The Accordion featured in the American stage musical

[Alans]

I was just listening to the recording of the show called The Baker’s Wife-a show I saw maybe 25 years ago-but I hadn’t remembered there are lovely accordion parts in it.

Apparently the newer musical Hadestown has a lot of accordion music in it and the drama Indecent has an accordionist on stage as a musician-actor.

My teacher has told me he’s played in the pit for Fiddler on the Roof many times and I know William Shrimmer played in the pit for a more recent production in New York. But I just can’t hear the accordion parts in that score.

Recently my teacher played in an orchestral concert version of Lord of the Rings and a new ballet based on the novel Madame Bovary.

I know another famous teacher who plated an entire symphonic work from the score of The Life of Pi-it’s online.

Do any others of you know where the accordion has been featured in opera or musicals?


The problem today when you listen to a recording you can’t tell if the music being played is indeed an accordion or a synthesizer.

One more show I remember-the musical Once had a character on stage who played the accordion and sang and danced.

 

[ColoRodney]

One of my few paid classical accordion gigs was when the Colorado Music Festival put on a short opera called Brundebar (check that link for more details on the tragic story behind it).

It was written in a concentration camp and performed by the inmates, and therefore used whatever instruments were available, as well as a children's chorus. Its anti-authoritarian message is somewhat obscured (for obvious reasons) by making it appear to be a children's fairy tale.

The instrumentation calls for accordion. Curiously, the accordion never plays with the rest of the orchestra: it plays the same little instrumental waltz at two points in the score, so it is very clearly heard. My suspicion based on nothing is that the accordion they had available was not tuned well enough for ensemble playing; but that's just a guess based on how the accordion was used in the score. My accordion sounded fine!

In college I played piano in the pit for a local community production of Fiddler on the Roof, and I remember seeing (and having to cover) accordion cues in the piano part. But that was before I owned an accordion, and there wasn't one in the orchestra, so I just played the cues on piano. I think they were particularly in the song "Far from the Home I Love," but I can picture it being used throughout.

Hey, look! Here's a video where you can hear the accordion. It's using a single clarinet reed at the beginning. It trades a similar line with oboe, but comes back again towards the end. I also found the version John Williams adapted for the movie, and the accordion seems to have been omitted. Boy, did I just lose all respect for JW.

 

[Alans]

I’m familiar with Brundebar. I wonder if I can find a recording.

 

[PhiliGol]

Hi Alan
Yes there are recordings, e.g.