Troise & His Mandoliers original manuscript scores

[Martin Jonas]

I've just posted this in the existing thread on Pasquale Troise over in the General forum (Link), but really it should be here in the classical forum:

Rather unexpectedly, I have just come into possession (on loan, I hasten to add) of a large collection of hand-written sheet music, consisting of five boxes with the original manuscript scores and individual parts for about one hundred arrangements by Troise & his Mandoliers. These were auctioned sometime after Troise's death in 1957 and bought by the (then) leader of a Liverpool mandolin orchestra. He in turn eventually founded our little mandolin ensemble and when he died about three years ago, he left these boxes to us. So far, they have not been touched, but I have offered to take temporary custody and to see if there is anything that we could usefully try out with the ensemble. So, I took the boxes home after rehearsal yesterday and have had a very cursory preliminary glance at them. It's fascinating stuff: each piece has an envelope of its own which contains all the parts and the conductor's score, all hand-written by Pasquale Troise. Several of them have a broadcast date written on them, presumably the date the pieces were played on the BBC -- the broadcast dates I have spotted so far are all in the late 1930s. Fascinatingly, many envelopes also have Troise's source material in them, in the form of published piano/vocal setting of the pieces, which Troise then expanded for his particular line-up. These are nothing if not elaborate. A typical arrangement may consist of individual parts for three mandolin sections (solo, 1st, 2nd), tenor mandola, mandocello, guitar, mandobass, drums/timpani, piano, two accordion parts and vocals. Many sheets have Troise's stamp or annotations on them and some have personal dedications to Troise. All fascinating stuff.

I'm really not sure what to do with this -- the arrangements are far too elaborate (and frankly mostly too technically demanding) to be viable for our much smaller group -- but in the meantime, if anybody has a sufficiently large mandolin orchestra or swing band and fancies having a go at any of Troise's arrangements, I should be able to send scans to interested parties although it would take me a very considerable time to scan them all. They're not really in a format that lends itself to copying or scanning, so this would be a long hard slog. Once I have had a preliminary look through everything, I'll post a list of the pieces I have in this thread.

In the meantime, I have also encountered five Pathe newsreels of Troise's band, all from 1932/33, at the Pathe Archive website. The first three clips are with the Mandoliers instrumentation, the others with the banjoliers:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=27979
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=9233
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=77253
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=28157
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=28093

So far, I have not encountered the arrangements for any of these, but I have not yet got very far in looking through things.

Martin

[margora]

Martin,

This is most interesting. I would very much like to see the list of pieces. A spectacular find.

Which leads to an offhand question -- I wonder where the scores are to the various Dave Apollon arrangments for his 1930s group?

[trebleclef528]

Hi Martin,
What a lovely piece of History. I would certainley be interested in know what scores you have... but am also generally interested that this music exists in its original form and the link to TV performances. Over the past few years I've been collecting and putting together info for "the history of the mandolin in Britian".
Cheers
ian

[Martin Jonas]

Thanks for the encouragement. I've just gone through the first box (of five), and there are 20 envelopes with Troise arrangements in there:

1. Speak To Me Of Love/Parlez Moi d'Amour (Lenoir), arr. 22/10/37, broadcast 13/11/37

2. Plegaria (Eduardo Bianco), tango

3. A Canzone E Napule (E. de Curtis) + Me ne vogli all'America (incomplete)

4. Neapolitan Memories + O Sole Mio (score only for O Sole Mio)

5. Poche Viole (Maietti), tango, broadcast 9/10/38

6. White Flowers Of The Island, broadcast 9/10/38

7. Olivia (Nettlebred (?)), waltz, arr. March 1938, broadcast 30/4/38

8. Cielito Lindo (Santos), 9/9/37

9. Bella Bambina (waltz), Jan. 1940, recorded 9/2/40

10. Une croisiere en Mediterranee (Roger Jalowicz, arr. Silvio Ranieri), suite of three pieces:

a. Algers: a travers le quartier Arabe
b. Naples: Serenade
c. Malaga: La danse du chale

11. Tonight My Heart Will Sing (Max Rosen Ascherberg (?))

12. Neapolitan Pot-Pourri (arr. Troise)

13. Mexicana (Selection of Mexican Songs), 25/7/35

14. Polly Put The Kettle On (Signature tune from "Elevenses"), 25/7/35

15. Sangre Espanol / Spanish Blood (Cecil Woods), includes composers' original piano manuscript.

16. Fiesta (a Santa Fe), paso doble, broadcast 11/6/39

17. Un Soir A Madrid (M Maciocchi), waltz, includes original mandolin quartet arrangement from 1909 and Troise's band arrangement.

