Some videos of my Embergher

[Martin Jonas]

Today I got around to recording another two tunes on the Giuseppe Vinaccia, this time ones that I had not yet recorded on the Embergher, and indeed had never played before today. Both of them are from the wonderful little booklet "A Variety Of Mandolin Music" which also has Francia's "Tears and Smiles".

1. Barcarolle from "Oberon" (Carl Maria von Weber): A very simple tune, but a lovely melody.



2. Garden of Roses (Bernardo de Pace): A pleasant waltz from De Pace, with quite effective double-stopping (not all of which I play as smoothly as I would have wanted), but a much easier piece than De Pace's "Bouquet of Flowers", which is also in this book (and which our own Michael Reichenbach aka Mandoisland has recorded wonderfully on Youtube). This one is very appealing, too, though.



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

2. Garden of Roses (Bernardo de Pace): A pleasant waltz from De Pace, with quite effective double-stopping (not all of which I play as smoothly as I would have wanted), but a much easier piece than De Pace's "Bouquet of Flowers", which is also in this book (and which our own Michael Reichenbach aka Mandoisland has recorded wonderfully on Youtube). This one is very appealing, too, though.

On listening back to the clip I uploaded on the weekend, I decided that I was playing it too slowly, and not sufficiently musical, so I have replaced the video with a faster and more musical one I recorded this evening. I think this one is better, although still not as fluent as it could be. Still, the 12 people who watched the first version may want to have another look.



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

This weekend, I looked at two more tunes from "A Variety of Mandolin Music", recorded on the Embergher. As with the last batch, I first looked at them when I was picking tunes to record, so these clips are done without much rehearsing -- just a few runthroughs until I managed to get from beginning to end without too many glitches. These are fun tunes, though, and fairly straightforward (or at least they would be with more rehearsal time):

1. La Cinquantaine (J. Gabriel-Marie): This tune was written in 1887 by Jean Gabriel-Marie (1852-1928), initially for cello and piano, and is probably the composer's most famous tune (he also arranged it for a few other instrumentations). Quite a few cello renditions on Youtube, but no other mandolins. The arrangement in "A Variety or Mandolin Music" has a first and second mandolin part, and is marked "mandolin solo or duo", which I take to mean that the second mandolin part is optional (it's fairly boring in any case). This is one of the longer pieces in the collection at a bit over five minutes at the tempo I used, but it's a lively enough tune with plenty of variation that it sustains interest.



2. Amor Innocenta (G. Bellini): This one is a piece for unaccompanied solo mandolin. The final part (from the change of key back to D major at 1:33 after the G major part) is arranged with copious double- and triple-stopping. Most of these I've omitted in the interest of playability, but I've kept the most prominent ones. With a bit more practice time I should be able to play it as written, but for now I stick with this one. I know nothing else about the piece or the composer, and in particular do not know whether this is an original mandolin composition or an arrangement of a piece written with for a different instrumentation. This does not appear to have been written by the opera composer of the same surname -- his first name was Vincenzo. The only other Bellini I know does have the right initial, but Giovanni Bellini was a renaissance painter... I anybody recognises the tune, please let me know.

Anyway, this does have a certain operatic quality, and is a nicely hummable tune, so I've enjoyed playing it even without knowing anything about it. My playing is a bit ropy in the G major section (I lose the pulse for a couple of bars), and I've decided to delete the final two bars -- the tune as published resolves to a sustained B flat, which sounds odd to my ears for a piece in D major. Maybe it's an extract from a larger piece, and this is the lead-in for the next section.



3.Jägerchor (Hunters' Chorus), Der Freischütz (C.M. von Weber, arr. Alberto): I've owned the score for this piece for longer than any other piece of music I own, but this is the first time I have actually played it. This solo mandolin arrangement of the Hunters' Chorus from Weber's opera "Der Freischütz" is an etude from an old mandolin tutor, "Kleine Mandolinen-Schule" by A. Alberto, first published in 1913; I have the revised 1929 Edition. I uploaded a scan of this piece (and a few other pages from the tutor) a few years ago in this thread. I inherited this book from my grandfather, who bought it in 1941 or 42 from a music shop in Wiesbaden, along with his first ever mandolin. Why he thought it a good idea to start to learn the mandolin in the middle of a war with three small girls younger than five years in the house, I don't know, and neither do I know whether he ever made any progress with the instrument or this tutor by the time he died in 1948. After this, both book and mandolin passed to my mother (who is still an active player now, and more than ever since retiring a few years ago), and eventually to me. So, I feel a connection to both my grandfather and my mother when playing this -- both of them used this tutor, although I'm not sure whether either of them ever got as far as this particular etude, which is toward the back of the booklet. The arrangement is pretty straightforward, but charming

