Close to the span of a piano
With its registers, the modern accordion can approach a piano-like range, apart from the very lowest bass area. This opens music from very different periods and styles.
1 · An instrument that breathes
The accordion — an instrument that breathes.
Free reeds create the sound, while the player continuously shapes air pressure, dynamics and inner tension with the bellows. The accordion's sound is therefore not simply produced: it is always in motion.
2 · What can it do?
Several musical spaces meet inside one instrument.
The modern concert accordion is defined not by a single spectacular effect, but by range, registers, dynamics, polyphony and bellows working together.
Colour, not merely volume
Register changes combine different reed sets and can radically alter colour, character and perspective within the same musical line.
A sound can change from within
Bellows control allows a sustained tone to grow, fade, tighten or relax. Dynamics become part of phrasing itself.
Layers and counterpoint
Modern free-bass systems and two independent keyboards make separate musical layers possible, bringing the accordion close to polyphonic, chamber and contemporary thinking.
3 · One sentence says a great deal
“As if writing for an orchestra.”
When Anatoly Kusyakov asked Viacheslav Semionov how one should write for accordion, Semionov answered: “As if writing for an orchestra.”
This does not mean that the accordion should imitate an orchestra. It means a composer can think in colour, layers, dynamic processes and large-scale form — treating the instrument as a concert instrument with its own laws.
4 · When a composer discovers the accordion
New possibilities often emerge through dialogue.
Sofia Gubaidulina × Friedrich Lips
An important stage in Gubaidulina's engagement with the accordion came through conversations with Friedrich Lips, who introduced her to the instrument's sound world and practical possibilities. That composer–performer exchange became part of the road towards works such as De profundis and Et expecto.
No ready-made recipe
The most interesting encounter is not about an accordionist telling a composer what is “allowed.” It is about revealing how air, registers, attack and bellows behave — and allowing the composer to build a personal language from those discoveries.
5 · Sounds you might not expect
The whole physical instrument can become part of the music.
20th- and 21st-century accordion music uses sounds that many listeners would not immediately associate with the instrument.
TremoloRapid bellows changes create vibrating repetition and energy.
RicochetA rhythmic effect produced by controlled bellows rebound.
VibratoFine dynamic oscillation shaped through the bellows.
ClusterA dense field of sound used as colour and texture.
Air soundAir itself can become an independent timbre, not merely the condition for a note.
6 · Discoveries
The same instrument keeps asking different questions.
These are not encyclopedia entries. Each one is a moment in which a work, composer or performer discovers the accordion from a different angle.
Gyula Bánkövi · Lebegésaccordion → accordion
The piece shows that even moving music between two closely related accordion systems is not simple copying. Keyboard layout, range, fingering and register possibilities can require a genuine musical rethinking. The work also connects directly to the 2026 jubilee programme.
Music written for other instrumentstranscription as a new viewpoint
Bach's organ music, Scarlatti's harpsichord works, and piano music by Liszt or Prokofiev each raise different questions on accordion. The point is not to copy the original instrument, but to ask what the same musical idea becomes in the accordion's own body and sound.
Tchaikovsky on accordion?familiar music in another body
The accordion repertoire also includes music written for very different instruments. The finale of Tchaikovsky's D-major Violin Concerto, for example, is known in a solo-accordion transcription — a vivid example of how far the repertoire can expand.
Meet real instruments at the festivalinstrument presentations · makers · different characters
At the jubilee festival, the accordion is not present only on stage. Instrument partners and presentations allow students, teachers and families to compare different instruments, colours and construction ideas at close range.
7 · Where next?
The best way to discover the accordion is live.
The festival
Concerts, masterclasses, shared orchestra and instrument encounters — the same instrument in many different roles.
The story
How did a 2017 meeting become a national professional community and a jubilee festival?
Accordion at Bartók
If you are a young accordionist considering further study, discover the Bartók Conservatory programme and meet the people behind it.