18. In the Sled (Eilenberg)

19. Fandango (Frank Perkins, arr. Cecil Woods)

20. Maria, Mari (E Di Capua)

As far as I can tell, none of these pieces are on the two Troise CDs that are currently available on amazon.co.uk and with very few exceptions none of the titles ring a bell. The big surprise in here is the three-part suite arranged by Silvio Ranieri. I can't tell if Troyse was just picking up an old arrangement of Ranieri's, or if he actually commissioned Ranieri to do the arrangement. Either way, the score and the individual parts are all hand-written, so it doesn't seem to have been a published arrangement.

Martin

[Alex Timmerman]

That's a really nice find, Martin ,


Really valuable information for the Mandolin World!

I would very much like to play some of Troise & His Mandoliers music with Het CONSORT.
And, because Silvio Ranieri (with his Embergher mandolin & Roman Plectrum) is so 'connected' with us and our Italian way of playing, the number 10 you mention in your list: "Une croisiere en Mediterranee (Roger Jalowicz, arr. Silvio Ranieri), Suite of three pieces: a. Algers: a travers le quartier Arabe, b. Naples: Serenade, c. Malaga: La danse du chale", it is even more interesting for us.

I hope you find the time for scanning these Troise & His Mandoliers pieces for all who are interested and that the repertoire for mandolin ensemble/orchestra will be enriched by it.


Thanks for informing us, and best greetings,

Alex.

[Martin Jonas]

Thanks, Alex. I'll try to scan the Ranieri arrangement and a few of the others as soon as I can.

In the meantime, I have just looked through box No. 2, which has 24 pieces:

1. Sleepy Lagoon (Eric Coates). This is still well-known, as it is the theme tune to "Desert Island Discs" on BBC Radio 4 (not in Troise's arrangement, though).

2. Operatic Selection No. 2, June 1936

3. The Man With The Mandolin (Cavanaugh/Redmond/Weldon), fox trot

4. A Frangesa (Mario Costa), paso doble, July 1945 (?)

5. Torna Piccina! (C.A. Bixio), beguine

6. La Berceuse (Ch. Gounod, arr. Cecil Woods)

7. On The Hills Of Manchuria, Russian trad. waltz

8. Remembrance (A Mario Melfi, arr. Cecil Woods), tango

9. The Skaters (E Waldteufel), waltz, broadcast 9/1/37

10. Parfum de Rose (A. Tellier), gavotte. This is a published arrangement for mandolin quartet from 1911, which Troise played as published with additional parts he added for accordion etc.

11. Just A-Wearyin' For You (Cassie Jacobs Bond), foxtrot.

12. Donna Marie (Jan Wien), song waltz, broadcast 29/11/37

13. Wendy Dances (Cecil Woods)

14. Chi Sa Pecche (Raffaele Galibardi)

15. Organito de la tarde (Castillo), tango, Sep. 1946

16. A Violin, A Serenade (Jackson/David, arr. Cecil Woods), marked "banjoliers"

17. Voce e' Notte (E. de Curtis), June 1949

18. Pecce, Pecce, Mari (Manlio di Verdli)

19. Ti Voglio Tanto Bene (E. de Curtis), broadcast 27/5/38

20. Tango delle Capinere / The Warblers (C.A. Bixio), broadcast 13/5/37

21. The Little Dancer (B. Shealf), Feb 1949

22. Danzarella Fischiettosa (Bernardo Scefaro), March 1950

23. Mi Cancion (Bichisao), tango, broadcast 30/3/40

24. Les Cloches de Corneville (Planchette), ouverture, broadcast, date unknown.

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

Dear Alex,

I have now scanned the Ranieri arrangement of "Une Croisiere en Mediterranee". There is a lot of stuff in that envelope, which I have all scanned. Even at 200dpi, that's a total of 42 MB of image data.

What was in the envelope is:

1. The original published piano sheet music for the composition. This was presumably the source material from which Ranieri was working.

2. The 26-page handwritten score for mandolin orchestra. It's a different handwriting from the other Troise scores, and may have been written either by Ranieri or (more likely) by Ranieri's copyist in Brussels.

3. Individual parts for mandolins 1A (solo), 1B, 2A, 2B and 3, Mandola 1 and 2, mandocello, guitar and bass. These are all in the Ranieri score.

4. Additional individual parts for drums, accordion and piano. These are not in Ranieri's score and were presumably added by Troise to make use of his orchestra configuration.

