Anna Torge - Mandolin Concertos - Haydn-Festival, Brühl (Germany)

[mandoisland]

Anna Torge is a mandolin player from Germany. She has studied modern and historical mandolin in Wuppertal with Marga Wilden-Hüsgen.

I have met Anna Torge at the mandolin symposium in Trossingen some years ago where she talked about how she modified the Suzuki method (mother tounge method) for the mandolin.

The German radio station WDR hast recently broadcast a concert from the Haydn-Festival in Brühl this summer.

The concert is available for streaming until Nov. 17 2018.

I have compiled the links for listening to this concert as well as two playlists from youtube with two albums with mandolin music played by Anna Torge in my blog.

Anna Torge – Mandolin and Baroque Mandolin – Concertos and Chamber Music for Mandolin and Violin

[Martin Jonas]

The German radio station WDR hast recently broadcast a concert from the Haydn-Festival in Brühl this summer.

The concert is available for streaming until Nov. 17 2018.

Thanks for that Michael!

Listening to the concert, I was curious about the mandolin concerto in D Major by Johann Andreas Kauchlitz as I hadn't previous come across that composer, or that concerto. Apparently, Kauchlitz published his music under the Italianised name of "G.A.K. Colizzi" or "Johannes Colizzi", and a scan of the original published parts for this concerto is at IMSLP in good enough quality to work as performance parts:

https://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Concer...i%2C_Johannes)

I note that although Torge (and the WDR presenter) describe this as a Baroque mandolin concerto, the title page says "Concerto a Violino Concertante o Mandolino", with the solo part simply headed "Violino Concertante". Other instrumentation is two violins ("di Ripieno"), "Violetta Obligata" (presumably viola), two horns ad libitum and figured bass. The concerto starts at 21:30 in the WDR broadcast.

Martin

[mandoisland]

Martin, thanks for the link to IMSLP!

[happyfanaticsalsero]

Colizzi also published a collection of instrumental tunes based on popular tunes from French operas (Airs Choisis des Operas Français Accomodés Pour Deux Violons ou Deux Mandolines Par J.A.K. Colizzi, a La Haye chez B. Hummel et Fils).
I have been able to date that print to 1776 by an advertisement ('s Gravenhaagse Courant, 22/01/1776). (Because of the advertisement is from January it's of course possible the print was already written and/or published in 1775.)
A preserved item from this print can be found at the Universitätsbibliothek J. C. Senckenberg in Frankfurt am Main (shelfmark: Mus. pr. Q 57/41).

Likely the concerto was from about the same time. There is also a preserved copy in a Swedish library where I got it from. I haven't yet found an advertisement to date the concerto for sure, but around 1775 is my best guess without further information and evidence.

We also have proof that Giovanni Battista Gervasio was touring in the Netherlands around that time (as usual giving concerts together with his wife who was a singer), which in my opinion is a little bit too much of a coincidence. So my hypothesis (which I have shared already in the past) is that both prints by Colizzi were either influenced by Gervasio, or maybe even meant for or advised by him.

Pieter