I've recorded this on both the Embergher and the Vinaccia:

Embergher:


Vinaccia:


Martin

[Martin Jonas]

2. Amor Innocenta (G. Bellini): This one is a piece for unaccompanied solo mandolin. The final part (from the change of key back to D major at 1:33 after the G major part) is arranged with copious double- and triple-stopping. Most of these I've omitted in the interest of playability, but I've kept the most prominent ones. With a bit more practice time I should be able to play it as written, but for now I stick with this one. I know nothing else about the piece or the composer, and in particular do not know whether this is an original mandolin composition or an arrangement of a piece written with for a different instrumentation. This does not appear to have been written by the opera composer of the same surname -- his first name was Vincenzo. The only other Bellini I know does have the right initial, but Giovanni Bellini was a renaissance painter... If anybody recognises the tune, please let me know.

For what it's worth, I've just noticed that there is actually another Youtube recording of this piece, a webcam recording by a Japanese mandolinist, Kozo Onishi. He takes it slightly slower, and tremoloes throughout where I play the quavers staccato. I'm a bit torn as to which way is better -- the tremolo sounds nice for the first minute or so then becomes a bit lacking in texture. I like the recording, though, and I like the player -- he's pretty good (well, better than me anyway), and he has managed to play the chordal final part flawlessly, with tremolo over the chords. Onishi calls the piece "Amore Innocenta" and the composer "G. Belloni", but I can't find it under that name either -- there was a composer called G. Belloni, but he was a renaissance composer (1575-1606), and this doesn't sound like a renaissance tune to me.

Nice mandolin, too -- looks like a vintage Vinaccia.



Anyway, both his and my title are presumably wrong -- if it's Italian, it should be "amore innocente", which is actually the title of a Salieri opera. If it's Spanish, it should be "amor inocente".

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

I have Fliss' newly-aquired 1910 Calace with me for the weekend (strung with Thomastik strings, for a quite different tone), and I've taken the opportunity to take some pictures together with my own flock (uploaded here) and record some videos of the Calace and the Embergher. These are the results:

1. Speranze Perdute (on the Calace): my standard comparison tune.



2. Aida Mazurka (U Guastoldi): This mazurka is taken from one of the scans of old mandolin music kindly made available by Michael Reichenbach on his website. Note that this is not the mazurka of the same name that is on Jim Garber's site and on the Rounder "Italian String Virtuosi" CD, but an entirely different and unrelated mazurka by a different composer. Neither tune appears to have anything to do with the Verdi opera.

On Calace:



On Embergher:



3. Lara's Theme (Doctor Zhivago): This is the tune at the beginning of the very first post in this thread, but my playing then was pretty wooden, partly because the tempo was too slow and partly because the whole recording process was new to me. So, I have taken the chance of the Calace being here to make new recordings on the Calace as well as the Embergher, and to delete my earlier clip in favour of the new ones.

On Calace:



On Embergher:



4. Amor Innocenta (or Amore Innocente): See previous post -- I've now recorded this on the Calace, and also tried out how it works all-tremolo (as per Kozo Onishi's video).



NB: On a technical note, most of you will have noticed that my earlier videos are all slightly out-of-sync on Youtube, even though the original video files on my hard disk are perfectly synched. I've managed to find a workaround to the problem, which involved loading the webcam clips into Windows Movie Maker and immediately saving them again as Moviemaker MWV files. Uploading these converted files on Youtube resolves the previous problem, so all new clips are now (finally!) in sync.

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

NB: On a technical note, most of you will have noticed that my earlier videos are all slightly out-of-sync on Youtube, even though the original video files on my hard disk are perfectly synched. I've managed to find a workaround to the problem, which involved loading the webcam clips into Windows Movie Maker and immediately saving them again as Moviemaker MWV files. Uploading these converted files on Youtube resolves the previous problem, so all new clips are now (finally!) in sync.

