1001 Albums
en
Create account

39 albums · 1949–2023

The mandolin, from Naples and bluegrass to choro, Carnatic music and the concert hall

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

A worn sunburst F-style mandolin with a scroll on its body in a glass case, beside a panel with a photograph of Bill Monroe playing it
A Neapolitan mandolin with a pear-shaped spruce top, an inlaid tortoiseshell guard and eight strings, lying on wooden boardsHamilton de Holanda in glasses and a grey jacket playing a ten-string bandolim on stage
Bill Monroe's Gibson F-5 of 1923 in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville. Photo: Diane Cordell, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · A Neapolitan mandolin labelled Giovanni DeMeglio, 1900. Photo: Mudheno, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Hamilton de Holanda at the 25th Prêmio da Música Brasileira, 2014. Photo: Roberto Filho, 25º Prêmio da Música Brasileira, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The mandolin is a small lute with four pairs of metal strings, tuned like a violin and played with a plectrum. Its notes are bright and fade fast, so players hold a long note with a tremolo. The bowl-backed Neapolitan mandolin took its form in Naples in the eighteenth century, and Gibson's flat-backed F-5 of the 1920s became the mandolin of bluegrass.

Bill Monroe made it lead in bluegrass, and David Grisman, Sam Bush and Chris Thile took it into jazz, newgrass and Bach. In Brazil the bandolim is a voice of choro, from Jacob do Bandolim to Hamilton de Holanda. Vivaldi wrote concertos for it, recorded here by Ugo Orlandi and Avi Avital, and U. Srinivas played an electric mandolin in Carnatic music.

The list has 39 records from 1949 to 2023; Jacob do Bandolim's is a later collection, dated by the first year of its recordings, and Giuseppe Anedda's recital by the year it was played. The Algerian mandole has a list of its own, and records where a mandolin plays behind a singer are left out. About 35 hours of music, 4 days of a few records each.

What it sounds like

Angel's Serenade, a cylinder recording of 1905Valentine Abt, mandolin

Recording, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

By genre

Folk & Country 24%Classical 22%Jazz 9%Other 45%
  • Folk & Country 24%
  • Classical 22%
  • Jazz 9%
  • Other 45%

The genres named most: mandolin, classical, bluegrass, folk, baroque, choro.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 6 countries: United States 19, Brazil 7, Italy 5, Israel 4, India 3 and 1 more. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Instruments first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.

29 albums · 1976–2024

The kora of Mali, the harp-lute of the jeli

· 1 min read

The kora is the harp-lute of the jeli, the griots of Mali, Guinea, Senegal and the Gambia: 21 strings over a large calabash covered in cowhide, played with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands.

World 89%Blues 3%Classical 3%Other 5%
  • World 89%
  • Blues 3%
  • Classical 3%
  • Other 5%

Read and see the list