Accordion to Taste

The accordion is a peculiar instrument. It is cumbersome. It has a lowbrow reputation. It can be used as winter quarters by mice. It has a lamentable tendency to lure performers into horrific displays of digital dexterity. It is also matchless at invoking with artful umpahs the special nostalgia that clings to Lili Marlene's Kaserne and the pastis-tinctured cafes of Edith Piaf s Paris.

This cozy quality, alas, has never done the stomach-Steinway much good with serious classical musicians. Its tone, they say, is too wheezily domineering for accompaniment and too monotonous for anything else.

Such a view naturally enrages serious accordion players who, in the 140 years or so since the accordion was invented, have pursued their craft with a pure if lonely devotion.

In the U.S., they have been fighting back, since 1938 at least, through the American Accordionists' Association. Its aim: to improve the reputation of the accordion as a concert instrument, mainly by encouraging composers to write for it. There is also a worldwide organization with somewhat downbeat initials (C.I.A.--for Confederation of International Accordionists), which last week brought accordionists from 15 countries to Manhattan's Hunter College assembly hall to play for the title of world champion.

Much of what went on at the competition was like the history of the accordion itself--inconclusive and tinged with melancholy. But the serious contestants vindicated the proceedings with disciplined and evocative efforts on behalf of composers ranging from Bach to Hans Brehme. The winner was a Russian, Valeri Petrov. His two runners-up: Fellow Countryman Anatole Senin, who alternately coaxed from his instrument both the organlike richness and wintry delicacy necessary for Bach's organ Concerto in A-Minor, and American Pam Barker, who survived the technical terrors of Khatchaturian's Piano Concerto with impressive calm.

Their victory may improve the lot of the two Russians in the U.S.S.R., where the accordion is taken somewhat more seriously. But for Pam Barker, the achievement will bring nothing like the concert opportunites that a similar success could guarantee if she played the cello or the violin. "I once played with the Kansas City Philharmonic," she recalls. "Afterward the concertmaster wouldn't even shake hands with me." Anthony Ettore, a co-chairman of the contest, glumly agreed. "These kids come along with immense virtuosity and musicianship. But all anyone wants them to play is Dark Eyes."

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