Flutina - History

History

The earliest version was known as the Clavier Melodique ("melodious keyboard"), circa 1831. It was made by Pichenot Jeune ("Young Pichenot"), and was probably one of the first accordions capable of playing a melody. The first recorded factory was that of Napoleon Fourneux in Paris.

The Accordion of Cyril Demian (1829) described in his Austrian (at Vienna) patent application, had 5 pallets with 10 chords (musical triads) available. It all depended on which direction the player moved the bellows. One key pressed down had 2 chords: one chord on the "press" (in) and the other chord, on the "draw" (out). Demian also produced some Accordions with a single note per button "on the draw" or, "on the press". One of his models, had single notes and two rows of keys: first row the diatonic scale, the second row played the accidentals. The accordion tutor published in the Year of 1833 by Adolph Müller (Austrian National Bibliotheca) has an example which includes pictures and descriptions of many different models. A music journal of Paris, printed in the year of 1831, has many details about the beginning of accordion production in Paris. The article starts out with the statement that the first accordion was copied from a Demian instrument, and later, Demian invented many different scale systems, but only later French models had some buttons in the second row being divided in the middle. More information about it, is in the German Wikipedia. "de:Französisches Akkordeon" text. Note: After Demian's 1829 patent, there is some controversy about the exact dates of further inventions, and the times of applied manufacture, of accordions. Thus, opinions differ, somewhat, among musical instrument historians.