The PDF's here contains all but the score and the drums/accordion parts, which I will attach to separate messages.

Good luck in trying out the arrangement, Alex -- I would love to hear Het Consort play this.

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

I had to split the score into seven separate PDFs as they were otherwise too large. Here are the first six parts, the final part will come with the next posting.

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

Finally, here is the seventh and last PDF making up the score, and the accordion and drum parts.

Martin

[brunello97]

What an incredible story, Martin, thank you for sharing this. Okay, I am a romantic at heart (any wonder why Victor and I are friends?) so I am imagining this very "Amadeus" penultimate scene as you are opening these dusty boxes with dry crinkly paper as the mandolin orchestrations are swelling up in the background. The story of how you acquired these is delightful enough.

There are a number of arrangements on your list that caught my ear. I know what a task it must be to archive all this valuable material. I am in a surreal, privileged position at the university with too many resources of graduate students willing to do the heavy lifting for such (analogous) affairs. I hope in time you can find an economical way to properly archive these and even more so, to make them accessible to orchestras and players who can carry on the legacy.

What a fantastic story, amigo! You are one amazing vato.

Mick

[Martin Jonas]

Thanks, Mick.

For Alex, or anybody else who has a mandolin orchestra with slightly unusual intrumentation at hand, here are scans of a more typical Troise arrangement.

This is a tango called "Poche Viole". The envelope is marked "dificile" and gives the composer as "Maietti". The score is marked "Broadcast 9th October 1938". There are separate parts for:

Mandolin 1A (leader), 1B and 1C (yes, they are all different)
Mandolin 2A and 2B (again different)
Viola (NB: not mandola. Written in treble clef, and largely following the second mandolins)
Cello (no indication of whether mandocello or violoncello)
Guitar 1
Guitar 2
Drums
Vocals
Accordion
Piano

The individual parts are written in beautiful caligraphy, the score somewhat less so although it is neat enough.

I hope this is of use to somebody out there...

Martin

[trebleclef528]

Absolutely fascinating stuff martin, very good of you to go to the bother of scanning that lot.

I wonder if there are any copyright issues here? I see that "Bosworth and Co Ltd" have stamped the music with their claim to copyright.

The quality of the written notation is absolutely incredible... almost as good as Sibelius
Cheers

[Martin Jonas]

Ian,

No idea about the copyright issues. If there is copyright, then it would be on the arrangements, not the composition -- very few of these compositions were original to Troise and most were already old tunes (and in many cases not published in the UK, which may reduce the period of copyright protection). The arrangements themselves are now over 70 years old. I have looked for, but can't find clear guidance on whether the copyright period for written arrangements is the same as for original musical compositions (life of author plus 70 years in the UK) or the same as for sound recordings (50 years in the UK). If the latter, then it's expired. If the former, then it depends on when the arranger died. Troise doesn't seem to have arranged his own music -- many of the scores have a separate arranger's credit -- and as I don't know when they died, I don't know when copyright would expire. I am also not sure whether the publication rights for unpublished original manuscripts lie with the owners of the physical manuscripts (which would be our ensemble) or the authors of the manuscripts (which are unknown). If Bosworth & Co Ltd wish me to remove the above scans, I will, but in the meantime I think I am justified in a presumption that they are either in the public domain or that we have right to publish as the physical owners of the manuscripts.

Incidentally, I don't know if you've noticed, but the vocal part in "Poche Viole" is marked "Don Carlos", which is also the name given for the singer on the first of the Pathe clips linked above. So, he would appear to have been Troise's regular vocalist.

Martin

[trebleclef528]

Ian,

No idea about the copyright issues. Martin

Hi Martin, I ain't got much of a clue either,It's a bit of a minefield. No critisism at all was intend by my question, I think it's great for these to "hit" the public domain and I have already dowloaded your hard work (probably scanning till the wee early hours).

By the way Ranieri I think died 1n 1956 and Troise in 1957.... there's and interesting webpage HERE which relates a bit to recordings and BBC performances of Troise and also gives dates of a couple of performances... which you minght be able to link to the music you have

I'm really hoping to find out more about copyright (mainly for the benefit of our orchestra), but the more I read, the more confused i get.

Anyway i think what you have there is of great historical interest (to music and mandolin fanatics)... keep up the good work!

[Martin Jonas]

Thanks Ian,

Yes, Ranieri died in 1956 and Troise the year after. I don't think Troise's year of death is important, as he didn't arrange the music. Ranieri may be relevant in respect of the first piece I posted, as he is identified as the arranger. For the other piece, there is a date (Sept 1938) and a signature on the first page of the score, which is presumably the arranger's. I can't read that name, though.