Famous last words, those. On listening to the uploads with headphones, I noticed that while they are in sync, Windows Movie Maker did something terrible to the audio track, degrading it compared to the original video file. So, I've deleted all of the clips linked in my previous post and replaced them with the original webcam videos (same as for all my previous postings). Those sound much better. Here are the links:

Speranze Perdute (on Calace)

Aida Mazurka (on Embergher)
Aida Mazurka (on Calace)

Lara's Theme (on Embergher)

Amor Innocenta (on Calace)

In addition, I have two new tunes, recorded yesterday on the Embergher:

1. Polka: Una Gita A Spezia (E. Marucelli): This is another tune learned from the 1899 collection of Italian pieces kindly made available by Michael Reichenbach at his site. A nice relaxed polka with a good hummable tune.



2. Sonatina No. 1 (Bernardo de Pace): Another piece by de Pace from the Hugo d'Alton endorsed 1975 book "A Variety of Mandolin Music". This is just the first mandolin part from what is originally a trio for two mandolins and one guitar, so there's bits missing, but it's fun to play! Marked "tempo di gavotta", it has a pleasing simple formality that is quite different from the other two de Pace pieces in the book (Garden of Roses and Bouquet of Flowers), which are much flashier and more elaborate.



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

Another weekend, another few tunes. I've been playing around with some of the wonderful scans of old French mandolin albums that Michael Reichenbach has recently uploaded at his web site Mandoisland.de.

The first two clips are from an album of arrangements for solo mandolin by Janvier Pietrapertosa fils (who I know nothing about). Most of the pieces seem to be from popular tunes of the day, and although the arrangements are described as "for solo mandolin", they don't have much in way of harmony notes or double-stopping. These two pieces are a bit of an exception:

1. "Spring Song" (Mendelssohn): Easily the most famous piece in the album, this version has the piano original nicely reduced to a single mandolin melody line. I've decided to ignore much of the specifc mandolin markings in the score -- I play all quavers as single-stroke, whereas the score is very specific that some are to be played staccato and some tremolo. I tried that, but it was clearly too much tremolo, swamping the delicate melody. Once I decided to leave the tremolo to the longer note, it sprung to life and I'm quite pleased with how this has come out.



2. "Ciao (Valzer"): The score for this waltz gives no author for the piece, just describes it as "Célèbre Valse Italienne". I don't know just how "famous" the piece was back then, or indeed whether it is still well-known today, as the title "Ciao" is rather too generic to give decent hits on a search. Whatever its origin or fame, it's a very pleasant waltz and works well solo. Fairly easy, too.



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

A few tunes from this weekend, with a bit of a variety in styles:

1. Dancing Doll (Johan Kok): This one is a delightful little tune by Dutch mandolin pioneer Johan Kok (1889-1954), who wrote lots of wonderfully-arranged pieces for mandolin orchestras and ensembles and provides the backbone of our ensemble's repertoire. There's a lot of background info on Kok provided by Alex Timmermann in this thread. Also in that same earlier thread, Ralf Leenen was kind enough to post a link to an MP3 of a home recording of "Dancing Doll" he made in 1994, multitracking two mandolin and two mandola parts himself, with guitar backing. That MP3 is still on Ralf's site, but as it's not linked from the main site, here is the direct link:

Ralf Leenen Dancing Doll MP3

My playing is of course not up to Ralf's standard, and my clip is missing the second mandolin, mandola and guitar parts, but it's a fun tune nevertheless and quite straightforward to play. I note that Ralf varies the tempo a bit more than I do, which isn't in the score (except for the "molto rall" at the very end) but suits the piece, and I should probably do the same.



2. Tarantella dell '600: I've been playing around a bit with the tunes in the recentish (and very nice) Mel Bay book "Traditional Southern Italian Mandolin & Fiddle Tunes" by John T La Barbera. I'll link only one of the tunes from it here (there are a few more in my Youtube channel), as it straddles the (somewhat arbitrary) line between traditional folk and early/renaissance music. John's notes say "This tarantella is from the 1600's and has three different secitions which repeat until the final coda. Its origins are probably from Puglia, however it appears in an anonymous manuscript of 'piezas para Clave', founding in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid (MS.M 1250 Fondo Barbieri)."



3. Bouree, Third Cello Suite (J.S. Bach): A bit of cliche tune, but it just sits so nicely on mandolin. I've previously recorded it (badly) on the Embergher and I'm planning to redo that clip soon, probably on the Vinaccia as its tone has a great affinity to baroque music. The Vinaccia is with the luthier at the moment (expected back later today), so in the meantime I went even more pseudo-baroque and recorded it with my closest approximation of a lute/renaissance mandolino, namely my Kala ukulele retuned to fifths (GDAE) tuning. Better playing, I think, than on the earlier Embergher clip. I leave out the repeats to bring the clip down a bit in length.



