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Hi all,
Just a heads up to let you know that Belmando is now offering the Trio Assai and Quarteto de Plectro Assai cds. These are superb renditions of mainly Spanish Classical music arranged for the indigineous Spanish Plectrum instruments with the Bandurria taking the mandolin position.
These cds sit well alongside Het Consort's cds 'Homage to Luigi Embergher' and 'Aranci in Fiore' which I've already announced here - and which Alex can tell you much more about than I (but both highly recommended!)
Please have a look at the website www.belmando.com
regards
Marc Woodward
Jim Garber
Mar-06-2005, 12:21pm
For your convenience, click here (http://www.belmando.com/ebiz/belmando.nsf?opendatabase).
Aforementioned releases here (http://www.belmando.com/ebiz/belmando.nsf/Products?ReadForm&Category=Collections).
Jim
Wonderful! I have listened to their music at their web site, and thought many times I´d like to broaden my classical CD´s to include bandurria music, but have been too lazy to email them directly... Have been looking to Amazon etc with no results. Thanks, Belmando!!
PS: Still looking forward to those classical re-releases of de Pace and Siegel...
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Arto
Plamen Ivanov
Mar-07-2005, 9:23am
Yes, the guys are very nice! I personally feel a little bit obliged to them. They were asking me few times about link-exchange, but I did nothing so far. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif
Jonathan
Mar-07-2005, 11:39pm
I've enjoyed the Cuarteto Assai's music on the Providence International Mandolin festival CD, and I'm sure I'll enjoy the trio version as well. The bandurrias have a beautiful, intriguing tone, noticeably different from the sound of a mandolin.
Jonathan
Bob A
Mar-08-2005, 12:53pm
Any word on when the old Golden Age stuff will be ready for release? I've been holding back, figuring on a big batch order.
Mark Levesque
Mar-09-2005, 5:30pm
I've been waiting for the Siegel and DePace as well, planning to get everything at once.
However, the Trio Assai is very tempting .....
Hi all
Thanks Jim for posting the link, I'm hopeless at these things!
I'm still hoping to press on with the vintage stuff - if we don't preserve it it will surely be lost. Its just a question of finding both the time and money!
Who would you want to hear collected on cd first? De Pace? Siegel? Abt? Or a compilation?
Marc
www.belmando.com
I've heard some of this stuff, only last night, at Neil Gladd's with Eugene (THE mandosocial event of the winter season!) and I have to say that De Pace is a much more refined player than Siegel, though S can be breathtaking in his speed and articulation. How much of the speed was due to the necessity of fitting the music into the two to three minute play window of the recording apparatus, we'll never know.
I'd recommend that the less damaged material be done first. While it is all of serious interest, moving slowly into the scratch-and-pop zone would capture interest in the material without so much of a struggle with the old recordings; once folks hear what it's about, they might tolerate the surface noise more readily.
Neil Gladd
Mar-09-2005, 10:55pm
Marc, it looks like the public is clamoring. I now have the technology to copy 78s onto a CD. Not to clean them up, but enough for you to hear them. My email address has changed a few times since we were last in touch, but the current one is on my website and in my cafe profile. Send me a note!
Bob, you seem to have survived the mandolin overdose last night, I hope that Eugene has, as well. I still have a FEW records left for your next visit. We never got around to Mandolin Boogie or the African records. (!!!!!)
I got both the Trio/Quarteto Assai CDs from Belmando (excellent service, as always!) and have been listening to them quite a lot. Really nice music - faultless playing, and beautifully made adaptations.
I like the first CD (Opera prima) even more than the second (Albeniz & Granados). Maybe the quartet has deeper sound than the trio in the second CD (the latter lacks the alto voice of the lady playing contralto laud). There must be some difference also in the recording, because the bandurrias sound more bell-like in the first recording and somewhat drier in the second. Mr Garcia plays bandurria in both, and he is playing the same instrument.
Opera prima includes music fron Renaissance until 20th century. Nothing early music authenticity here, but I must say I really liked some Alonso de Mudarra (originally vihuela?) adaptations for string quartet, even with some musically-used tremolo at places. Just beautiful.
Somebody commented here that the bandurrias can have distinctly different sound from mandolins. I can´t say I hear the same way - there are so many different mandolin types that I don´t think I could pick a bandurria out of mandolins in a blind listening test. But it´s just me, and I #have not heard bandurria live - if some of you can comment on this, I´d be happy. Just now I´m quite interested in bandurrias...
PS: Listening to Albeniz makes me nostalgic, and makes me wish I´d have a piano... I played the pieces on piano as a schoolboy.
thanks, Arto