The accordion is an instrument very close to the heart of generations of Italians and has become so too for the Irish. The modern instrument is a masterpiece of fine mechanics and of fluid dynamics, consisting of some hundreds of pieces built from a variety of materials including fir, maple, mahogany and walnut woods, metals such as steel, hard aluminium and brass as well as felt and cloth, lamb's hide, kid and leather, celluloid, rubber and virgin wax.

An accordion reed plate showing the two reed "toungues", one for push, one for pull.

Left: very old Paolo Soprani button box showing how the reeds are mounted on the wooden reed blocks. Unusually, one set of bass reeds is mounted at right angles to the others.

In order to satisfy the increasing number of orders, both local and distant, it was necessary to increase the work force, to carry out a business plan of the work system and source more components as required by increased production. Paolo, with his own sons Luigi and Achille, decided to open a new factory in the tree-lined Avenue Umberto, at Castelfidardo. In 1900 the company had a great triumph at the Paris Exhibition, the pioneer Sopranis becoming members of the Academy of Inventors of Brussels and Paris, and being received at the Elysee Palace by the French President, Loubet.      NEXT >>