Classical Mandolin solo Videos on YouTube

[Neil Gladd]

Thanks, John and Alex! Now that I have YouTube figured out, I plan to make some little home videos, as well, and raid the archives for some older performances that were captured on videotape.

I really like the Weeks piece for it's little chromatic arpeggios. None of the turn-of-the-century American mandolinists were really great composers, but some of the pieces are really charming and show off the mandolin well. If you take the best few pieces each by Weeks, Abt, Siegel, et al., then you have a repertoire.

[Stefano]

Hi at all

some days ago I have seen the nice video of Bernardo De Pace http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KUNlGenDg74?

Now it is no longer avilable.

Someone has downloaded it?

Stefano

[Neil Gladd]

It was posted illegally, but you can buy the DVD. It's one of the bonus features in the box set of The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson. I have yet to watch Al, but I've watched the de Pace short many times!

[Stefano]

Hi at all,

I have seen this wonderful mandolin player and I want to share these video with with you.





Stefano

[Stefano]

Hi at all,

I have seen this wonderful mandolin player and I want to share these video with with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxu59fq95ag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvDn0...eature=channel

Stefano

[Acquavella]

Hello everyone,

I just created a Youtube page and have thrown some videos on there. Please check it out when you have a chance. Thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/ChrisAcquavella

Chris.....

[Alex Timmerman]

Thanks Chris,

Nice playing and is very interesting to see you so involved in different styles of music.

Best and keep us up-dated.


Best,

Alex

[Neil Gladd]

Sousa, as it was meant to be heard!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB-D6...e=channel_page

[joebrent]

Mark's started posting video from when me and Alon were in Providence:

[vkioulaphides]

Lovely! I wish I had been there...

Cheers to Joe, Alon, Mark, and the PMO.

Victor

[mandobuzz]

That was really great. A pleasure to listen to and watch. Kudos to all involved, and thank you for posting the videos.

-Buzz

[trebleclef528]

Just absolutely lovely stuff!

[Alex Timmerman]

Yes, all very, very enjoyable!
Congrats to all involved.

Best, Alex

[Acquavella]

Hello,

Here is a video of Caterina Lichtenberg and Mirko Schrader (Duetto Giocondo) from one of their performances in San Diego. It was lovely having them both here. Enjoy.

[Alex Timmerman]

Hi Acquavella,

Indeed a very enjoyable and nice quality video; Wonderful!


Best,

Alex.

PS. The person who put the video on YouTube now has removed the link but made another upload.
The link to the Video pointed out by Acquavella, can now be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JowCi...eature=channel

And there are more videos now by this duo with compositions by Munier, Gershwin and Vivaldi.

[John Craton]

Alex and Victor are too modest to post this, but Alex has made a marvellous video of himself playing Victor's "Diferencias" on the mandoliola (alto mandolin). Note especially Alex's incorporation of some natural harmonics in this delightful piece. Our hats off to both composer and performer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjW9-...e=channel_page

[vkioulaphides]

While my dear friend Alex may well deserve credit for his modesty, all *I* deserve credit for is... jet-lag. Truth be told, I've been back on U.S. soil for barely 24 hours, and was not aware of this, truly WONDERFUL performance (although, of course, Alex and I had corresponded about it prior to its appeareance on YouTube). Thanks for posting this, John!

Indeed, Alex does my Diferencias 101% justice, or more yet! All the harmonics, pizzicati, portamenti, added ornaments, all that unwritten stuff adds up to an absolutely FANTASTIC performance. Donning the garb of the 16th-century Greek-Sephardic lutenist, Alex "gets under the skin" of the score and offers a magical, idiosyncratic rendition— mind you, that is in my book a good Greek word. ("Bad" ones include those I often apply to performances by certain supposedly "famous" musicians, "celebrities", e.g. antiseptic, clinical and the like.)

Three cheers, and a HUGE bravissimo to Alex!

Victor

P.S. The instrument Alex plays isn't too shabby, either...

[Alex Timmerman]

Hello John, Victor et all,

Thanks John for informing the Mandolin café members about my video and your enthousiast comment on it!

And thanks very much Victor for your great reply; a composer's reaction on a performance of his/her music is always of vital importance and yours is very special ánd very important to me!
As you said we had corresponded on if it was OK to play it on Mandoliola and whether my little additions on your Díferencías would be OK to add or not, etc. You had no problems with that as long as it was done with good taste. So you can of course imagine, now the video is 'on air', that I am really pleased with your appreciation!

In my interpretation of the Díferencías I have tried to incorporate some extra techniques like the natural harmonics at the end of a musical sentence and the pizzicati play of a few musical frazes. Techniques, that simply surfaced in my proces of studying the Díferencías. I thought that with the use of pizzicato, it could be nice to alter the sound of a melody line especially when it is repeated several times in more or less the same way. An other reason for me to use the pizzicato technique – as one of several to play the mandolin – was that back at the beginning of the 20th Century it was a real issue among mandolinists and mandolin makers.
To be more exact, between those who played the Roman mandolin type with its bridge as smooth designed as if it was made for pizzicato play and those who preferred the Neapolitan type.
Here was a chance for me show how lovely this technique can sound.

