Dennis sent me this wonderful tune and Polonaise From Gelsenbury is a better title than Polonesse #58. In 1928 a notebook was found in the attic of a house in Tórshavn, Jens Christian Svabo had collected over 200 fiddle tunes in that notebook, that was dated 1775. He collected many tunes from his time in Copenhagen and also from his final days on the Faroe Islands. Polonesse #58 is one of many dance tunes from the notebook.
I learnt this tune at a workshop on Danish music at Broadstairs Folk Week in 2017. It was, and still is, slightly beyond me to play it well. But I thought David, with his love of Scandinavian music, would be able to do a really good version - and he certainly has. It's difficult to express in words how special this is to me. In that summer of 2017, it had become evident - without going too deeply into political topics - that the world had gone mad. But, leading the workshop, the Danish group "Basco" invited us to set aside thoughts of these "Interesting Times" (the title of the new album they were promoting at the time) and pay a musical visit to Denmark, which was then statistically the happiest country in the world. The musicians were incredibly friendly and approachable, and we learnt this lovely tune as well as the one I played together with the Bransle de Cheveaux here: https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/g...cussionid=6024 Spending a few happy days at Folk Week and playing these tunes at the workshop and festival sessions was a life-affirming, healing experience. I became an instant fan of Basco, who also played a great concert at the festival. (Check out their music, but be aware that it's much less folky than the tunes they taught at the workshop - more like moody contemporary acoustic music.) And I've kept my mobile phone recordings of those two workshop tunes in the hope that I'll learn to play them properly one day. But here, even better, is the Polonesse in David's inimitable style and quality. Hats off, and thank you so much!
I like this quite a lot -sorry, lost for words. Thanks David and Dennis, Basco and Jens Christian Svabo, and the people who danced to this wonderful tune.
That is a really good tune, Dennis and David. So uplifting in its composition and David's delivery.
Thanks, David, for this amazing and cheerful performance.
Amazing as always ! Looks like dancing with the double bass is a bit difficult though, David.
I routinely dance with my bass when playing pizzicato but bowing requires more finesse than I can muster at the moment, it would be like tapping your head while rubbing your stomach.
Very convincing performance of a nice tune! I especially like the tenor guitar with the banjo-head.
For the TAB freaks among us. Enjoy! X:1 T:Polonaise from Gelsenbury (Polonesse #58) N:from Notebook of Jens Christian Svabo, 1775 L: 1/8 M:6/4 K:G |:d2gd BzBzB4|B2dB GzGzG4|GABG A2F2 D2 EF |GABG AGFED4|d2gf e2ed cBAG|1FGAF G8:|2FGAF G6A2| |:BzBzBzBz BdcB|AzAzAzAz AcBA| GzGzGzGz GBAG |FGAFD4 F4|E2C2 CzCzc4| D2B,2B,zB,z B4| d2gf e2ed cBAG|1FGAF G6 A2:|2FGAF G8:|
Thanks Simon. I neglected to post the dots for this one. I think that it's possible to convert the dots to mandolin tab in Finale, I will have to figure that out.
Thank you David, great motivation to play the mandolin. And thanks MandolinCafe for being such a great resource. In Musescore, to write out the TAB you can duplicate the melody line and then change the instrument of the duplicated melody from ‘violin’ (default) to ‘mandolin(tablature)’ then highlight increase the font size for large numbers.
David comes into his own here, again. So much fun just watching and listening.
So I figured out how to convert dots to mandolin TAB in Finale. Here is a link to a pdf of the TAB: https://app.box.com/s/msxqgq49gxtx7ucp3ueg2817yjxd1jz1 I know it's redundant, Simon already did this, but I wanted to see if I could do it. So if anyone needs TAB let me know.
