If you asked a roomful of violinists who the greatest of all time was for their instrument, there's a good chance they'd settle on Eugene Ysaye, after dismissing Pablo Sarasate as the lightweight Frosini-equivalent and Paganini as just a technical showoff not a great composer. But I bet the number of non-violinists who listen to Ysaye's solo repertoire is probably about the same as the number of non-accordionists who listen to Zolotarev. (And I have no idea how good Ysaye's violin concertos or his symphonic poems or his opera are - nobody ever plays or records them!)
Sarasate's works for larger ensembles are tuneful and competent just not electrifying. He's well ahead of Paganini's violin concertos or Chopin's piano concertos, which do not do the orchestra (or the audience) any favors.
I am still waiting for the world's best writer of accordion concertos, or best writer of wind-and-accordion or string-and-accordion chamber music, to appear on the scene.
I do have a bit of a bias, in that I have a big interest in how best to blend accordion with other instruments. It's the small-ensemble stuff of Hermosa's that I like best. I was really impressed with a live concert I saw with Galliano and a string orchestra, smoothly and almost indetectably passing lines back and forth from violin to accordion and back again. I know it is
possible to write
really well for these ensembles... and I hope someone will.
