Fischer, Böhm, Reger, Manini, Santoni: New Arrangements for Accordion

Arrangements for accordion by Francesco Moretti, edited by Francesco Moretti and Saverio Santoni.

Contents

• Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer: Chaconne in F
• Georg Böhm: Ciacona
• Max Reger: Introduktion und Passacaglia, WoO IV/6
• Filippo Manini: Tango, Fuga y Coral
• Saverio Santoni: Fanfara

Preface

With the word “accordion” I mean the modern instrument in use at music academies all over the world.

On the left keyboard, it has both the possibility of the traditional “standard bass”, which made the instrument widely used in folk music, and the “free bass”, which allows to play the same note on different octaves without the use of a transposing register, as it happens on the right keyboard.

Transcriptions and arrangements for accordion have been published for many years, but I have something more to offer. This is my story:

As a young musician, not yet studying in any conservatoire, I’ve been really enjoying the published arrangements of classical music. Pieces taken from various sources such as piano and symphonic music. I was, since the beginning of my studies, aiming at playing classical music and I’ve approached the instrument as a polyphonic tool to achieve my purpose.

Once being a conservatoire student, I’ve learned to create my own personal interpretation, and to give it coherence and a purposeful effect. Similarly, transcriptions and arrangements became a matter of personal taste and sensibility, activities with greater experimenting possibilities than interpretations.

A great deal of influence in the way I built my own preferences in the arranging style came from studying, and orchestrating for few effective parts, famous symphonic music and movie soundtracks which other conservatoire students would have had fun playing to amuse the summer concerts’audience.

Accordion is a peculiar instrument, its reeds produce a quite poor sinusoidal sound and harmonics are artificially added with the use of registers, alias doubling notes with unisons or octaves.

As a matter of fact, accordion’s polyphonic and dynamic possibilities seem perfect to be coupled with classical instruments, with their proper rich timbre to replace the mass of violins playing at unison in an orchestra or the secondary parts of brass and woodwind instruments. Thus, arrangements for accordion from original piano music sound rarely charming, being orchestral works more suitably adapted for it.

Writing and arranging for accordion is not a task to underestimate because of the complexity of the sound production: a unique bellow blows air to reeds of different size on both keyboards, which can just add a small touch over the sound quality and a minimal control to the air flow. The result is never obvious and an unbiased listening should be the main guide to make choices.

The book collects the best of my personal arrangements, a selection of remarkable keyboard works from different epoques. My best wish for this collection, created in collaboration with the composer Saverio Santoni, is to become a useful example for musicians, students and composers. Nevertheless, I would suggest to every student who approaches these works to also practice creating their own transcriptions from originals.

Performance notes
The arrangements use accordion notation rather than sounding pitch. Register indications determine the sounding octave. The edition includes English and Italian introductory and performance notes.