4. Avec Que La Marmotte (Beethoven, Op. 52 No. 7): I hesitate to call this a classical piece at all -- I actually learned it from a German campfire songbook, and it's a folky little song with a pleasing melody which I'm playing plain and unadorned from that songbook. However, notwithstanding its modest form, it's the result of a collaboration between the two biggest hitters of German high culture, Goethe and Beethoven. I say "collaboration", but it was a bit one-sided -- Goethe wrote the words to the song for one of his very earliest plays in the 1770s, and Beethoven picked them up and set them to music many years later. It is said that Goethe couldn't stand Beethoven, so he may not have been too pleased to be honoured in that way. Incidentally, the French title phrase is the repeated tagline in the poem, but the rest of the words are all in German -- this is not a French song.

In keeping with the campfire origin of my source, I play this on my "campfire" mandolin: a Mid-Missouri M-0W.



5. The Entertainer (Joplin): Coincidentally to Linda's thread on this piece, I had just the previous day recorded another clip of it, to go with my earlier Embergher recording. This one is on the retuned Kala ukulele, and it's the shortened version from our ensemble repertoire, as mentioned in my reply to Linda's post.



6. Garden Of Roses (Bernardo De Pace): I have uploaded this nice little waltz before, played on my Vinaccia. I was curious how it may sound on an F5, so I recorded a clip on my 1980s Washburn M3SW (as good an excuse as any to get this one out -- I've been neglecting it lately). Quite a bit of contrast in tone, and I rather like it.



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

Last weekend, I was playing around with some early and baroque music, following a discussion of Bach's bourree from the lute suite in E minor in the Song-Of-The-Week social group Link). So here are a couple of tunes I've enjoyed playing (no Embergher this week -- the thread title is turning into a bit of a misnomer).

1. Bourree in E Minor (BWV 996): Here is the bourree also posted over in the SOTW group. Played from the Icking Archive version for guitar (Link), but leaving out the bass notes (which I couldn't find a good way of playing on mandolin). A chance to practice my somewhat rusty trills. Played on the Vinaccia, which I have just got back from the luthier.



I've also recorded a second video of the same tune on my GDAE-tuned ukulele -- with the original being written for lute, this may be closer to the composer's intentions. Trills are a bit more awkward on single strings, though...

Bourree on GDAE ukulele

Speaking of lute, I've just come across a lovely Youtube clip of the Bourree on its original instrument:

Bourree on lute

2. The Short Mesure Off My Lady Wynkfylds Rownde (Anon, ca. 1520): This is a renaissance keyboard piece from around 1520, from a manuscript in the British Museum (R. App. 58). I play this from a transcription available free at the Icking Music Archive (Link). The treble voice of the keyboard transcription sits well on mandolin.

This tune is the opening track on one of my favourite albums of all times: "The Bones Of All Men" (1998) by Philip Pickett (head of the New London Consort and musical director of the Globe Theatre) and Richard Thompson, with the classic Fairport Convention rhythm section (Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks). A great great album, and a very catchy tune that's fun to play! (Wikipedia album link).

The album has another one of the 10 anonymous keyboard pieces from that British Museum manuscript, "My Lady Careys Dompe" -- another great piece, but a bit trickier to play on mandolin. I'm working on it, but struggling with the fact that the second half is notated at twice the speed than the first leaving either the first half too slow to bring out the lovely melody or the second half too fast for me to play cleanly. Maybe I'll get it straight next weekend.

In the meantime, here is My Lady Wynkfylds, played on Mid-Missouri M-0W:



Again, I've also recorded it on the GDAE uke:

My Lady Wynkfylds on ukulele

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

I haven't put anything in this thread for a little while, as most of my recent recordings are more in the folk or early music field rather than classical. However, I made two new recordings today of pieces from one of my favourite books: "A Variety Of Mandolin Music", a collection of 36 Victorian and Edwardian mandolin pieces (re-)published in 1975 by Clifford Essex in London, with an introduction by Hugo d'Alton. Both of these pieces were written for unaccompanied solo mandolin, so just for a change there are no missing harmony parts or backing tracks:

1. L'Automne (Bert Bassett): This particular piece is a gavotte written by one Bert Bassett, of whom I know nothing except that he was the editor of the BMG Magazine (where most or all of the pieces in the book had originally appeared in print) sometime in the 1920s or 1920s. Nice piece, though -- fun arpeggios.



