In the 1880s, the mandolin ensemble explosion comes to USA
After the visit of the Spanish Students to the big Cities and the Ivy League Colleges in the late 1880s, a mostly WASP mandolin craze enveloped the US. College glee clubs and mandolin orchestras were founded everywhere and became a staple of campus life untill World War I, and sometimes beyond. |
Italian-Americans embraced traditional mandolin music
At the same time and independently of that craze, Italian Americans continued to play their own music at home, for the family, for smaller social gatherings. Teachers notated their repertoire of traditional Italian pieces as well as original new-world forms: foxtrots, tango, ragtime. Mandolins publishers like Tesio and Cardilli in NY and other East Coast cities and built up substantial catalogs of professionally arranged and typeset pieces. |
A fascination with mandolin trio music
The combination of two mandolins and guitar was very popular in the early 1900s to play for small social gatherings such as weddings, first communion parties, etc, and a lot of sheet music was published for it in New York and Philadelphia. The original duo, Rigatoni Brothers, was founded in 1998 by Belgian-American musician Paul Oorts to explore and preserve this mandolin music tradition. The Rigatoni Trio and Quartet Ensembles consist of professional musicians who enjoy breathing life into the Italian American mandolin trio music from the early 1900s. |
Mandolin Trio sheet music collection
Paul has amassed an impressive collection of mandolin trio sheet music. Contact us if you're interested in getting a particular piece or part. He loves to trade (scans of) old mandolin sheet music--it is all copyright free. He would eventually like to have complete sets of the Tesio, Cardilli, and Century Collections and make them available online. |
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