I'm still trying to piece together the time-line on all this. A quick quote from a MandolinCafe article "
A Brief History of the Mandolin":
"The mandolin entered the mainstream of popular American culture during the first epoch of substantial immigration from eastern and southern Europe...
"It was in vogue in the 1850s... A marked increase in Italian immigration in the 1880s sparked a fad for the bowl-backed Neopolitan instrument that spread across the land. ... In 1897, Montgomery Ward's catalog marveled at the 'phenomenal growth in our Mandolin trade'.
"...By the turn of the century, mandolin ensembles were touring the vaudeville circuit, and mandolin orchestras were forming in schools and colleges. In 1900, a company called Lyon & Healy boasted 'At any time you can find in our factory upwards of 10,000 mandolins in various stages of construction'. From the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs, mandolins proliferated across the South. Attempting to beat the competition, the Gibson company sent field reps across America to encourage sales of mandolins, and to establish mandolin orchestras."
So I guess the next thing is to determine
when was the very
first Gibson-sponsored
mandolin orchestra. Anyone know? The current version of the
Wikipedia mandolin orchestra page does not seem to mention it, curiously the word "Gibson" appears only once on that Wikipedia page in the caption of a photo.
EDITED TO ADD:
I'd always mistakenly assumed Gibson had invented the
mandola (larger sized mandolin tuned lower, presumably an important component of a mandolin orchestra), but the aforementioned MandolinCafe
mandolin history article says the mandola is a lot older than that:
"In a gallery in Washington, a painting by Agnelo Gaddi (1369-1396) depicts an angel playing a miniature lute called the mandora. The miniature lute was probably contrived to fill out the scale of 16th century lute ensembles. The Assyrians called this new instrument a Pandura, which described its shape. The Arabs called it Dambura, the Latins Mandora, the Italians, Mandola. The smaller version of the traditional mandola was called mandolina by the Italians."
More recently (historically speaking), according to a Wikipedia article, at the age of 22 the famous
Italian mandolinist Carlo Munier had a "
plucked string quartet" in
1890 in Florence
Italy, consisting of 1st & 2nd mandolins, mandola, and something called "
liuto moderno". The article credits Munier with "popularizing this kind of ensemble."
Wikipedia describes the
liuto moderno or liuto cantabile as a "
10-stringed mandocello".
So Gibson didn't quite invent the mandocello either, I guess...
I had a lot of misconceptions!
Hmm lemme look up "mandocello"...
Wikipedia mandocello page:
"It was during the Baroque period (1600-1750) that interest in the mandolin began to increase, along with its use in ensemble playing, resulting in increased interest in developing and expanding the mandolin family."
Fascinating stuff.
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