Czardas

What you get, immediately after purchase
📄 The sheet music as a PDF, printable and readable on a tablet
🎧 The MP3 audio recording, to learn the piece by ear
✉️ A download link by email, with no account to create

This score is 5 pages long.

Czardas is the most played piece in what is known as the gypsy repertoire, and yet its composer was a Neapolitan. Vittorio Monti wrote it around 1904 in Paris, where he conducted the Concerts Lamoureux orchestra, taking as his model the Hungarian csárdás, a tavern dance that moves from a slow, rubato opening into an ever faster second half. Originally written for violin, mandolin or piano, it has become over a century the obligatory showpiece of gypsy orchestras, conservatory competitions and restaurant stages the world over, and it is reached for in film and television whenever an image needs a violin running away with itself. On the accordion it is at home: the bellows let the slow, almost free opening breathe and then drive every acceleration, while the chromatic runs find under the fingers the same urgency they have under the bow and the left hand marks the pulse that pushes the piece towards its finale. This level 5/5 arrangement is a true concert piece for advanced accordionists, a closing number that calls for speed, bellows control and a real sense of rubato.