Thanks also Victor for the ‘portamenti’ comment. This manner of playing (and having the awareness of what music story one is telling (or better ‘singing’), is I think one of the most important that players of plucked instruments like the guitar, harp, lute and the mandolin have. For the mandolin it is even more important for it is strung with metal strings and those are simply much more difficult to handle and controle.
With the Díferencías, a work that I see as one of the most beautiful compositions for solo mandolin composed in the past years, all these things are a pleasure to study!


So, many thanks to you Victor,

Alex .

[vkioulaphides]

You are most welcome, Alex. My comments were, of course, 100% honest and truthful. I said what I meant, based on what I heard. Ik zeg wat ik denk, and all that.

Incidentally, the most cruel --and, alas, often apt-- term of abuse that pianists hurl at those colleagues whose playing they dislike/disrespect is "typist": the kind of performer who, while sitting at the piano, sounds rather as if he/she is actually sitting at the typewriter.

Sadly, that is precisely the impression I get from some "serious", professional players of plucked instruments. No, unlike amateurs like me, they don't play (many) wrong notes, nor do they miss hitting the right string at the right time, nor do they make any gross, "technical" errors. Still, their playing leaves me cold. All the fantastic technique they often bring with them onto the stage amounts to nothing, if ALL I can hear in my "mind's ear" is the annoying click-a-clack of a typewriter. I can easily excuse well-meaning amateurs who fumble this and that tricky passage; after all, I'm one of them, and guilty as charged. But top-flight professional performers who play like robots INFURIATE me!

So it is a delight to hear a performer like Alex who has BOTH the skill to render a "correct" reading of a score AND the courage of imagination to do something beyond what's written. In the professional orchestral world, we are constantly admonished, "Play the ink!" Play just what's on the paper; after all, that's what the contract says, no? NOTHING will lead to instantaneous unemployment more surely than deliberately playing anything beyond the "ink".

But in the Free World of Pluckery, it's not the ink that warms the listener's heart; it's the performer's heart and soul that does.

All else is, quite frankly... typing.

Cheers,

Victor

[Linda Binder]

Here's a clip of the concert the Milwaukee M.O. played on a couple of weeks ago with Dimitris Marinos. There are some dramatic readings and dancing in the clip but also some close-ups of Dimitris playing solo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-h44KQVS3Q

[vkioulaphides]

Very interesting! I must listen to this again at home, with better audio.

I dare say, however, Linda... this video clip brings up SUCH *ahem*... fascinating items under "Related Videos"! One wonders how YouTube's data-batching works...

Thanks for posting this. We'll miss you later on this month. Offer on Greek tavern still good.

Cheers,

Victor

[Acquavella]

Victor,

What's the deal? I haven't seen you so wound up before. Whom are you referring to in your message..?

"Sadly, that is precisely the impression I get from some "serious", professional players of plucked instruments." and "But top-flight professional performers who play like robots INFURIATE me!"

[vkioulaphides]

Hello, Chris.

I'm sorry.... I should have disclaimed "Present Company Excluded".

Since you ask, however, this is the deal, as it were: one of my medium-term projects is to return to writing for the guitar, an instrument I truly love and one I wrote lots and lots of music for— some 20 years ago. (This, of course, without any suggestion that I will write any less for the mandolin.)

In the course of my "re-education" in matters guitaristic, I have gotten some characteristic sheet music, some methods and, of course, plenty of recordings. Now... I will not mention any names, but I have come off from this exercise with a mixture of delight and despair: many, MANY "big-name" guitarists leave me with this frustrating feeling of emptiness.

Sure, even the most complex string-crossings are child's play for them, while both speed and accuracy are spectacular— at first. After the dazzlement subsides,however, I can't help but ask myself, "WHY am I listening to this, anyhow?" I'm sure you now what I mean, Chris, and in fact I am ABSOLUTELY sure you have had similar experiences.

It was therefore in that context that I applauded Alex' playing, in the sense that it is "what it's all about". Go ahead, throw in a slide/ portamento of your own, flex the tempo a bit here and there, put your own heart and soul into your playing! If I wanted frigid note-perfection, hey... there's MIDI.

I therefore hope and trust that no one takes personal offence, thinking that I was launching any direct accusation at anyone among our friendly bunch of Café denizens. I just hate "neutral" note-playing, that's all. I do hate it passionately, though!

Cheers,

Victor

[Acquavella]

Victor,

Oh - OK. Just making sure you're OK. I don't think I have ever seen you so wound up before. Well let us know if you cross paths with the assumed guitarists.......sell tickets.

I do know exactly what you are talking about. I have been experiencing it since moving back to San Diego. Disappointing doesn't even begin to describe my similar frustration. See, part of your problem is that you have been writing for the mandolin for awhile now. Once you go mandolin....you can't back! lol. Every instrument is a toy in comparison to our little gem.

Good luck with your studies and compositions.

[Jim Garber]

Originally Posted by Acquavella

Hello,
Here is a video of Caterina Lichtenberg and Mirko Schrader (Duetto Giocondo) from one of their performances in San Diego. It was lovely having them both here. Enjoy.

Hi Chris:
For some reason I cannot play this video. I get a msg saying it has been removed by the user.