Mandoline

Musical instrument with cords pinches length from 35 to 40 cm, the mandoline comprises a handle - short, narrow and provided with hoops - ending in a chevillier who is used to hang the cords.

The instrument

One distinguishes two great types of mandoline:
  • the Milanese Mandoline , with six double cords - generally in bowel, and then played with the fingers, or out of steel, played with a plectre - granted to unison as follows: sol2, si2, mi3, la3, ré4, sol4; the current instrument often agrees however like the guitar. It derives directly from the instruments called quintern by Sebastian Virdung in its Musica getutscht (1511) and pandurina by Michael Praetorius in her Syntagma musicum (1619). Its case of resonance is in the almond shape, its back curvature is composed of coasts out of hard wooden, and its sounding board comprises a circular hearing.
  • the Neapolitan Mandoline appeared as of the 15th century, as some iconographic documents attest it. The first written source mentioning this instrument, which had with the Italian Francesco Redi, date of 1685. According to Richard Campbell, there would exist still 3 specimens of Neapolitan mandoline, going back respectively to 1609,1655 and 1660.
Currently the most spread mandoline, its case adopts the shape of a tear, and its back is also bent, like that of the lute. It moves away however from this last, in particular by its sounding board bored of an oval hearing - beside which is encrusted a plate with scale or hard wood thus avoiding with this part of the instrument being damaged by the blows of plectre - and by its back even more curvature. It is provided with four double cords out of steel granted in fifths (like the violin): that is to say ground, D, it and semi (G D HAS E), from serious towards the acute one.

As from the 18th century, the mandolines train a family of instruments comprising, from acute towards the low register: the soprano , the viola (granted C, ground, D, it of serious towards the acute one), the tenor ( mandole , granted an octave below the soprano), the low one or the mandoloncelle (granted like a violoncello, with the serious octave of the viola) as well as the mandolone (double bass, also called archimandola ), often provided with 7 or 8 cords double - except the chantarelle, simple - granted F (or ground), D, ground, if, semi.

One can note that for the Anglo-Saxons, the mandole (mandola) corresponds to our viola (C G D A). The instrument granted an octave below the mandoline (G D HAS E) is generally named, in all logic, " octave mandolin" , but also sometimes " octave mandola" , which lends to confusion! Mandoloncelle results in " mandocello". The " mandobass" have only four cords granted in quads (E HAS D G). Nothing thus distinguishes it basically from low acoustics, if it is not that she is generally played upright, with the manner of a double bass.

In addition, other types, more regional, of mandoline developed:

  • the Mandoline génoise drift directly of the Milanese mandoline from which it is characterized only by its narrower handle and by its simple cords, 5 or 6;
  • the Mandoline florentine with the smaller body but with the handle longer than the Neapolitan mandoline, can comprise either 5 double cords (D, ground, C, semi, from serious towards the acute one), or 4 simple cords (current agreement, like the violin).

in “nontraditional” music, one still uses other types of mandoline, such:

  • the mandoline bluegrass, which, besides its four double cords, in common does not have any more large-thing with the mandoline baroque, thanks to the work which Orville Gibson carried out since 1898. “The new” mandoline presents a back slightly arched (any more curvature), a sounding board also arched with the different form (the asymmetrical pear shape then), hearing in the shape of F replacing the rosette, a handle a little longer, an adjustable rest, etc;
  • the Banjoline, in which the case of wood resonance makes place with that of a banjo, i.e. provided with a tended skin;
  • the Irish Mandoline, which adopts almost all the characteristics of the Neapolitan mandoline except with regard to its bottom, dish, its handle, a little broader, and its size (a little larger); the two most known violin makers are Dublinois Joe Foley, and Stephan Sobell, installed in England.
  • the Brazilian Mandoline (bandolim) is recognized with its practically circular sounding board, bored of a rosette. Its bottom is flat.

Lastly, a certain number of hybrid instruments was born:

  • the mandoline with 5 even 6 choruses (10 even 12 cords); the mandoline with four choruses of three cords, called sicilian mandoline, is typically used more particularly of the beginning at the end of the 19th century for the accompaniment of vocal works.
  • the electric mandoline (not of case of resonance, the such electric guitar);
  • several contemporary violin makers manufacture mandolines whose body adopts forms increasingly distant from that of the mandolines baroques or Irish. One can note creations of Andre Sakellaridès, violin maker in Marseilles, which created a family of modern mandolines, flat-bottomed, asymmetrical.

