The Accordion Maestro - An enchanting evening with Mirco Patarini

It was a friday evening and luckily a public holiday. My sister and I dropped by the prestigious Sandre Hall where the renowned Italian accordionist Mirco Patarini was performing.

The accordion is a free reed instrument. Its reeds are classified into treble and bass reeds. They are made to vibrate by air coming from a bellows that is operated by hand. The accordion has traditionally been used to perform folk, popular music, and transcriptions from the operatic and light-classical music repertoire.

Hohner Accordion
Source: furtadosonline.com

Mr. Mirco played a string of beautiful pieces, bewildering the audience with his deft touches and exquisite fluency.

The Capriccio no. 24 composed by Niccolo Paganini was wonderful, as were the Finale dalla sonata III composed by Vladislav Zolotarjow, Cocerto Rondo composed by Nikolay Tschaikin, Volo del Calabrone II composed by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and the Don Rhapsodie by Viacheslav Semjonov.

The Polkas that Mr. Mirco effortlessly played were fantastic, mesmerising us and sweeping us through time and space as if we were part of a festival in an European town. The rhythm and tempo were outstanding, it was after all a maestro at work. The penultimate piece was the famous "Bumblebee" which made the audience tap their feet.

Maestro at work!
(Picture courtesy: The Calcutta School of Music)

The evening which Mirco Patarini gifted us, courtesy of Calcutta School of Music, was something the audience would cherish for a long time. The rich bass and the numerous chords of the accordion is not something Kolkatans get to experience everyday, so it was all the more special.

As the performance came to an end with a loud round of applause we headed back home with the enchanting evening engraved in our memory and with a spring in our steps.