Scan 50
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904
16 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1MANCINI, FRANCESCO, an Italian composer, born at Naples in 1674. At first a pupil at the Conservatorio di San Loreto he, in 1728, became principal master. He wrote at least twenty operas for performance in Naples, but his opera, 'Hydaspes' (q.v.) or 'l' Idaspe Fedele,' produced in London, May 23, 1710, makes his name best known to English musicians. He also composed some oratorios, and his reputation in Italy was very high. He died at Naples in 1739. The Dictionary of Musicians, 1827, gives the date of his birth as 1691, but this is probably incorrect. F. K.
3MANCINUS, THOMAS, born 1550 at Schwerin, in Mecklenburg, was cantor at the Dom-Schule (Cathedral School) at Schwerin from 1572 to 1578; in 1584 became a member of the chapel of the Duke of Brunswick at Wolfenbüttel, and in 1587 was appointed capellmeister. He was afterwards employed as librarian to the Duke, and died at Wolfenbüttel about 1620 (Kade gives the date 1612). He is the author of two simple settings of the Passion according to St. Matthew and St. John, first published in 1620, and since reprinted in Schöberlein's Schatz des liturgischen Gesanges. With the exception of a book of German secular songs a 4 and 5, his other works are mostly occasional compositions for weddings and funerals, in the form of motets and madrigals, with Latin or German texts. See Quellen-Lexikon. J. R. M.
5MANDOLINE (Ital. Mandolino) is a small and very beautifully formed stringed instrument of the lute kind, with deeper convexity of back than the lute. It is, as its name implies, less in size than the MANDOLA or MANDORA, a much scarcer instrument. Mándola, or Mándorla, signifies 'almond,' and it has been supposed that the shape of the instrument has given it the name. But this cannot be accepted, since the almost universal use of the syllable 'Man' unchanged, or changed by phonetic variation to 'Ban,' 'Pan,' 'Tan,' etc., for the first syllable of names of lute instruments from East to West, removes it to a wider etymological field.
7There are two varieties of Mandoline, the Neapolitan and the Milanese; the former having four pairs of strings, the latter usually five. The Milanese 'Mandurina' is tuned
9There is one at South Kensington with six pairs, tuned
11The Milanese variety, however, is rare in comparison with the Neapolitan, the tuning of which is like that of the violin, in fifths. The lowest pair of strings is of gut, spun over with silver or copper, like a guitar first string; the next of steel also spun over; the second and first pairs are of steel only. Mahillon, in the Catalogue of the Musical Instruments in the Brussels Conservatoire, p. 245, says that the lowest pair is of gut, the third pair of steel, the second pair of copper, and the first pair of gut. Berlioz recommends that the G strings should be of gut spun with wire, the D strings of brass, the A, of steel, and the E, of thin gut. The Mandoline is played with a plectrum of tortoiseshell, whalebone, horn, or ostrich-quill, more or less flexible, which is held in the right hand, the left being employed to stop the strings, for which purpose there are seventeen frets across the finger-board. The scale of the instrument is three octaves and one note, from the G below the treble stave to the octave of A above it. The Serenade in Mozart's 'Don Giovanni,' 'Deh vieni,' was written to be accompanied by the Mandoline, and Grétry wrote a charming accompaniment for it in the serenade in 'L'amant jaloux.' There is a song with mandoline accompaniment in Michael Arne's 'Almena' (1764).
13In the former song the pizzicato of the violins is of a different colour of tone, and offers but a poor substitute.
15The Mandoline is not, however, the correct instrument. Don Juan would have played a Bandurria, a kind of half guitar and truly national Spanish instrument, sometimes incorrectly called a Mandoline. The back of the bandurria is flat; it has only in common with the Mandoline that it is played with a plectrum of tortoiseshell, called in Spanish 'pua,' and that it is the practice to insert a plate of the same substance in the belly below the sound-hole to prevent the plectrum scratching. The bandurria has twelve strings tuned in pairs, the higher three notes of catgut, the lower of silk overspun with metal. It is tuned much more deeply than the Mandoline. The compass is in all three octaves.
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