Mandolin Mazurka

  1. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    This mazurka was written and published by Onofrio DiBella in 1949, one of his last dated compositions. The title on the score is simply "Mandolin". As usual for this genre of Italian-American dance music, the piece was published in a trio arrangement for two mandolins plus guitar (downloadable from Sheri Mignano's Dropbox archive). I am playing it as a mandolin quartet, adding a mandocello bass line to the original three parts.

    Mid-Missouri M-0W mandolin (x2)
    Vintage Viaten tenor guitar
    Suzuki MC-815 mandocello



    Martin
  2. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Fine tune and playing once again, Martin. You have such a distinctive sound on those mandolin arrangements.
  3. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    Great sound and interplay of all four voices, Martin
  4. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    Sounds very Italian! Great quartet.
  5. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    Thanks, John, Frithjof and Christian. We play this one pretty frequently with our group. Nice and not too difficult (except for those semiquavers in the trio section). I tend to say that by this stage of his life, Onofrio had given up on fancy names for his tunes and chose his titles from what he could see around him in his living room -- he also wrote tunes called "Telephone", "Radio" and "Michael" (the latter being his son's name).

    Martin
  6. Gelsenbury
    Gelsenbury
    That really is a great arrangement. It can be difficult to make all these plucked instruments sound good together, but you've mastered the art.
  7. Michael Romkey
    Michael Romkey
    Lovely. Nice part playing.
  8. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    Thanks, Mike and Dennis!

    Martin
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