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User:Jacqke/Raffaele Calace

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Raffaele Calace
Lutenist Rafaelle Calace holding a liuto canabile. This photo was taken by 1901 and was featured in Samuel Adelstein's book Mandolin Memories, printed that year.
Background information
BornDecember 29, 1863
DiedNovember 14, 1934(1934-11-14) (aged 70)
Genresclassical
Occupation(s)luthier, composer, lutenist, mandolinist
Instrument(s)mandolin, liuto cantabile, violin, piano
LabelsColumbia
Piccola Serenata, composed by Raffaele Calace, performed by Todd Billeci on liuto cantabile
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Raffaele Calace (1863-1934) was an Italian luthier, internationally performing instrumentalist with the mandolin and liuto cantabile, composer and author. He was labeled by historian Paul Sparks as "the single greatest figure in the mandolin's four-hundred year history" because of his accomplishments in mandolin "manufacture, performance, innovation and design, composition and orchestration."[1] Among classical musicians, he is known especially for his contributions to perfecting the concert mandolin. His success allowed his family to continue making mandolin-family instruments in the 21st century, when the Vinaccias and the Emberghers have disappeared. In the early 21st century, his series of mandolin methods were resurrected and endorsed by modern mandolin masters Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg.

After studying music at the Regio Conservatorio di Musica in Naples and graduating with high honors, he set out to elevate the mandolin's place in classical music, touring Europe and Japan and giving concerts on the Neapolitan mandolin and liuto cantabile. A virtuoso on the mandolin, he was able to transfer that "technique and agility" to the larger liuto cantabile, "the only concertist" of his era to do so. He has been followed today in these performances by mandolin-family virtuosos Alex Timmerman and Ferdinand Binnendijk.

Promoting the mandolin and liuto cantabile edit

He went to Japan at the end of 1924, playing before the Emperor. His trip helped to influence the growing mandolin movement there, and when the mandolin began to decline worldwide, in Japan it continued to grow.

Raffaele Calace made three long-playing phonograph records on which he plays mandolin and liuto cantabile.

A family of luthiers edit

 
Mandolin player with modern Calace-made mandolin.
 
Mandolira from the 1901 book Mandolin Memories by Samuel Adelstein.

The Calace family had been building instruments for two generations before Raffaele. The family workshop was founded by Nicola Calace (1794-1869) in 1825, near Naples on Procida island. At that time the family workshop was known for its guitars. Raffaele was on of two sons of Antonio Calace (1828-1876), also a luthier. It was Antonio that moved the family workshop to Naples and, in addition to violin making, began the tradition of building mandolins. He made innovations into his mandolins, introducing steel strings and mechanical tuners (as the Vinnacias were similarly doing). The business was inherited by Raffaele and his brother Nicòla Calace (1859-c. 1924), who worked together as the Fratelli Calace (Calace Brothers). Nicòla was also a musician and learned violin luthiery from his father. The two brothers introduced improvements in building techniques and changed the Neapolitan mandolin. Among other innovations, they enlarged its sound box and (like the Roman luthier Luigi Embergher) extended the fingerboard over the sound hole to increase the range, to the 29th fret on the classical mandolin and the 33rd fret on the classical concert mandolin. They also created an instrument called the mandolira, a mandolin with a body shaped liked a lyre.

There was a falling out between the two brothers and Nicòla emigrated to America in 1901, where he continued to build instruments under the name Nicòla Turturro. Two of his instruments, a mandolira and a ukulele, are in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When Nicola Calace emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1898, Raffaele continued the Calace workshop with his daughter Maria, a gifted mandolin player as well, and his son Giuseppe Calace.

He continued to build instruments in Naples, mandolins, liuto cantabile and the arciliuto (a double-bass range mandolin). In doing so he created a set of instruments that could fill out a mandolin orchestra, much as Orville Gibson and Lyon and Healy tried to do in America, with mandolin family instruments that could range from the high soprano range to the low bass range. Calace's liuto cantabile is a cello-ranged variant of the mandolin family that scholars believe Neapolitan luthiers of the Vinaccia family created in the last decade of the 19th century, which Raffaele Calace subsequently perfected. An article about Raffaele theorized that the instrument was built as a "link with the most significant period of Italian instrumental music, the Renaissance and Baroque". He created an instrument that "resembles a lute" with five-courses of double strings (mandolin family instruments often have only four). He also created the arciliuto, a double-bass ranged instrument like the mandobass. He also made violins (the first in his family to do so). His violins were good enough to win gold medals in builders' competitions and were exported to America and to Japan. They were well-enough received that one was supposed to have been made for Benito Mussolini.

His atelier passed from him to his son Giuseppe and his grandson, Raffaele Jr., who is still active in the family business today.

Compositions and books edit

Instructional books edit

Raffaele recognized a problem that aspiring mandolinists have had to deal with, the fact that musicians for the instrument have often had to transcribe or play transcriptions of music that was written for other instruments. This is less of a problem for the virtuoso mandolinist, but for those of lesser talent it can present a challenge to be worked around; the repertoire for the mandolin is limited compared to other orchestral instruments. In the current era, musicians such as Mike Marshall, Avi Avital and Chris Thile have worked to increase the mandolin's repertoire, playing music new to the mandolin or showing the word how the mandolin can be used with a large variety of music styles. Raffaele Calace worked on this problem as well, writing a mandolin method to systematically "technical and expressive possibilities of the instrument".

Raffaele Calace's mandolin method was first published in 1910 and elaborates on previous eighteenth century mandolin methods, including works by Giovanni Battista Gervasio (±1725 - ±1785) and Gabriele Leone (±1725 - ±1790). It is possible to look at the book and see the development of the traditional Italian playing style. The Calace school can also be seen as a bridge between other more modern methods for mandolin, including Brussels-based Silvio Ranieri (1882-1956) and the American-based Italian mandolinist Giuseppe Pettine (1874-1966). Calace's method is still used today, the six parts resurrected in two books by Mike Marshall and Caterina Lynchberg, both internationally recognized performers and teachers of the mandolin in the 21st century. He also wrote a method for playing the liuto cantabile.

Compositions edit

Raffaele Calace wrote about 215 compositions, more than 2000 total pages, which have been made freely available by his grandson Raffaele Calace, Jr. on the company's website.[2][3] These include concert works for solo mandolin and compositions where the mandolins play with other instruments. These latter include duets with piano, trio combinations with mandola and guitar, Romantic mandolin quartets (mandolin 1 & 2, mandola, and guitar); quintets, and entire concerts of a solo mandolin playing with an orchestra.


books--Mike Marshall Caterine linchberg endorsement instruments-include later works like his violins

source links

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cDwUNc-BeQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RvUHjb0LM

http://www.maestrodartemestiere.it/en/libro-d-oro/2016/raffaele-calace

References edit

  1. ^ Sparks 2003, p. 41
  2. ^ Calace, R (24 October 20098). "Calace Scores (Opera Omnia)" (PDF). federmandolino.it. Retrieved 6 May 2018. the pieces are 180 with 215 versions for over 2000 pages {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "COMPOSIZIONI E METODI DI RAFFAELE CALACE MUSIC SCORES AND METHODS OF RAFFAELE CALACE "Opera Omnia"". federmandolino.it. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
  • Sparks, Paul (2003). The Classical Mandolin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195173376.

External links edit

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