Can anyone add anything to this? Please contact David direct

   From: <[log in to unmask]>
   Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 10:59 AM
   Subject: Troise and his Mandoliers

   Hello, Mr Mullenger. I can perhaps add a little more information on
   Pasquale Troise and the band.

   The band was created in 1932 by my father, Colin Wark (1896-1939).
   After serving in France in WW1, he drifted down to Milan and got a
   job with Ricordi, working with Puccini and other composers to transcribe
   their works for piano. He must have learned Italian there and thus
   made a connection with Troise.  This is my late mother's story of
   how it came about.  In (perhaps) 1931, he and my mother were dining
   in an Italian restaurant in Soho when a strolling musician came in
   and played several mandoline pieces, all classic works.  My father
   listened intently.  He called the restaurant manager over, who
   apparently knew the musician well.  (Now, I have a vague feeling that
   the restaurant manager was Pasquale Troise, but I cannot be certain).
   It turned out that the busker's name was Fasano (Michel or Miguel,
   I think) and that he was an internationally recognised virtuoso.  "I
   could hear that,,.he is superb," my father replied."But what's he
   doing passing the hat round in restaurants?" The restaurateur shrugged
   his shoulders."You didn't notice? He has only two fingers on one
   hand.  Somebody slammed a car door on his fingers." My father then
   put the package together - Troise and his Mandoliers - very fast.
   It was Depression time.  Soho was afloat in out-of-work Italian
   waiters.  He hired a number of them who already knew a little about
   the mandoline.  He hired Fasano to teach them a lot more - very fast
   - and put Troise in charge of the band, went down to Milan and
   commissioned a complete mandoline orchestra, right down to a mando-bass.
   He hired an Australian tenor whose name, I blush to admit, I cannot
   clearly recall.  Something like Lowell or Lyle Beesley but I'm
   absolutely sure that wasn't it.  He had a magnificent voice, but he
   was sadly too short to get work in opera.My father renamed him Don
   Carlos (flatly rejecting the more correct Italian "Carlo" on grounds
   of euphony).  1932 was a long hot summer and theatres mostly stayed
   closed, so my father hired a river-boat and sent the band up the
   Thames giving concerts.  These were a great success and the band,
   always a touring band, went on until 1950 or so.  I saw them with my
   mother at the Chelsea Palace.  When Don Carlos came on, he started
   to sing a pop song but stopped abruptly, whispered to Troise and
   switched at once to a Neapolitan song..When we went backstage he said
   he'd almost had a heart attack.He had spotted my mother in the audience
   at once and I had a sufficient resemblance to my father to make him
   fear I was going to leap up, point a shaking finger at him and scream
   "Stop that constipated West End whining at once.  Back to Italy.
   Back!" which my father did whenever he had time from his studio work
   to check out how the band were performing.  During that backstage
   visit we could see that Pasquale was very tired and shaky.time and
   told my mother it was cancer.  Poor Fasano, apparently, committed
   suicide after a few years with the band.

   Too much info, I know, but still ...

   Regards,

   David Wark

Len