Bartolomeo Bortolazzi (born Toscolano-Maderno 1772; died 1846 [1] ) was a performing musician, composer, author, and virtuoso of both the guitar and the mandolin. He was credited by music historian Philip J. Bone as helping to pull the mandolin out of decline. [2]
Bortolazzi was born to musical parents, and when quite a child studied the mandolin. At a very early age, he made concert tours through northern Italy, meeting with considerable success. In the year 1800, he visited England where he was well received, remaining there two years and surprising the English audiences with his instrument. [2]
At the beginning of the year 1801 Bortolazzi commenced the study of the guitar, and so great was his natural ability that the next year he was performing and teaching this instrument also, to the elite of London society. Whilst residing in London he composed many works for voices and guitar, and piano and guitar, dedicating one of the latter compositions to his pupil, the Duchess of York this being published by Monzani & Hill, London. He left London in 1803, touring professionally through Germany and giving concerts in all the important cities with his usual success. He appeared the same year in Dresden, and in Leipzig, Brunswick and Berlin the year following, where critics and musicians were unanimous in their praise of his performances. After his last concert tour, he settled in Vienna in 1805, and devoted himself to teaching and composition. [2]
The mandolin has risen and fallen in its popularity since its invention in the 1730s or 1740s. The instrument went into decline in the early 19th Century, and that decline was commented on by Salvador Leonardi, who was writing for the instrument when it was becoming popular again around 1880. According to Bone, Bortolazzi's playing inspired people to take up the instrument and for music to be written for it. "This artist, by his extraordinary talent, produced the most wonderful and unheard-of nuances of tone and charms of expression, at that time deemed scarcely possible on so small an instrument. Instead of the monotonous, nasal tone which had hitherto been produced he so manipulated the strings and plectrum that he opened an enlarged sphere of capabilities for the instrument. It is to Bortolazzi that we are indebted for the first revival of the mandolin as a popular instrument, a popularity which lasted for about thirty years and caused most of the great musicians of that time to compose for it." [2] [3] [4]
Among his published works we find a method for the guitar entitled: New theoretical and practical guitar school, Op. 21, and a method for the mandolin entitled School for the mandolin, violin system. The guitar method was published in French and German by Haslinger, Vienna; it was a standard work in Austria during the first part of the nineteenth century, and met with such success that it passed through eight editions up to the year 1833. The first eleven chapters, of his method are devoted to the theoretical part, and the twelfth concerns the instrument. After these twelve introductory chapters, follow scales, cadenzas, and studies in all keys, arranged progressively, and thirty exercises on arpeggios, the work is concluded with a fantasia of three pages for guitar solo. [2]
The mandolin method, which was issued by Breitkopf & Hartel, of Leipzig, in 1805, also passed through many editions, including one revised by Engelbert Rontgen and published in German. The first lesson describes the mandolin and its various types (lute, Milanese, Cremona and Neapolitan mandolins, etc.)., and it is followed by various exercises for the management of the plectrum. It treats of arpeggios, harmonics, etc., and concludes with a theme and six variations for mandolin with guitar accompaniment. This method was seen as completely out-of-date by 1914. [2]
Bortolazzi was the composer of many simple, yet beautiful songs, which were very popular during his life, and among other of his published compositions we mention the following: [2]
and numerous other similar works published in London and on the continent. He also left twelve variations for guitar remain in manuscript in Dresden and several others in Vienna. [2]
A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 strings, although,there are 4 string, 5 string, 6 string, 5 double string, 6, and even 4 a triple string course versions also exist. A variety of string types are used, with steel strings being the most common and usually the least expensive. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin. Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.
In music, a method is a kind of textbook for a specified musical instrument or a selected problem of playing a certain instrument.
Giuseppe Pettine was an Italian-American concert mandolinist, teacher, and composer.
Carlo Munier (1858–1911) was an Italian musician who advocated for the mandolin's acknowledgement among as an instrument of classical music and focused on "raising and ennobling the mandolin and plectrum instruments". He wanted "great masters" to consider the instrument and raise it above the level of "dilettantes and street players" where it had been stuck for centuries. He expected that the mandolin and guitar would be taught in serious orchestral music schools and incorporated into the orchestra. A composer of more than 350 works for the mandolin, he led the mandolin orchestra Reale circolo mandolinisti Regina Margherita named for its patron Margherita of Savoy and gave the queen instruction on the mandolin. As a teacher, he wrote Scuola del mandolino: metodo completo per mandolino, published in 1895.
