Wonderful Djordje

On Saturday March 15th, Brodick Hall was packed with people eager to hear Djordje Gajic, the astonishing master of the accordion. Many had attended his previous concerts, where he formed part of a duo, but he had not performed on Arran as a soloist since his first appearance on the island, which coincided with a blizzard and had a limited audience. Since then, news of his extraordinary skill has crept round, and this time, nobody wanted to miss their chance.

They were amply rewarded. Always modest and charming, Djordje explained that he would be playing a wide variety of music – and then plunged into the well-known Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor, filling the hall with a colossal sonority that sounded like a cathedral organ. From there, he went on to the delicacy of Scarlatti, the counterpointed tunes weaving lightly in and out. At the interval, someone said, ‘How does he manage to play three distinct musical lines at once, on one keyboard?’ Djordje explained that his left hand, constantly flickerng across multiple buttons, played sequences of single notes as well as chords. The right hand was busy doingthe same thing, so in effect we were listening to a man playing two pianos at once, but with the power and sustained harmony of a church organ.

It is largely due to Djordje that serious interest in the piano accordion has grown in this country. In Russia, where he did his Master’s degree in music, the ‘bayon’ as it is known, had long been respected as a demanding classical instrument, but here, it has tended to be dismissed as the background to a French film or something heard in a Mexican café. Aye, well, as they say, we know now. We came out into the rain having been touched by sheer magic.