Search - David Starobin :: The Great Regondi: Volume 2

Truly unique!

Jeremy Borum | 07/14/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Few people took the concertina seriously when composing "serious" music in the 19th century, but Regondi was one of them. An ancestor of the accordion, the concertina is a hexagonal-type accordion with only buttons, no keys. Regondi wrote some really wonderful things for the concertina, and I found myself liking the sound and style of the accordion sound when I have never in my life enjoyed the accordion at all. "Leisure Moments" is particularly nice. It has a Brahms-like piano accompaniment to concertina playing. It's really wonderful and truly unique because the concertina is treated as a melodic instrument instead of an "oom-pah" instrument. Regondi was also an excellent guitar player and wrote much classical guitar music, which is represented on this CD as well. Overall a very interesting CD, although not without a few weaknesses. But what CD isn't? If you'd like something completely stylistically unique, this is the recording for you. Volume 1 is nice as well, but it's unfortunately out of print."