Leonhard von Call, sometimes referred to as "Leonhard de Call", was an Austrian composer and virtuoso on the mandolin and guitar. During his lifetime he focused less on performing and more upon teaching and writing music for others to play. A virtuoso, he wrote not for other virtuosos but for the people he was teaching or amateurs, and today it is felt by some musicians that his works "made no great technical demands".
Anton Bernhard Fürstenau was a German flutist and composer. He was the most famous virtuoso in Germany on his instrument and the most important Romantic flutist of the first half of the nineteenth century. His son Moritz Fürstenau (1824–1889), whom he later sent to study with Theobald Boehm in Munich, was one of his numerous students. Skeptical as to the technical advancements of the flute, he remained faithful to the nine key flute until his death.
Salvator Léonardi was a mandolin virtuoso, teacher and composer. He taught in Egypt, Malta, London and Paris for more than 20 years, and also toured as a performer. Léonardi learned mandolin and guitar from an uncle, but went on to become a professional musician, studying the violin at a Naples conservatory. He won awards as a solo mandolinist at international music competitions in Florence and Rome.
Karl Stefan Aichelburg was a mandolin virtuoso and composer who lived at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Vienna and there wrote Opus 1, Potpourri for mandolin and guitar, Opus 2, Variations for mandolin and guitar, Opus 3, Nocturne concertantes for mandolin and guitar and Opus 4, Variations concertantes for mandolin and guitar. The above compositions were published by Haslinger, Vienna.
Frederick August Baumbach was a German guitarist, mandolinist and orchestral conductor. Baumbach excelled as a player on the piano, guitar and mandolin; but he is known more through his compositions and writings than his performances. He was characterized as "a man of scholarly and refined taste and great literary attainments."
Giuseppe Bellenghi was a virtuoso violincellist and mandolinist, and composer. He was remembered in 1914 as "a devoted champion of the mandolin."
Giuseppe Branzoli was a violinist, mandolinist, composer, author, educator at the Liceo Musicale di St. Cecilia in Rome, and the founder of the periodical IL mandolin Romano. His compositions were for violin, mandolin, flute and cello, as well as church music.
Luigi Castellacci was an Italian virtuoso on the mandolin and guitar, an instrumental composer and the author of popular French romances with guitar and piano accompaniments.
Ferdinando de Cristofaro was one of the most celebrated mandolin virtuosi of the late 19th Century. He was also a classical pianist, teacher, author and composer, who performed at the chief courts of Europe, and received the royal appointment of mandolinist to the King of Italy.
Federigo Fiorillo was a mandolinist and composer, who wrote thirty-six caprices for violin, also called études.
Alexandro Marie Antoin Fridzeri or Frixer was the most renowned of mandolin virtuosi, a clever violinist, organist, and a composer whose works met with popular favor. Among his works were sonatas and chamber music and operas. His life began and ended with tragic notes, losing his eyesight and later his home and possessions. Music historian Philip J. Bone called Fridzeri " an artist of undoubted genius and a man of most remarkable character, which was fully tried under great adversity." The late Giuseppe Bellenghi, mandolinist and composer, dedicated his variations for mandolin and piano on the Carnival of Venice, to the memory of Fridzeri, the blind mandolin player and composer.
Carmine de Laurentiis was a 19th-century Italian mandolinist, musical educator, author and composer who taught mandolin and guitar in Naples. His only well-known student was Carlo Munier. He wrote a mandolin method, Metodo per Mandolino, that was published in Milan in 1874, reported the following year in the Musical World. The article mentioning Laurentiis' method talked about the decline of the mandolin, calling the mandolin "entirely out of fashion."
Ugo Orlandi is a musicologist, a specialist in the history of music, a university professor and internationally renowned mandolinist virtuoso. Among worldwide musicians, professional classical musicians are a small group; among them is an even smaller group of classical mandolinists. Among members of this group, Ugo Orlandi is considered "distinguished." Music historian Paul Sparks called him "a leading figure in the rehabilitation of the eighteenth-century mandolin repertoire, having recorded many concertos from this period."
Gabriele Leone was an Italian musician and composer who lived in Paris during the middle and later part of the 18th century. A virtuoso on the violin and mandolin, he wrote an early mandolin method, Analytical method for mastering the violin or the mandolin in 1768 and composed for both instruments. He was an early teacher of the duo method, an advanced technique which would reappear in the 20th century, taught by Giuseppe Pettine in the United States.
Ludwig van Beethoven composed at least six works for mandolin, four of which survive. None were published during his lifetime. Though known better as a pianist, Beethoven possessed a Milanese mandolin, which was hung beside his piano. He was friends with two prominent mandolinists, both of whom were linked to his surviving mandolin music.
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