Held between the inch and the index (or the index plus the major one), the plectre - often called médiator in France - is the object with which one grips the cords of the mandoline. It was manufactured in various matters during the centuries: bone, feather, ivory, scale,…

The form evolves/moves with the matter used for the cords as well as the formal amendments of the instrument: In Baroque music, the " plume" (corbel or ostrich) is used with the cords in bowel whose low registers are spun of a silk bit. The " plectre" of ovoid form, in tortoise or ivory is used as of the appearance of the metal cords (one then used sometimes twisted cords of harpsichord for the low registers). The plectre in bone or ivory, more rigid, is used for the sicilian mandoline then for the Neapolitan mandoline; at this point in time its form becomes less lengthened and the less pointed end. Nowadays, made out of matter synthetic, it adopts two forms principal (the shape of tear, and equilateral triangle whose 3 points are very slightly round) and two or three “hardnesses” (flexible, medium, hard) according to the desideratas of the mandolin player. Lastly, some plectres comprise, in their center, a slightly concave part provided with tiny “barbs” rounded intended to prevent the inch from slipping in the event of excessive sudation.

Music for mandoline

The first examples of pieces of music for mandoline known to date go up around 1700; laid out in fingering chart (and not like a partition), written for the Milanese mandoline, they are due to the feather of Francesco Contini ( Sonate Al mandolino solo ) and Filippo Sauli (a whole manuscript, preserved in a Czech library). According to Richard Campbell, Fétis claimed in addition that some Johann Strohbach would have composed of the concertos for mandoline before 1700. Then, good number of type-setters - especially of the Italians - composed of the parts for mandoline in the current of the XVIIIe century.

The first methods go back respectively to 1768 ( Méthode to learn how to play of the mandoline without Master of Pierre or Pietro Denis), 1770 (Fouchetti, which published in Paris its Méthode to easily learn how to play of the mandoline with 4 and 6 cords ) and 1772 (Michel Corrette) for France, and 1805 ( Anweisung, die Mandoline von selbst zu erlernen , published in Leipzig by Bortolazzi) for Germany; two other methods, one in English and the other in French, were published before 1805. It will be noted that if these methods were written, with two exceptions, by Italians, no method of mandoline was found in Italy before the beginning of the XIXe century.

The original instrumental repertory - without taking account of the very many transcriptions and other arrangements - for mandoline is distinguished neither in quantity nor in quality, because it does not contain any real philosopher's stone due to a type-setter of very first plan.

Indeed, with share 6 pages which one can describe as interesting, namely both impossible to circumvent Concertos of Vivaldi (for a mandoline, cords & low continuous in major C, RV 425; for 2 mandolines, cords & low continues, in G major, RV 532) and 4 small parts of Beethoven going back to 1796 (Sonatine WoO 43a; Adagio my nontroppo WoO 43b; Sonatine WoO 44a; Andante idiot Variazioni WoO 44b), the mandoline was ignored of all the large type-setters.

XVIIIe century

  • Emanuele Barbella (1718-1777)
  • Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
  • Leonhard von Cal (1767-1815)
  • Prospero Cauciello (? -?)
  • Domenico Caudioso (? -?)
  • Abbate Rainieri Capponi (? -?)
  • Carlo Cecere (1706-1761)
  • Francesco Contini (? -?)
  • Pierre Denis (C 1720-c 1780)
  • Signor Fargere (? -?)
  • Giovanni Battista Gervasio (1725-1785)
  • Giuseppe Giuliano (? -?)
  • Johann Hoffmann (? - C 1815)
  • Gabriele Leone (1732-1770)
  • Pietro Leone (1725-1790)
  • Antoine Riggieri (? -?)
  • Valentine Roeser (C 1735-c 1782)
  • Filippo Sauli (? -?)
  • Christoforo Signorelli (1731-1815)
  • Signor Verdone (? -?)
  • Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
  • Vito Ugolino (? -?)

XIXe century

  • Raffaele Calace (1863-1934). Undoubtedly the most known mandolin player of the history, it wrote nearly 200 works for mandoline, including three concertos

  • Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837)
  • Carlo Munier (1859-1911)
  • Serguei I. Taneiev (1856-1915)

The mandoline was introduced into the Symphony orchestra at the beginning of the XXe century by Mahler (7 {{E}} and 8 {{E}} Symphonies), Schoenberg (Variations COp 31), Stravinski (Agon), etc

The mandoline also made its appearance with the opera at the beginning of the XVIIIe century, in the delle conquista Spagne di Scipione Africano it giovane (1707) of Bononcini, then in several other lyric works (of Naumann, Arne, Grétry, Mozart,…), and in a oratorio of Haendel in 1748.

It was then necessary to await the end of the XIXe century so that the opera is interested again in the mandoline, thanks to Verdi ( Otello , 1887 and Falstaff , 1893), Pfitzner ( Palestrina , 1912-15), Henze ( König Hirsch , 1956), etc Of the type-setters like Schoenberg, Petrassi and Manoury also used the mandoline in chamber music.

