Rondo Galante

[vkioulaphides]

Dear mandolinist friends around the world,

two excellent mandolinists, Paola Esposito and Sabine Spath, recently performed my Rondo Galante, a light-hearted, modern take on a charming theme by Ignaz Pleyel, that “most French of Austrian composers”. I had taken the theme intact and developed it in Pleyel’s own musical rhetoric, aiming to please, to charm, to delight. Only you can judge insofar my success is concerned...

What is definitely without doubt is that Paola and Sabine’s performance is lovely; it is cheerful, delicate, warm and sparkling in equal measure. Most importantly, it is perfectly at home in the spirit of the theme and the times it evokes. So I share it with you, hoping you enjoy it as much as I did.



If you wish to try your hand at this little piece, please drop me a message with your email address and I will be happy to send you the score and parts.

With best wishes to you all for a healthy, enjoyable, and wonderfully musical summer,

Cheers,

Victor

[JeffD]

Wow! Delightful. And at a speed that is approachable with mind and heart.

[vkioulaphides]

Thanks, Jeff. Yes, tempo is always a bit of a Goldilocks Dilemma: too slow and the music feels sluggish, too fast and it feels frantic. So I think that Paola and Sabine have navigated deftly between the extremes and come to a tempo that feels just right.

[vkioulaphides]

Orchestral musicians speak jokingly of allegro scrambulato, a tempo so fast that everything gets scrambled into a blurred mess. Then again, too slow a tempo would be truly lethal in a piece whose language is so plain-spoken. It would be tedious.

[Martin Jonas]

Many thanks for the link and the score, Victor -- that recording sounds absolutely lovely! I've just tried sightreading the first mandolin part, and it's falls really nice under the fingers. Can't do it at their tempo yet, so I'll have to work up to that. I may end up at 75bpm or so instead of the notated 100.

Whats the source for the original Pleyel theme? Is it one of the rondos from the "Six petits duos" (B.538-B.543)? These are great! I've previously recorded two of the rondos (No. 4, B. 541 and No. 2, B.539), but I don't think your theme is from either of them.

Martin

[vkioulaphides]

Always happy to share, Martin. Indeed, the two ladies sound quite lovely.

Yes, if nothing else, my professional "Value Proposition" as business-folk would say is that I plan the instrumental parts that I write very carefully so that they fall all nice and neat under the fingers. In the professional world, time is money in the harshest and most literal sense; a composition that takes too long to learn or bring up to performance level in rehearsal is dead on arrival. I live by that creed. I also see no need to torture unpaid musicians with clumsy, awkward layout; due diligence above all.

I must admit that the source evades me at the moment. I first heard this theme back in the '80s as a bass and cello duet, played by my would-have-been teacher Klaus Stoll, then Principal Bass of the Berlin Philharmonic, now retired by still active as an educator-- wonderful musician and very gracious gentleman, by the way. Tamara Volskaya, who also plays my Rondo, always says, "Oh, we all grew up on this tune", referring to young Russians taking piano lessons in her time. So it must be something fairly common.

As is always the case, Martin, I'm a lousy historian. I know the theme is by Pleyel and candidly give him credit for it. I'm sure that someone would be able to trace its provenance but that someone just won't be me. I'm currently working on two commissioned compositions simultaneously-- a situation sufficient to drive just about anyone mad -- plus the revision of my second-of-nine operas for a revival in Estonia this coming season. I cannot afford a moment of playing musicologist, I'm afraid...

So please feel free to be your own theme-hound, my friend...

Cheers,

Victor

[Dan Cohen]

Victor,

I listened and loved the piece. Today I went to listen and I can't get it to play. I printed out the sheet music and hoped to share the Youtube with my duet partner. Is there another way to open this to play?

Thank you so much for sharing this.

Dan

[vkioulaphides]

Thanks, Dan. Hmm... the link still works, at least for me. I'm out of the country at the moment but can dig a little deeper upon my return. The video does play on my cell, though.

Cheers,

Victor

[Dan Cohen]

Thanks, Dan. Hmm... the link still works, at least for me. I'm out of the country at the moment but can dig a little deeper upon my return. The video does play on my cell, though.

Cheers,

Victor

Thanks Victor. Plays on my cell too. I'm not sure why I can't get it on my computer. The problem is on my end.

[vkioulaphides]

Dear mandolin friends around the globe,

as promised (and right on schedule), today I have delivered the quartet version of my Rondo Galante, including new parts for mandola and mandoloncello that I have just composed at the request of Italian mandolin luminary Carlo Aonzo for use at his Mandolin Workshop next June. Those two parts are naturally less busy than the mandolin parts as they are a simple, classical obbligato to the mandolins; they provide some rhythmic and harmonic counterpoint, balancing the overall texture within the character of this piece.

I hope that the good folks at the Carlo Aonzo Mandolin Workshop will enjoy this new arrangement of the piece. As is my usual practice, I will not circulate this version of the piece until after the workshop next June so that Carlo and his companions are the first who will get to play it. After that, I will circulate it freely among all my mando-contacts.

Cheers,

Victor

[Jim Imhoff]

Victor, we spoke at Milwaukee and exchanged thoughts in another Cafe thread. I would certainly like copy for this duet; I play mandolin and mandcello, and a best friend plays mandola. Two mandos in duet is just fine, but I wonder if it would work with alternative ranges.
On another topic (I had to avoid the obvious pun on "note") I have a couple of ideas for future CMSA events, just thoughts at this point. First, as I said, I play mandocello; we don't get no respect! Unless a star MC player (Radim & Adam from MMQ last year, maybe Mike Marshall some day) there is little offered for us bass cleffers at conventions. Simply transcribing (or just playing) bowed cello literature is frowned on by CMSA board members, with the exception of the Bach Suites. Have you written (or considered) composing for that noble instrument?
On yet another topic, I am a retired choral director; we heard the Vivaldi Gloria at Valley Forge, and Seattle MO is performing Messiah. I would like to do a presentation on choral music appropriate for mandolin orchestra accompaniment, but I wondered if you had thought about composition in this combined format?
I must say again your talk at Milwaukee got me going on so many trains of thought (my dissertation was on how and why people categorize music) and I hope we continue to exchange ideas!
If you email parts, I am at jfimhoff@msn.com
Jim Imhoff (Portland OR, Boston U)

[vkioulaphides]

Hello, there! Yes, I recall our conversation quite vividly.

The original, duet version is readily available; I'll zap it to you over the weekend. The new, quartet version will stay under wraps until June, just to give Carlo and his students a first shot at it. Alternate ranges may work but of course that kind of busy figuration may be a bit too taxing on a much longer scale.

I have a pull-all-the-stops kind of work for liuto cantabile and mandolin orchestra, written for Het Consort of the Netherlands; as of yet, I don't have any work(s) for mandocello alone. As for the future, it's all a matter of finding time, as you can imagine.

We'll definitely stay in touch on this...

Cheers,

Victor

[Dan Cohen]

Victor,

I have enjoyed Rondo Galante with a friend for the last few months. Donn played it at Carlo's workshop and we are working on it together of late. I'd like to add my wife and her violincello to the mix. Are you sending out the quartet version?

Also thinking of you as I made travel plans to Greece for the next May.

Dan Cohen

[vkioulaphides]

Very happy to hear that, Dan. It is my greatest gratification as a composer to know that my little piece has put a smile on my friends' faces.

I have also replied to your private message. The quartet version is yours for the asking provided you can give me (or remind me, in your case) your current email address with a quick email to mine.

Cheers,

Victor