English: This is a button key accordion made by the company Marrazza in Italy. It is a portable musical instrument which uses buttons instead of piano-style keys. The melody is played on the buttons on the right-hand side. The bass and pre-set chord buttons are on the left-hand side.

Object description

The instrument is made of lacquered wood, metal, plastic, leather and cloth. There is a curved rectangular body with a jutting keyboard. It has twenty-one treble buttons and nine bass ones. There are bellows through which air is pumped. Two shoulder straps secure the instrument to the body. This accordion is operated by air pressure and belongs to a group of instruments called aerophones. Sound is produced by steel reeds. These vibrate when air is forced through them by the hand-pumped bellows.

History

Cyril Demian designed the accordion in 1829. The design was patented in Vienna. An Italian, Paolo Soprani, improved the design and Mariano Dallape added some more innovations. This evolved into the modern accordion. Several production centres were set up in Italy by different operators. Considerable numbers of accordions were produced in Stradella near Pavia. Production increased greatly and Italy exported 200,000 instruments at the peak of production in 1953.