Review by Willoughby Ann Walshe (Perpignan, France)
Currently, music schools and conservatories do not teach how to structure, design or implement arrangements of original compositions for other instruments. Friedrich Lips, bayan-accordion virtuoso and professor at the prominent Gnesin Russian Academy of Music in Moscow, fills that gap with what could be used as course material with his book The Art of Arranging Classical Music for Accordion. First published in Russian and then German, it is now available in an updated and expanded form in English. Although the book was written primarily with classical music in mind, the findings, declarations and descriptions are made by the author in generally understandable and simple words. Therefore, they apply or can be transferred to all areas of music, including virtuoso light music, folk music, traditional music, etc. Similarly, while explanations focus on the concert bayan-accordion with converter bass, they are equally applicable to related instruments such as the Bandoneon, Concertina, Diatonic Accordion, Melodeon Player, etc. This is an essential book for composers, professional players, musicologists and active amateurs who want to understand and create arrangements of music as well as interpret and perform them. They will find a discussion of the basic principles of creating arrangements. These are followed by countless tips and numerous examples in musical notations for using the characteristics of the selected instrument to the best advantage. Descriptions include the accordion’s tonal range, use of registers to provide natural dynamics, bellows techniques explained in detail to enhance certain passages, types of articulation to be considered and methods of artistic presentation. One chapter is devoted to arranging organ music, which is written on three staffs (two for the keyboards and one for the foot pedal), where there are certain analogies between organ and accordion tone generation. Another chapter concentrates on arranging piano and cembalo music and explains how to overcome the differences between the percussive and bellows instruments. Extensive and detailed registers with names, terms, literature and titles of music examples included in the text provide the reader with significant source material. The excellent content of the book corresponds to the outward appearance of the book: typographically lavish with finest Italian paper, thread-stitching, laminated softcover with double flap and exclusive design – worthwhile, treasured.

Review by Dr. Nikolas Fehr (Alesund, Norway)
Thanks to Musikverlag Ulrich Schmülling in Germany, Friedrich Lips’ new book on arranging music for accordion is now available in English. The book, which has already been received to great acclaim in its Russian and German editions, is sure to quickly assume an important place in the libraries of accordionists and arrangers throughout the English-speaking world. Lips provides a compelling survey of topics essential to the arranging of music for accordion, and in each section comes with observations that only a top expert with decades of experience could possibly impart. The book, which is packed with astute observations and expert advice, is quite simply a must for accordionists and any interested in arranging for one of the world’s most portable and expressive concert instruments.
Organized in seven chapters, Lips first discusses the importance of arrangements for accordionists’ development, then gives a historical review of the genre of arranging. Here the interesting and potentially surprising revelations begin. How many accordionists are aware that one of the greatest arrangers and proponents of arranged music was J. S. Bach himself? Chapter three examines the essence of arranging music, after which Lips gives a detailed discussion of the accordion’s possibilities for expression and playing techniques. After a look at principles of arranging, the final two chapters are divided by instrument. Lips considers first how to arrange organ music for accordion, then how to arrange “clavier” music, this category subdivided into harpsichord and piano music.
Although Lips’ seven chapters are impressively comprehensive, the book actually comprises much more than this, and is thus much more than a mere translation. We must thank Prof. Ulrich Schmülling himself for providing us with a preface to the English edition, an introduction about arranging, an epilogue on notating systems for the accordion’s bass manual, wherein he advocates international adoption of the Russian system of notation, and an immensely practical compendium of registers which make the monograph as useful as any scientific research tool. Foreseeing the international importance of this publication, Schmülling has illustrated the book with more than a hundred and sixty beautifully typeset musical examples, the majority including both the original work and the arranged version.
One of Lips’s genial observations is that arranging music for accordion has great value because it can lead to a much greater audience for the music in question. He makes this comment in the context of organ music and the situation in Russia, where organs are still a relatively prized and rare commodity. But even in other countries where good organs and organists may be plentiful, performing this music on accordion will still inevitably lead to exposing music of immensely high artistic merit to a much broader audience. Indeed, how many people would never have heard Bach’s great organ works were it not thanks to talented and dedicated accordionists performing on the streets of London or Cologne? And how many Russian audiences would never have heard organ music at all, were it not for the top accordionists who regularly perform wonderful arrangements on their powerful and expressive instruments across the country? I have even heard a top American concert organist remark after seeing a YouTube video of an accordionist playing Lips’s arrangement of “Dieu parmi nous” by Messiaen that an organist could never hope to play the piece with such great gesture, such incredible emotional content, and such a level of expression. Indeed, we musicians have a lot to learn from each other, and this book goes a long way in showing us how.
Back to Schmülling’s foresight, I end this review by noting as he does in the preface that arranging is indeed a full-fledged art form with an illustrious history and an exciting future ahead, and that arranging is of equal artistic merit to composing and performing. Long live the genre of arranging for accordion, and may the audiences for great music thereby continue to increase!