Greetings, Mandophiles! I haven't visited for a long time, but since I finally retired from my day job a few months ago (yay!), I have a little more free time, now.
I have been collecting early mandolin recordings for more than 30 years, but was not allowed to do anything with them because of some individual state copyright laws. I won't go into the whole legal discussion, but the good news is that any sound recordings published in 1922 or earlier, finally went into the Public Domain on 1/1/2022. I do plan to reissue some of the commercially, but no one goes into the classical mandolin business for the money, and I do want to make them available, so what I have decided to do is put one recording by every soloist in my collection on YouTube. I have the first 6 up now, and plan to do a few more every week. So far I have posted videos of 4 American soloists (Valentine Abt, Zahr Myron Bickford, William Place, Jr, and Samuel Siegel) and 2 Italian soloists (Bernardo de Pace, and Salvator Léonardi.) The William Place recording is interesting, because it is the first recording by anyone of any music by Carlo Munier. The Bickford and Leonardi recordings are the rarest. Bickford only recorded on his own Zarvah Art label, and he is playing mandocello on the one record I have. It appears to be the only recording or Bickford performing, online. I didn't know that Salvator Léonardi had recorded at all until I found one of his records for sale, and it is on an obscure label, which is why I didn't know about it. It appears that he is playing a 4 stringed mandolin banjo!
Here is a link to my channel, and you will find them among the most recent uploads:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ngladd1/videos
Having worked at the Library of Congress, I liked to tease my reference librarian friends with "Well WIKIPEDIA says..." As I look of some of the famous mandolinists there, there is SO much wrong information. Is it even worth correcting, since anyone can change it back?
The article for Raffaele Calace says that he recorded 3 long playing records. No, he died before the invention of the LP, but did record on 78s. Perhaps they were confusing him with Giuseppe Pettine, who did record 3 LPs. (His article doesn't mention them.) The article about Leonardi doesn't mention his recordings, but it credits him as the COMPOSER of:
Souvenir de Sicile[3]
Souvenir de Naples[3]
La bella sorrentina for mandolin with guitar or piano[3]
Angeli e demoni for mandolin[3]
Cavalleria rusticana
Valse Fantastique
Love Song Op. 275
Danza Dei Nani Op. 43
Caprice Italien (waltz)
Caprice Spagnuolo Op. 276
La Mystérieuse Valse (waltz)
L'entrée des gladiateurs
He did write a few of those, but not most of them. Argh! He did record Entry of the Gladiators on the banjo, so I wonder if whoever posted that knows that he recorded those other pieces? I have a few of his records, but none are of those pieces.
Anyway, enjoy the recordings, and I will post more, soon!
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