1904 Vinaccia Liuto Cantabile (mandocello/octave mandola)

[gweetarpicker]

I decided to post a video playing a 1904 Vinaccia Liuto Cantabile, five pairs of strings tuned CGDAE, 23 flamed maple ribs, 22 1/2" scale length, set up with Thomastik strings.

www.vintagefrettedinstruments.com

[DavidKOS]

Lovely instrument!

[Mark Gunter]

Wow, such a beautiful voice to that instrument!

Matthew, your videos telling a bit of history and allowing us to hear some uncommon instruments are a real treasure. Thanks for sharing.

[William Smith]

Great sound! Very interesting for sure! Thanks for sharing all of these fine and rare instruments that many have never seen, heard of, and just plain never heard them at all so the sound is very appreciative along with the history!

[gweetarpicker]

Thanks for your kind words. My purpose in the videos and my book is to try to share the instruments as best as I can with folks who might never get the chance to check out the instruments first hand and in person.

www.vintagefrettedinstruments.com

[mrmando]

One of these Adelstein Vinaccia liutos made an appearance at Wintergrass one year (sadly, not set up or really playable). This one sounds lovely. What is the piece you're playing?

[Martin Jonas]

Great instrument, and great playing!

What is the piece you're playing?

According to the caption at 3:56 it's Calace's "Piccola Serenata", Op. 115.

Interesting tidbit from Adelstein's treatise "Mandolin Memories" (kindly scanned and made available by Neil Gladd): Calace dedicated his liuto solo piece "Fantasia Capriccio", Op. 34, to Adelstein. Might be a good one to play on Adelstein's own instrument. Not for the faint of heart, though!

Martin

[gweetarpicker]

There are actually two pieces both by Raffaele Calace, Piccolo Serenata Opus 115 at 3:50 and Barcarola Opus 116 at 8:18. Calace wrote a lot of music for solo liuto cantabile, some of it very challenging. I picked two that I thought were at least manageable and that had a good amount of duo style tremolo. I'm trying to learn the technique and figured these pieces would push me a little. I'm still not very steady with the tremolo I'm afraid.

Thanks for the link to Opus 34...I'd like to find a recording to hear what it is supposed to sound like first!


www.vintagefrettedinstruments.com

[gweetarpicker]

I notice that in Mandolin Memories, Adelstein calls Raffaele Calace "the greatest luteist in the world". I would have loved to hear those two jam!

www.vintagefrettedinstruments.com