You may remember Lorna Martin's article in the autumn issue of Accordion Review, when she wrote about the growth of the accordion from the Chinese "Cheng" up to modern instruments.  In this article she mentioned the fact that Joseph Schrammel commissioned a manufacturer to make a special accordion for his famous orchestra.  Since the publication of that article, I have received many letters asking for more info on these early accordions.

Looking up many old books and documents, I at last unearthed a little more about Schrammel and his successors, and thought perhaps it would interest readers.  Schrammel's orchestra consisted of four players, using a violin, guitar, clarinet and an accordion.

This accordion was the one he had specially made for him, and was manufactured by Budowitzer, a Viennese, whose accordions were as famous as Stradivarius' violins.  This instrument was hand made, of course, but had very limited bass keyboard.

The quartet played almost entirely from ear, and was one of the first combinations to really popularize Strauss waltzes.

From these beginnings, the craze spread, and all over Vienna similar quartets were formed.  This meant of course, that Budowitzer had to make more and more accordions.

By process of musical elimination the violin, guitar and clarinet became less and less important in the interpretation of this particular type of Viennese music until finally it was left almost entirely to the accordion to supply the "atmosphere."

This meant that the accordion had to have a larger range, etc.  This gave other manufacturers food for thought and soon, all over Europe, makers were casting around for newer and better accordion ideas.

It meant, too, that the accordion was fast becoming a solo instrument and less of an orchestral asset.

UNFORTUNATELY, one of the first instruments to be evolved from the mass of accordions that found their way into the music world was the Melodeon style instrument that produced one tone when the bellows were pulled out and another when they were pushed in.  Not only was it difficult to master, and the music almost impossible, but the tone was hard and brilliant.

It was this that caused the accordion to be frowned upon by serious musicians, and soon the instrument was relegated to the lowest rung of the musical ladder.

However, as Lorna Martin said in her earlier article, the chromatic accordion was eventually produced, and from this came the piano accordion.

Pietro Deiro, in 1909, suggested that a piano keyboard be introduced on the accordion in place of the buttons.  This was soon after he went to America, and he was the first accordionist in the world to play a piano accordion in public, when he appeared at the Washington Square Theater, San Francisco, the following year.

Before I close this article, I should like to revert for a moment to my mention of the European chaos when everybody started making accordions.

There were about ten different systems of key order at this time.  The Dutch, the French, the Belgians, the Germans and even the Russians all had their individual layouts.  So you can imagine how difficult it was for, say, a Norwegian to pick up and be able to play at once a Dutch accordion!

But even today we have two systems of treble layout for the chromatic accordion, and I hope that it will not be long before the final stage in accordion manufacture is reached when the neglected ( in this country) chromatic is standardized as is the piano accordion.