Ihor Shamo: 'Aria' from Concerto for Accordion and String Orchestra (3rd movement)

As performed in Sct. Pauls Kirke, Aarhus on 2nd August 2024 by ourselves, accordeonist Bjarke Mogensen and conductor Magnus Plejdrup

Ihor Shamo was a Ukrainian composer with an astonishingly prolific output: 21 symphonic works, 22 chamber music pieces, 20 song collections, and music for 20 different films and 10 different theater productions. The Concerto for Accordion and String Orchestra is one of his very last works and comes across as both eerily familiar and incredibly unique and exceptional at the same time.

Shamo's greatest inspiration was Bach, the father of organ music, and in the Soviet Union of that time, one had to resort to the accordion as an instrument to engage with this genre, as church organ instruments were not maintained properly. The accordion concerto is clearly written with a neo-Baroque framework, as seen in the titles of the four movements, all of which could appear in Baroque instrumental suites.

The work is built around a leitmotif, an "idée fixe," which is based on a perfect fifth interval and takes the form of a descending minor motif, appearing in all four movements of the piece, albeit with highly varied expressive "clothing."
The third movement is titled Aria, which can be directly translated as "song" or "melody," and that’s exactly what it is: an unexpected state of overwhelming melodic and harmonic beauty. This state is interrupted along the way by a more agitated, disruptive version of the idée fixe, but the beauty triumphs and finally settles into a kaleidoscope of enchanting colors.

Video by Klavs Kehlet Hansen/Kehlet Video, sound by Danish Radio P2

With support from Aarhus Kommune, Det Obelske Familiefond, Augustinus Fonden, Carl Nielsen Legatet, Solistforeningen af 1921, Dansk Solistforbund, Dansk Kapelmesterforening and the William Demant-, Beckett-, Louis Hansen-, Aarhus Stiftstidendes- and Knud Højgaard Foundations