2. Moonlight On The Thames (Bernardo De Pace): Another De Pace piece (like "Garden Of Roses" and "Sonatina No. 1", which I've recorded before), with a very nice chordal accompaniment. My playing is a bit halting in the final section, but by and large I think the chords work pretty well.



Martin

[brunello97]

Thanks, Martin! Nice stuff as always. L'Automne particularly welcome on a chilly fall evening.

Mick

[Martin Jonas]

Thanks, Mick. Yes, the Bassett gavotte is both effective and relatively easy to play. The De Pace piece is technically more difficult, especially trying to sight-read it and getting the fingering for the chord shapes ready in time. Most of the shapes are (mercifully) straightforward and the same progressions crop up repeately, except for the final section where suddenly there are different chords. There's that nasty screach when you don't quite fret all the strings cleanly, but when it all works out suddenly the beauty emerges (well, it will be with a bit more polishing).

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

Another two rather obscure pieces recorded tonight: these are both short pieces for solo mandolin, from a collection of pieces arranged by Janvier Piétrapertosa Fils, published in Paris around 1900 (there is no date given) under the title "Mandoline-Album". I suspect they are original to this collection -- I can't find any other references to them. My thanks to Michael Reichenbach, who has found this album and has put a full scan for download at his website www.mandoisland.de

1. "Frisson d'Amour" (H. Waïss, arr. Piétrapertosa): A nice lilting piece in 6/8 time, sub-titled "Pensée Musicale de H. Waïss". Fairly straightforward to play.



2. Rose Effeuillée (B. Holzer, arr. Piétrapertosa): Quite a lively piece with forceful stresses and double stops, and fun to play. This is simply sub-titled "Mélodie de B. Holzer". I get my fingers in a twist a bit in the chord progression at the very end, but I think I just about have them on the right frets in time...



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

Another two solo pieces from the Piétrapertosa collection over at Mandoisland.de:

1. Barcarolle d'Amour (L Raynal, arr. Piétrapertosa): A fairly straightforward tune with the typcial easygoing vibe of a barcarolle, although strictly speaking only the opening and closing section are in barcarolle (6/8) form, sandwiching a waltz-time middle section.



2. Rondeau des Petits Pages (E de L'Hervilliers, arr. Piétrapertosa): Being a rondo, I probably should play this faster than I do (although there are no tempo markings), but I kept it slowish in order to keep the fretting and tempo clean and steady. Quite a lively piece anyway.



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

I recorded another piece from the Pietrapertosa collection yesterday -- I really like that album, just about every piece is at a reasonably approachable technical level and they all work just fine as solo pieces.

This one is called "Pavan Elisabeth", credited to a composer called "Ph. Kauffmann". There is a second, and broadly similar, piece by Kauffmann in this album, called "Canzonetta", which suggests that he was engaging in somewhat retro composing styles. Another charming piece, I find. Slight deviation from the printed score right at the end, where I misread a phrase.



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

I haven't posted anything to this thread for a while, and strictly speaking this post doesn't quite match the title of the thread, as these are not on my Embergher, but I don't want to start too many different video threads so I'm keeping them together here.

I recently got the fancier of my two Umberto Ceccherini bowlbacks back from my mother, who instead borrowed my Giuseppe Vinaccia. So, I took the opportunity to record a couple of Neapolitan songs on it -- appropriate in time and space to the instrument. This one has the suspended second soundboard and it makes for an interesting tone. Pretty loud, really, and very responsive with a bright sharp attack.

Here is "Ciribiribin", written in 1898 (around when the mandolin was built) and perhaps more associated with the swing era and trumpet solos:



And here is "Rosamunda" -- well, that's the Italian name for the tune, the English one is "Beer Barrel Polka" and the German one is "Rosamunde". Either way, it's actually a Czech tune originally called "Modřanská polka".



For contrast and compare (and to make this post match the thread title somewhat), here is a video of Ciribiribin I recorded last year on the Embergher. Same arrangement otherwise:



Martin

[Martin Jonas]

A couple of Embergher videos recorded last week:

1. Serenade Espagnole (H. Chatau, arr. Piétrapertosa). This is another tune from the great selection of French romantic solo pieces from around 1900 arranged by Piétrapertosa, posted by Michael Reichenbach at his Mandoisland website. A fairly short pseudo-Spanish composition with lots of period charm.



2. Tango des Roses / Song of the Rose (Schreier-Bottero). Tango is always fun on mandolin!



Martin