No mere squeezebox
November 9, 2017 7:07 AM   Subscribe

The bayan is a type of Russian chromatic button accordion with a phenomenal range and tone. The favoured tool of Eastern European and Russian accordion virtuosi in particular, you might be surprised at what it can be pressed to do in the hands of a skilled performer:
Sergei Teleshev performing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
Alexandr Hrustevich performing Vivaldi's Summer (Four Seasons) and Alexander Borodin's Petite Suite
Alexandr Hrustevich performing Franck Angelis' Etude sur Chiquilin de Bachin, Brahms' Hungarian Dancea, Vyachesla Chernikov's Jazz Waltz, Waltz Impromptu, and The Lonely Harmonica, Vladimir Zubitsky's Omaggio ad Astor Piazzolla, and Yevgeny Derbenko's Cabman
All links to YouTube
posted by Dysk (16 comments total) 42 users marked this as a favorite
 
Classical music on bayan is so cool. I must have watched that Toccata at least a dozen times. And the Vivaldi is insane.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:24 AM on November 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


(Posting of further links definitely encouraged!)
posted by Dysk at 7:27 AM on November 9, 2017


Thanks for the post! I love the bayan and these are great. Sixteen years ago I bought one on eBay and started lessons with a Russian emigre in SFs Richmond district. A few months into my lessons I got pregnant, became a single parent, and gave the accordion to a local artist who I think plays queer country accordion to some local acclaim.
posted by latkes at 7:42 AM on November 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


So will my standard accordion jokes work on these, or do I need some kind of adapter?
posted by Naberius at 7:50 AM on November 9, 2017 [6 favorites]


OMG the JSB!!!
Wonderful, thanks for posting!
posted by carter at 7:56 AM on November 9, 2017


That fact that you can get such pipe-organ worthy bass tones out of a portable instrument just blows me away.
posted by rocket88 at 8:08 AM on November 9, 2017 [7 favorites]


Yeah, I really sort of wonder how the pipe is folded up in the left hand side for those notes to fit in there because that's just wild.
posted by Kyol at 8:37 AM on November 9, 2017


Tocatta and fugue and my jaw on the floor.
posted by mhoye at 8:42 AM on November 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


Omgaggio!
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 9:07 AM on November 9, 2017


The bayan uses "free reeds" and is the same family of instruments as harmonicas.

One big difference compared to a regular accordion is the left side goes about half an octave lower than a standard accordion layout. The other difference is that the reeds are mounted together on large aluminum plates (brass in some cases) as opposed to individually mounted reeds for each note.

I was fortunate that i saw Friedrich Lips play a few years ago.
posted by boilermonster at 9:19 AM on November 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


This performance of Rachmaninoff's Barcarolle on bayan by Artem Nyzhnyk is an old favorite of mine. I'd been learning the piece on piano and looked it up on YouTube, came across this performance on bayan and then I wished I could play the bayan. The low notes are so rich.
posted by bananana at 9:24 AM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Lips and Nyzhnyk are both incredible too! I wish the videos were better recorded, but YouTube's suggestions did lead me to this slightly less lo-fi hour-long Nyzhnyk performance of Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur so I'm going to be busy for the next little bit...
posted by Dysk at 10:11 AM on November 9, 2017


The Tocatta and Fugue, amazing. It certainly makes me look at the accordion in a different light. Not so much Weird Al, is it?
posted by Splunge at 11:06 AM on November 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Some of those bass notes must scrape the bottom of the range of human-perceptible frequencies. The pipe organ comparisons are apt.
posted by subocoyne at 2:56 PM on November 9, 2017


This is amazing. Thanks for posting.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:12 PM on November 10, 2017


So will my standard accordion jokes work on these, or do I need some kind of adapter?

"Hey buddy! What's in the case?"

"WALL OF SOUND."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:26 PM on November 10, 2017


« Older July 26, 1965--A Love Supreme Live   |   For The Union Makes Us Strong Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments