Where to start with Italian and Greek solo rep

[Mr D]

I'm wanting to compile some solo rep for solo mandolin to play on cello (possibly, anyway) and mandocello transposed down a 5th. I love the beautiful tremolo melodies characteristic of this type of music. Someone posted some videos and a link (http://italianoldtimetrioenglish.italianoldtime.com/HOMEeng.html) to an old time italian trio that I loved. Where can one buy sheet music, or is it best just to pick out these tunes by ear? Who are the most popular and revered composers?

[Jim Garber]

I have a few Italian tunes on my 19th Century Tunes Page (http://www.paperclipdesign.com/19ctunes/). BTW I think Speranze Perdute and Tra Veglia e Sonno would sound quite nice on the cello.

[Bruce Clausen]

Thanks, Jim, you've got some really nice items there. Good music, plus I'm glad to have pieces from old mandolin books that are really explicit about when to use tremolo.

Mr. D, the French musette tradition involves similar music written for accordion, very often by Italian musicians. I believe Editions Paul Beuscher (Paris) still have a series of six musette books in print, each containing 110 items, including polkas, marches, mazurkas, waltzes, etc. Some of the same pieces show up in this French context; for example I see Speranze perdute here as Espoirs perdus.

BC

[Jim Garber]

And Bruce's version of Rivalite (http://laughlinguitars.ca/mp3.htm) is to die for. Despite what is written on thast page, I believe it is a french musette piece. As Bruce notes, there is a connection as the Italian Ballo Liscio is also cafe music. The two cultures must have met and borrowed from each other.

[nrobinso]

MANDOLIN MELODIES: BALLO LISCIO DANCE MUSIC FROM THE 1890S THROUGH THE 1960S by Sheri Mignano Crawford is a great compilation of mostly traditional Italian tunes that were in the repertoires of SF Bay Area mandolin orchestras. I see that Elderly is about to start selling it as a collection of PDFs on a CD-R... pretty cool... see http://www.elderly.com/accessories/items/659-CDR1.htm

Nick

[Mr D]

Thank you all kindly, sirs!

[Martin Jonas]

Great tips in the posts above: Sheri Mignano's book is definitely the one to get -- it's epic. Jim has great stuff on his site, and another wonderful site to explore is Bruce Zweig's tribute to the late great Matteo Casserini here (http://www.brucezweig.com/music/matteo/index.html). This has Matteo's album "Silent Fountain" plus 10 outtakes all as free downloads, plus some lo-fi live recordings of Matteo and handwritten charts for 13 of the songs. All seriously great stuff, and not hard to play. The 13 charts are all also in Sheri Mignano's book, but I actually find it easier to play from the handwritten ones.

As far as Greek is concerned, look no further than our very own Victor Kioulaphides ("vkioulaphides" on the Cafe), who has arranged three suites of Greek folk tunes for mandolin, plus various other good "lost" Greek mandolin music, in his MandoGreco editions, available from Victor directly.

All of this is not really "solo" mandolin repertoire, as it really needs a guitarist or similar to set a good backing rhythm. How it would work on solo cello (or mandocello) I don't know. You may already have seen that I have posted some of my own Youtube videos of this sort of repertoire in this (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?60991-Some-videos-of-Italian-ballo-liscio-tunes-on-Embergher-mandolin) thread. I'm only a hack player, but that maybe gives you some idea of the tunes.

Martin

[Jim Garber]

I also rescued this site. It was posted a few years back then taken down. This was the contents: Greek Music (http://classicalmandolin.net/greek/).