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 cafés 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...
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