The accordion’s name, from the German word Akkord (chord), first appears in an 1829 Viennese patent by the Armenian inventor Cyrillus Demian (1772-1849). The Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg holds Europe’s largest collection of early German free-reed instruments, accordions, and harmonicas. Two of Haeckel’s instruments from 1825 can be seen in the Vienna Technical Museum. His introduction of the sheng set off an era of experimentation in free-reed instruments such as Anton Haeckel’s Physharmonika, a bellows-operated reed organ (Vienna, patented 1818), and Friedrich Buschmann’s mouthblown “Handäoline” (Berlin, patented 1822). Amiot entertained Beijing listeners by playing harpsichord versions of Rameau’s music, including Les sauvages (later part of Les Indes galantes). The earliest forms of the accordion were inspired by the 1777 introduction of the Chinese free-reed sheng (bowl mouth organ) into Europe by Père Amiot, a Jesuit missionary in Qing China. (National Music Museum) Throughout the Classical and Romantic periods, the humble accordion and its simpler cousin, the concertina, were important parlor, chamber, and accompanying instruments.

The Leipzig maker Anton Zuleger produced a line of small Tanzbär 28-note player accordions with rolls of punched paper.

Accordion instruments