XXe - XXIe centuries

Very many type-setters of XXe and XXIe centuries still composed and compose for the mandoline, often on ordering of an interpreter or an orchestra of mandolines. It is the case of the majority of the following type-setters:

  • Laurent Raynaud (1968) workshop of arts
  • Robert Allworth (1943) which one must nearly 60 works
  • Hermann Ambrosius (1897-1983)
  • Eduardo Angulo (1954)
  • Eric Austin Philips (1947)
  • Willy Ayton (1948)
  • Lawrence Bartlett (1933)
  • Herbert Baumann (1925)
  • Betty Beath (1932)
  • Phillip Beazley (1956)
  • Vincent Beer-Ask (1982)
  • Siegfried Behrend (1934-1990)
  • Kirsty Beilharz (1971)
  • Michel Bosc (1963)
  • Jim ten Boske (1946)
  • Vincent Bouchot (1966)
  • Colin Brumby (1933)
  • Cédric Buisson (1977)
  • Bruce Fixes (1939)
  • Edwin Carr (1926-2003)
  • Ann Carr-Boyd (1938)
  • Roland Chadwick (1957)
  • Michel Claudio (1961)
  • Brendan Colbert (1956)
  • John Colborne-Veel (1945)
  • Julian Dawes (1942)
  • Claude Engel (1948)
  • Dietrich Erdmann (1917)
  • Helmut Fackler (1940)
  • Laurent Fantauzzi (1872-1941)
  • Ulrich Fauth (1940)
  • Craig P. First (1960)
  • Hans Gall (1890-1987)
  • Neill Gladd (1955)
  • Eric Gross (1926) with which one owes also approximately 60 works
  • Lutz-Werner Hesse (1955)
  • Matthew Hindson (1968)
  • Dulcie Holland (1913-2000)
  • May Howlett (1931)
  • James Humberstone (1974)
  • Mike Irik (1953)
  • Brian Israel (1951-1986)
  • Longin Jakubowski (1922-1986)
  • Mischa Käser (1959)
  • Don Kay (1933)
  • Raimo Kangro (1949-2001)
  • Heinrich Konietzny (1910-1983)
  • Josef Kost (1954)
  • Roland Leistner-Mayer (1945)
  • Sven Libaek (1938)
  • Robert Lombardo (1932)
  • Claudio Mandonico (1957)
  • Luperce Miranda (1904-1977)
  • Jiro Nakano (1902-2000)
  • Dimitri Nicolau (1946)
  • Matthew Orlovich (1970)
  • Sebastien Paci (1974)
  • John Peterson (1957)
  • Graham Powning (1949)
  • Silvio Ranieri (1882-1956)
  • Benoit Rossie (1964)
  • Daniel Ruyneman (1886-1963)
  • Ian Shanahan (1962)
  • Larry Sitsky (1934)
  • Michael Smetanin (1958)
  • Paul Stanhope (1969)
  • Jane Stanley (1976)
  • Antonius Streichardt (1936)
  • Vlado Sunko (1954)
  • Caroline Szeto (1956)
  • Alex de Valera (1949)
  • Nicholas Fortify (1976)
  • Marga Wilden-Hüsgen (1942)
  • Stephen Yates (1957)
  • Friedrich Zehm (1923)

Mandolin players

Classical music

  • See the list of the traditional mandolin players.

Traditional music/of the world

  • Valiant Patrick (and Melonious Quartet, is Patrick Vaillant, Thomas Bienabe, Pascal Giordano and Jean-Louis Ruf-Costanzo)

" Sul Ponticello" Neapolitan music directed by Francoise VEINTURIER (mandoline) Willy Jacquet (mandoline-mandole) Jean-Marie Frederic (guitar) Jean-Yves pear tree (violoncello) and Alain Carbonell (double bass).

Bluegrass

  • Butch Baldassari
  • Pierre Bensusan
  • Sam Bush
  • Martino Coppo
  • John Duffey
  • Dewey Farmer
  • Dave Ferguson
  • Jimmy Gaudreau
  • David Grisman
  • Gene Johnson
  • Steve Kaufman
  • Mick Larie
  • Doyle Lawson
  • Mike Marshall
  • Wendy Miller
  • Robbie McCoury
  • Jesse McReynolds
  • Bill Monroe
  • Tim O' Brien
  • Bobby Osborne
  • Larry Rice
  • Seeger Mike
  • Christian Séguret
  • Hershel Sizemore
  • Ricky Skaggs
  • Andy Statman
  • Chris Thile
  • Jack Tottle
  • Frank Wakefield
  • Dean Webb
  • Buck White
  • Roland White
  • Paul Williams

Irish music

Jazz

  • Jethro Burns
  • Ted Eschliman
  • David Grisman
  • Stalemate McClintock
  • Jamie Masefield
  • Andy Statman
  • Gift Stiernberg
  • John Abercrombie

Choro

Music vénézuélienne

  • Ricardo Sandoval
  • Cristobal Soto

Indian music

  • U Srinivas

Blues/Rock'n'roll

Moroccan music

  • My Chérif Lemrani - group Lemchaheb-
  • Chfira - larssad group -
  • Molay alhassan - larssad group -
  • Abd elmajid mochfik - Essiham group -
  • Molay hachem - Manar group -

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