I had already seen that link, which is useful information. The web site indicates that the "pop tunes" medleys were arranged by Bill Cater-Smith in the early days of the Mandoliers. That name does appear on quite a few of the scores I have, in the form of a Musician's Union stamp with his name. Clearly, at the time the arranger and the band would have been quite protective of their arrangements, as it was their working capital as professional musicians. However, that is now of little relevance -- nobody in the world plays these arrangements or anything like it and I am not aware of any professional dance ensemble that would be either interested or capable of playing them. The fact that the boxes were auctioned off in the first place speaks volumes in this respect, and I don't think that a particularly high price was paid for them.

Martin

[Pietrobono]

Very nice thread, thanks to Martin !

Martin, if you have time -and pleasure- to do it, would it be possible for you to tell us which pieces are in the 3 other boxes ? I have been waiting patiently for the following boxes, but if I am the only one interested -as this thread has been abandoned for almost one week- I would not like to bother you.

If possible also, I would be very interested in seing what Troise made from "Un soir à Madrid" by Mario Maciocchi...

Thank you very much once again for this interesting material ! If I would have a bigger group, I would love to play this stuff... Maybe Alex will...

Jean-Paul

[Alex Timmerman]

Hi Martin,

Thank you so much for all your work; scanning, writing and explaining all about this fantastic find!!! It is really appreciated and we (Het CONSORT) will certainly have a go at the arrangement by Ranieri and the other compositions scanned and made available here by Martin.

And to Jean Paul; sure we will play it all and see what fits our chamber orchestra perform in concert. It is really fascinating! I hope Martin will inform us about the content of the other boxes and finds the time to scan more of it.


Thanks again Martin and best greetings,

Alex.

[Martin Jonas]

Alex/Jean-Paul,

Thank you for the kind words and not to worry -- I will get around to listing the other boxes. I have just been sidetracked with work, and will now be away for a week so it will be a little while.

It will clearly take considerable time to scan all 100 pieces, so it would be really helpful if there are particular wishes, such as Jean-Paul's request for the Mario Maciocchi piece, which I will try to get around to as soon as I can.

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

I've finally got around to catalogueing two more boxes. These were both mixed with unrelated material from the later Liverpool mando orchestra, so I have merged the Troise material here into one single box, with 29 pieces slightly fuller than the others:

1. Ricordo del Golfo di Napoli (Ludovico Fiorillo, Pub. R. Calace): A solo mandolin piece expanded into a quartet for mandolin, accordion, guitar and bass.

2. La Vispa Teresa (Luciano Parravicini/Rampoldi)

3. By The Lonely Linden Tree (Will Grosz), Tango Foxtrot

4. A Street In Old Seville (arr. Cecil Woods), Tango

5. Spanish Serenade/Serenade des Mandolines (Richard Eilenberg)

6. Lolita - Spanish Serenade (A. Buzzi-Peccia, arr. Cecil Woods), recorded Oct. 1936

7. La Falaise (A de Vekey), broadcast 6 July 1939

8. La Siesta - barcarolle (Frederick Norton), broadcast 13 June 1937

9. The Phantom Melody (Albert Ketelbey, arr. Cecil Woods)

10. Franguita - Farewell, My Love, Farewell, broadcast March 1936, solo mandoline & orchestra

11. Russian Medley No. 1 (score only, no parts)

12. Suite Espagnole (Georges Goldberg), broadcast Dec. 1935

13. In A Pagoda - Intermezzo (John Bratton)

14. Your Blue Eyes - Waltz (Cecil Rayners), broadcast Feb. 1937

15. Oje Caruli - March (Costa), March 1946

16. La Gran Via - Selection (Chueca / Valverde, arr. Cecil Woods), broadcast

17. Fez (Marf/Mascheroni), one-step

19. Aloha-Honolulu (A. Ralston), foxtrot, 3 Sep. 1951

20. Funiculi Funicula (two separate arrangements)

21. Mickey Mouse's Birthday Party - foxtrot (Tobias, Rothberg & Meyer), broadcast Nov. 1936

22. Comedian's Galop (Kabalevsky)

23. Rosamunde - Selection (Schubert)

24. Little Toys In The Corner (Leon/Towers, arr. Cecil Woods), foxtrot, Nov. 1935

25. Color Azubache (C. Panedas), paso doble, Aug. 1936

26. O Ritorno d'America (A. Montagna)

27. Romagnola - Tango, broadcast 2 Oct 1938

28. Abunicos y Mantillas (J.M. Canals), March 1945

29. J. Strauss Melodies - Songs (arr. Ben Berlin), Aug. 1943, for soprano and orchestra.

Rather a wide range of material again, from opera and the lighter end of classical music, to latin dances, to Neapolitan waltzes and songs, pop songs of the day, all the way to a Walt Disney foxtrot.

