Janvier Pietrapertosa-Fils

[crisscross]

Like his compatriot and contemporary Carlo Curti, Pietrapertosa has written a mandolin method book. But thanks to the University of Rochester, this method book is downloadable for free. https://urresearch.rochester.edu/ins...ersionId=15196
Just click on the second link and a PDF will load up.
It seems to me like a typical golden era mandolin method.
Tremolo is the rule and détaché is the exception.
By the way, it is entirely in French, but I guess, the instructional parts are less important than the musical examples. And they seem to be nice.
I tried to play Mélancolique Tendresse from the beginner's section.
The second mandolin is for Le Professeur and as such a little too advanced for me, so I tried to reproduce it with my guitar.

Mandoisland has Pietrapertosa's Mandoline-Album for download.
http://www.mandoisland.de/noten2010/...l#.WoRM-ecxnIU
It has arrangements of well known tunes at the time for mandolin duet, like for example Rosenzweig's waltz Les Brises, that Martin has recorded nicely.
https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/s...+Pietrapertosa

[Jim Garber]

Nice. And there are some other interesting things on that site. I did a search for mandolin and there are a few other method books plus about a dozen issues of Crescendo.

[Martin Jonas]

Nice. And there are some other interesting things on that site. I did a search for mandolin and there are a few other method books plus about a dozen issues of Crescendo.

Very interesting links! Some method books that I didn't know, several of which have mandolin duets I might want to try. Also, those back issues of Crescendo are actually links to annual volumes: each of these links has twelve separate monthly issues. There are over 200 issues of Crescendo available for download at the Rochester link! Each of them with several photos of old mandolin orchestras, several different pieces of mandolin music, and several pages of old adverts. An absolute treasure trove.

Just to illustrate, here are two photos and a score from one single issue, the September 1909 issue. Our Gibson afficionados will appreciate the tune and the lyrics:

"Where-e'er the art of music has been brought to high degree / From Maine to California to lands across the sea / From every nationality where-e'er your thoughts may wings / The universal verdict is The Gibson is King."

Martin

[margora]

The same volumes of Crescendo are also available at IMSLP. Almost complete, but not quite (missing the first volume) and some of the last few (possibly because of copyright issues, I am not sure).

[John Goodin]

Many thanks to crisscross for starting this thread. My two bits involve the U. of Rochester's digital run of S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal.

Back in 2008 I published two articles in the February 2008 issue of the Mandolin Journal (the CMSA newsletter). One was an overview of the Journal and the University's digital presentation of several years worth of issues. This included a fun, for me at least, bit of speculation involving my family history and an obscure village in southern Indiana.

The second article was a list of mandolin-related content found in the Stewart issues on the Sibley Music Library's site. You can see from the list that the mandolin was, despite the Journal's title, closely tied to the fortunes of the banjo and guitar at this time.

You can find the articles on my Mandotopia site at these links:
http://www.mandotopia.com/articles/DMXXIV1.pdf

http://www.mandotopia.com/articles/stewartbib.pdf

The 10 year old links within those articles don't seem to be valid in 2018 but you can find a list of links to all of the issues on the Sibley site, at least today, here:

https://urresearch.rochester.edu/ins...nalItemId=2330

Now I'm looking forward to spending some time with issues of the Crescendo that I've never seen, along with this interesting mandolin method.

John G.

[Beanzy]

Just to illustrate, here are two photos and a score from one single issue, the September 1909 issue. Our Gibson afficionados will appreciate the tune and the lyrics:

I love the way in that Paramount orchestra photo, you can see the bowlbacks have been sent to the naughty-step down the back, or have them stuck behing a torso. Gibson’s marketing macine in full swing there.

[crisscross]

Very interesting links! Some method books that I didn't know, several of which have mandolin duets I might want to try.

I downloadad the New Mandolin Method by William C.Stahl.
https://urresearch.rochester.edu/ins...alItemId=20709
I had read about it but never taken a look inside. That's what I did yesterday.
It appeared 1903 and other than the typical Golden Era method books, it doesn't start with tremolo but with quarter-notes played in downstroke mode. Next are eighth-notes.
Then comes tremolo. It is practiced rhythmically, first with eighth-notes, then sixteenth-notes, then 32th notes,
One musical piece played entirely in tremolo is the duet How can I leave thee.
This is an old German Volkslied from Thuringia with lyrics by Helmina von Chézy.
It goes like that:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew7JMRYHMCQ
And in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoCZkNIuMG4
It's in the method book arranged as a duet, but duets with two mandolins played tremolo don't sound good, when I play them, so I came up with a ukulele backup for this melody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISgclD4EMw
There are other longer and more complex pieces in this book, also with a larger number of instruments, so I'm sure Martin will find something to play for us.