Stuart Walsh
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:14:30 -0800
Greetings Stuart, Interesting, but I'm away from appropriate reference here in the day-job office. I do have a pretty extensive collection of recordings made with early mandolins. I'm pretty certain the only I have of music by a Merchi is on modern instruments; a trio in D for two mandolins and basso continuo and a duo for two guitars in D by Giacomo (b.1726) appears on Circolo Mandolinistico Italiano by Ugo Orlandi and the Citta di Brescia orchestra on the Nuova Era label. Those works are very pleasant, but not particularlyremarkable.
Interesting. There must have been a lot of pre-revolutionary plucking going on in those times (1760ish-1789) in France:- all the 'cistre ou guitharre allemande' publications and a fair number of guitar publications - and were there many mandolin publications too? And each of them - guitar, cistre, mandolin - were often in combination with a violin (also the mandolin being a substitute for one) which is a bit curious too.That first wave of tremendous mandolin popularity, especially in Paris, ran ca. 1760-1790.
Stuart To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html