Tchaikovsky Concerto -- full score -- on an accordion

October 3, 2009 at 4:27 AM

This goes WAY beyond being a one-man band....

I had to share this, which my friend and colleague Nonie Reesor sent me:

Frankly, the violin part alone is pretty freaking hard, without playing the entire score, like this guy does!

Does anyone know more about this young man? The Youtube is all in Cyrillic.

From Bart Meijer
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 5:11 AM

That's Alexander Khrustevich. Fabulous!

And how do you like his Wieniawsky:

From Bonny Buckley
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 8:16 AM

You all are torturing me! I love accordion but Youtube is still blocked in China, along with Facebook and many other social applications. But we do have other things here that sort of subsitute, like youku.com where I can watch and hear some great accordion. Go China -- blocking those accordion performances is surely saving your country from spiritual pollution!

hahaha Happy Mid-Autum festival all.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 7:18 AM

Laurie, you come up with the most interesting things.

I did a quick Google search with translation into English, and here is what I found, ( http://www.accoholiday.com.ua/index.php?p=13 ). The Second Annual Accordion Festival and Competition AccoHoliday was held in Kiev, Ukrania on April 25-29, 2008. There were two categories in the competition. For the first (classical music), the contestants were academicians between 18 and 32 years of age. Each contestant was required to play (1) a polyphonic cycle for an organ or keyboard instrument including a fugue for at least 3 voices, (2) a piece of music written before 1800, (3) a concert virtuoso piece, and (4) a free concert program including a lengthy, original, cyclic piece. Aleksandr Khrustevich was in a tie for second place. He is/was a student at the Tchaikovsky Music Academy of Ukraine. The Ukraine appears to be a major cultural center for the accordion.

Here he is playing a Bach Passacaglia (I couldn't get Google's translator to work on this, but I remember a little from my Russian language training many years ago.) I think it sounds good on the accordion, which can sound like an organ.

Although not dazzling, his playing of Rachmaninoff's Vocalise is beautiful. I never knew the accordion could sing so sweetly.

This fellow is an amazing musician. He plays all kinds of classical music on his accordion and makes it all sound like great accordion music.

From Emily Grossman
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 8:36 AM

That is one of the most amazing musical feats I have ever seen.

From Anne-Marie Proulx
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 3:24 PM

I think Claynton Haslop talked about this video and was super impressed!!!

Congratulations to this super musician!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anne-Marie

From Royce Faina
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 8:59 PM

Good God!!!!! He's the Heifetz or Paganini of the accordion? Or will be!

From Sam Choi
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 9:20 PM

As far as I know Scott Slapin posted it first on this website. It was on September 26, 2009 at 07:09 PM on the discussion board in the topic of "Best edition for Tchaikovsky concerto?" The credit should go to him at least on this website.

From Mathias B
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 10:59 PM

Incredible! A young Menuhin of the accordion ;-)

From Anne-Marie Proulx
Posted on October 4, 2009 at 1:00 AM

lol so maybe too Oistrakh at accordeon!!! I can't get over such music and agility to play the complete score...

Anne-Marie

From Elinor Estepa
Posted on October 4, 2009 at 2:24 AM

I always thought that anything you played on the accordion always sound so old fashion, now this videos makes it all different.

WOW!

From Laurie Niles
Posted on October 4, 2009 at 6:19 AM

Ah well, it's making the rounds again, and best to Scott, as always. :)

From Cris Zulueta
Posted on October 4, 2009 at 4:16 PM

I can't believe how fast these clips are getting arround I got a link from a facebook friend less than a week ago for Vivaldi. Amazing!