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I missed this thread when it started in December. I have an intermittent relationship with the ISB and Robin Williamson, coming to it from the Fairport/Joe Boyd connection. My first (and still...

I've never played a squeezebox in my life, but I have recently inherited a Walther Teeny 48 piano accordion in mint unplayed condition (my father bought it some years ago but couldn't cope with it...

As it happens, I've been dipping my toes into the bal folk repertoire over the past few weeks, with the results posted at my Youtube channel and over in the SAW Group on the forum. There's a great...

How time flies -- it's been a long time since I last added a mandocello recording to this thread, partially because I have been rediscovering my old bouzouki and have played more with that one. So,...

I'm right here!

There are two Ceccherinis in my profile picture, although one of them has been sold since then to one of the other players in our mandolin group -- I see it every week. We...

We've had a couple of discussions of this back in 2015, and at that time I also tried my hand (more or less successfully) on recording movements from K.77, K.83, K.88, K.89 and K.90 on mandolin.
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I'm with Simon -- this is an AI-generated article. The misinformation is too specific to be explained by ignorance and is the sort of superficially-plausible nonsense that comes out of AI bots.
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I've just noticed that some kind soul ("E.J. Tromp" -- are they a Cafe member?) has uploaded Musescore transcriptions of the four Beethoven pieces for mandolin and harpsichord on Musescore. Even...

Here is a video of Fairport in 1970 -- "Flatback Caper" from the Full House album. Swarb and Peggy both playing mandolin, with Simon Nicol moving to bass. Swarb plays a 1910s Gibson A with a...

Suziki appear to have discontinued their mandocello line entirely, after 70+ years of offering a succession of models in their 800 line, all with pretty similar specifications. You may find used...

The Swarbrick fiddle tune book is great -- I got one of the very last copies from Maart (RIP). It does have quite a few of his mandolin tunes as well, but it sticks largely to the recorded...

The fact that there is no name doesn't mean it's mass-produced. Most of these instruments were made by individual makers in small craft-based workshops in the town of Marktneukirchen in Saxony who...

Very nice, Eugene, especially the guitar part!

Robert: There is a nice recording of the piece for mandolin, mandola and guitar arranged and played by Mark Linkins in this old thread from 2015:
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I wonder whether Don Siegel's autobiography has much interesting stuff about his father, Samuel Siegel:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Siegel-Film-Autobiography-Don/dp/0571178316

Also, not quite...

The Bone book is at the Internet Archive, so at least an online copy is free:

https://archive.org/details/guitarmandolinbi00bone

The 20 pages of adverts at the back are the real treasure trove!...

Jim, translating Dowland's lute music to a solo plectrum instrument would probably lose quite a bit as there isn't a single melody line. For solo performances (outside the lute revival scene) the...

Thanks, Jim. I think many aren't aware of Bach's Folia adaptation because it has a different genre from most of the others and because it's part of a larger piece, the Peasant Cantata (which is...

Here is another treatment of the La Folia theme by another of the Baroque big hitters, JS Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1742): "Aria: Unser trefflicher lieber Kammerherr"
From: "Mer hahn en neue...

Here two sets of La Folia variations, by two French baroque composers, Lully and Farinel. La Folia (or Folies d'Espagne) was the most widely used theme of the baroque era, with hundreds of sets of...

It's the other way around. In Europe, the word "mandola" is typically used for what is called an "octave mandolin" in the US. Tuned GDAE, one octave lower than the mandolin. The mandola tuning...

Georg Friedrich Händel (1741): Concerto Grosso No. 12 in B Minor, HWV 330, Op. 6
III. Aria: Larghetto, e piano (in E Major, transposed to D Major)

This is the the famous aria (larghetto, e piano)...

Georg Friedrich Händel (1741): Concerto Grosso No. 12 in B Minor, HWV 330, Op. 6
III. Aria: Larghetto, e piano (in E Major, transposed to D Major)

We have been playing the Aria movement of this...

Over the past few weeks I have been revisiting some of the German folk tunes from the Zupfgeigenhansl collection that I posted at the start of this old discussion thread, back in 2011. These new...

Maybe I'm not expressing myself sufficiently clearly. I would agree that the headstock design of the fancy Emberghers or the scroll on the F-style don't detract from musical value, as long as the...

I'm not surprised that this would be the case when comparing bowlbacks from a range of makers -- I would think the competence of the maker is a stronger indication of musical merit than the level of...