Hailed as ‘Queen of the classical accordion’, Mie Miki made her first public appearance at the age of five, and has since then given countless concerts. This recording brings together pieces that she doesn’t necessarily perform in public, however – rather they are the ones that she plays when needing to take a break from practising her next concert programme: old friends and new, childhood acquaintancies, and some surprise guests from a wholly different musical universe. Pieces for harpsichord (Daquin’s Cuckoo or Handel’s Blacksmith) or piano (Stravinsky’s Tango and Schubert’s two Moments musicaux) rub shoulders with original accordion compositions such as Wolfgang Jacobi’s Sérénade. Moods range from the irrepressible Miss Karting, straight out of the great French musette tradition, and the breakneck comedy of Road Runner, to the intense pathos of Astor Piazzolla’s Chiquilín de Bachín and the calm serenity of A Spotless Rose, in Brahms’ setting (originally an organ prelude). As Mie Miki explains in her introduction, the album ‘represents a mosaic landscape, a product of coincidences, dreams, journeys, memories and nostalgia’, from which the listener is free to choose pieces according to mood and whim – finding something suitable for any occasion. And this performer’s ability to capture all of this with her wonderfully expressive instrument has been tried and tested – for instance on her recording of Grieg piano pieces, BI 1629, of which the reviewer in Fanfare wrote: ‘It would be hard not to like this CD… it brings a smile to my lips whenever I play it.’