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

Finally, here is the list of the pieces in the fifth and last box:

1. Cuban Holiday (Donald Phillips)

2. Canzoniere Napulitano -- Medley

3. Birthday Serenade / Geburtstags-Staendchen (Paul Lincke)

4. Notte Sul Mare - Barcarola (Manlio di Veroli)

5. Lana Rossa - Beguine (arr. Alfred A Ralston, 6 Aug 1951)

6. Querida Andalusia - paso doble (M. Pugliese), Broadcast 29 May 1938

7. Concetta - serenade (Harry Dexter), (this may not actually be a Troise arrangement, as it seems too simplistic and is in a different format and configuration)

8. Come le Rose - Valzer (Gaetano Lama)

9. A Cerenara (R. Falvo), July 1949

10. The Musical Box - Intermezzo (Jonny Heykens)

11. Serenata (Toselli), March 1948

12. Something Money Can't Buy - Movie Theme Music, aka "Such Is My Love For You" (Nino Rota), 1952

13. Echoes From The Volga - Medley (arr. Troise), March 1945

14. Spanischer Tanz No. 2 / Spanish Dance No. 2 (Martin Schmeling), broadcast Jan 1936

15. Reginella (G. Lama), March 1948

16. La Nuova Marechiare (M. Nicola), Sep 1949

17. Slavonic Dance (Jack Morgan), no score, just parts.

18. Casarella (Manlio Di Veroli). This one has a handwritten personal dedication from the composer to Troise on the sheet music, but the Troise arrangement is incomplete with various parts missing.

19. Danza Spagnola (R. Calace), broadcast 29 May 1938

20. Parlami O Luna (Guido Bernardo, arr. Alfred A Ralston), 17 Feb 1952

21. Ombre Notturne - Shadows of the Night (R. Matini) - incomplete, just a few orphaned parts.

22. Neapolitan Serenade (Gerhard Winkler) - incomplete, just a few orphaned parts.

So, once again a rather eclectic collections of tunes. The most immediately intriguing, simply from the name recognition of the composers, are the Raffaele Calace (if nothing else for the novelty of having accordion and drums in a Calace piece) and the Nino Rota (one of his many many film scores long predating Rota becoming associated with mandolin music on the strength of the Godfather score two decades later).

With these latest 22 tunes, the grand total for all five boxes is 95 pieces, fairly close to my initial guess of 100.

Once again, I will try to meet any requests for scans of any of the above, but am unlikely to find the time to scan and upload all 95 pieces.

Martin

[Pietrobono]

The most immediately intriguing, simply from the name recognition of the composers, are the Raffaele Calace (if nothing else for the novelty of having accordion and drums in a Calace piece) and the Nino Rota

I fully agree, Martin, these are the two pieces in which I would be interested in !!! and I suppose several others also...

Many thanks once again for this listing !
Jean-Paul

[Martin Jonas]

Getting on with scanning, here is the Troise arrangement of Calace's Danza Spagnola. There are parts for mandolins 1A, 1B, 1C, 2A and 2B, first and second guitar, viola, cello, bass, drums, piano/celesta and accordion, plus the score and what appears to be a piano reduction (maybe the source material the arranger was working from).

I don't know what instrumentations Calace himself used for this piece, but comparing might be interesting. Sure looks like a lively arrangement, and I suspect the effect would be quite different from a straight "classical" performance.

Martin

[Jim Garber]

I don't know what instrumentations Calace himself used for this piece, but comparing might be interesting.

I would think the elements of a romantic quartet would be RC's choice.

[margora]

"I don't know what instrumentations Calace himself used for this piece, but comparing might be interesting."

"I would think the elements of a romantic quartet would be RC's choice."

Versions of this piece (Calace's Op. 105) do exist for romantic quartet, as suggested by Jim, and also for mandolin orchestra (mandolin 1, 2, mandola, mandocello (liuto), bass, classical guitar).

[margora]

I made a quick comparison of the Calace original for MO and the Troise focusing on the mandolin parts. The mandolin parts are very similar -- effectively identical -- except that Calace includes the occasional chord which Troise has evidently omitted. The key signature is the same.