Champs Hill HR 019

Ksenija Sidorova – Music for classical accordion

‘Music has been my passion since early childhood, and thanks to my grandmother I learnt the accordion. Classical accordion is still a young instrument, and unfortunately the image of its folk roots still remains. It will probably be a while before the phrase “I play the classical accordion” doesn’t sound unusual or funny! The classical accordion is a wonderfully expressive instrument and the repertoire on this download ranges from baroque music to contemporary, including works which have quickly become core repertoire pieces (Berio’s Sequenza, Nordheim’s Flashing) balanced along transcriptions of solo and orchestral music. In the past six years of my studies in London I was fortunate to meet many wonderful people, and to perform and record with fantastic musicians. It is an exciting time to be a musician these days, and I am proud to say, “I play the classical accordion!”’

Ksenija Sidorova

The winner of numerous international competitions, the brilliant young accordian player Ksenija Sidorova here presents her debut recording: a recital for solo classical accordian.

A particularly accomplished artist,Ksenija has collaborated with many leading musicians (including the Belcea Quartet, and Valery Gergiev with the CBSO) and won numerous awards and accolades. "...one of the real finds of this series" - The Times

Still an underexploited resource in western classical music, the accordian has had a fast-increasing amont of music written for it since the mid-20th Century. Here Ksenija Sidrova brings a varied recital reaturing some of the best contemporary compositions for the classical accordian, alongside transciptions of well-known works.

No composer has been transcribed more often that Bach; but the accordian - heard here in Bach’s Overture in the French Style - brings an advantage that few other instruments can offer; it’s notes do not die away as soon as they are sounded. This allows an array of colouristic possibilities, denied to other musicians.

Amongst the contemporary works here, Arne Nordheim’s Flashing, written in 1985 for solo accordian, has become a classic of the accordian repertoire. Nordheim’s music has a real sense of physicality, of movement and change on a larger scale. In contrast, Luciani Berio’s Sequenza XIII opens with a compressed melody which is gradually developed amid splashes of complex harmony and virtuoso filigree.

Yuji Takahashu’s Like a Water-Buffalo is preceeded on this disc by the poem that inspired it. Well-known in Takahashi’s native Japan, it is a moving, heartfelt piece, strongly transmitting the sounds of freedom.

This recital album also features a ’bonus trck’ - Aster Piazzolla’s ’Asleep’, the first of the composer’s Five Tango Sensations, performed by Kesenija Sidorova with the exuberant young Sarconi Quartet.

 ’ ...an amazingly accomplished artist" - Classical Source