Emmanuele Barbella (1718-1777): Sonata a due mandolini e basso I. Allegro - 0:00 II. Largo - 1:30 III. Allegro - 2:29 This is an 18th century original mandolin composition by Emmanuele Barbella (1718-1777) from the Gimo Manuscript at the University of Uppsala. The Gimo music collection, named after the small city of Gimo in Uppland, Sweden, is a collection of music collected in Italy during the first half of 1762 by the young Swede Jean Lefebure. The Gimo Collection contains 359 works, of which 19 are written for chamber ensembles including the mandolin. These 19 pieces have all been transcribed in public domain PDFs by Eric Sandberg and are available for free download from Mutopia: http://www.mutopiaproject.org/collections/gimo/ This particular piece is a sonata for two mandolins and bass (Gimo 18). The instrumentation on my recording is: 1898 Giuseppe Vinaccia mandolin (x2) Suzuki MC-815 mandocello This is the third time I have recorded this piece (after 2013 and 2017, both times with click track), having been reminded of it after we played it at our weekly mandolin gathering last Thursday. It's shorter than my previous takes partly because I have upped the tempo in the two allegro movements, but mainly because I have not played any repeats in order to keep it concise (and maximise my chance of getting a decent video take in the can...). Martin
You keep the tempo really steady playing this beautiful music, Martin. And the tempo seems right to me, fine effort!
Thanks, Christian. We have played this piece reasonably regularly in the past few years, so muscle memory helps with the phrasing and fingering. It's one of my favourite 18th century mandolin pieces -- really great fun to play live when the three parts mesh together naturally. Martin
Great playing, Martin. All voices play well together. Especially the mandocello sounds great in this recording.
That's a very enjoyable trio!
Thanks, Frithjof and Dennis. Mandocello is a wonderful instrument to have for Baroque basso realisation. It just feels so natural to play these bass lines. Martin
