Nordheim’s music is meant to be very playful. His Flashing, originally the cadenza of his concerto for accordion and orchestra (Spur), became eventually his most famous work for accordion. The whole composition is based on a very frisky idea: the bouncing of a little ball. Nordheim discovered the stereophonic character of the accordion, from whose sound of the left and… Read more →

A very important page of the contemporary accordion literature, “Vagabonde blu” is a mirror of the aesthetics of the famous Italian composer: research of the noise brought to an extreme sensitiveness, dynamics rarely louder than a “piano”. It shows the physicality of the accordion as an instrument that breath like a lung, sighs and blow in the hands of the… Read more →

One of the most spectacular pages written by the Russian composer, characterized by a repetitive stamping bitonal chords combination, which Stravinsky considered the focal point of the entire work. The rhythm of the stamping is disturbed by Stravinsky’s constant shifting of the accent, on and off the beat, before the dance ends in a collapse, as if from exhaustion. Read more →

Synopsis: In 1943, 48 Japanese Prisoners of War were killed in Featherston, New Zealand, after an incident from cross-cultural confusion and miscommunication. All events surrounding the incident were kept secret until well after the war had finished: the Prisoner-of-War camp’s existence was hidden from the New Zealand public, and the official military report on the incident was riddled with ambiguities.… Read more →

The Messe de Nostre Dame, a polyphonic four voices mass, is one of the greatest masterpieces of medieval music. The Kyrie is built around a famous melody (a –so called- cantus firmus) of the tenth-century with title Cunctipotens genitor. Read more →

Bent Sørensen, one of the most frequently performed contemporary Scandinavian composers, has taken the title, ‘Looking on Darkness’, from Shakespeare’s Sonnet No 27. The thematic and intellectually clearly constructed form in which the inherent emotion is centrally placed, and which characterizes the sonnet, also forms the basis of Sørensen’s composition. After a long day’s work the speaker of the sonnet… Read more →

The title literally means “Apparition of Franz Schubert between the waves”. It’s a poetical and evocative piece. The accordions create an acoustic landscape from which short distant delicate glimpses of melodies timidly emerge until the final, an homage to the great Austrian composer. Listen on Youtube Read more →

Interview with Frode Haltli Part I: Introduction to the Scandinavian culture and society Part II: From the contemporary to the traditional music and back Part III: Ellegaard and Nordheim, accordion meets Norway Part IV: A personal experience, New Scandinavian music for accordion Part V: Maja S. K. Ratkje – ‘Gagaku Variations’, Ich bin ein Japaner! Part VI: Bent Sørensen –… Read more →

Georg Friedrich Händel – Lascia ch’io pianga (aria from “Rinaldo” HWV7b) Georg Friedrich Händel – Ouverture Suite II in D from Water music HWV 349 (for two accordions) Nino Rota – Parla più piano (from “The Godfather”) Dimitri Shostakovich – Valse n.2 (from “Jazz Suite”) Luis Bacalov – Il Postino (from “The Postman”) Read more →