Matthew Gillett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>A recent posting about Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron" reminded me of a
>question I have been wanting to ask all of you.  I recently started to play
>the mandolin for the two professional orchestras here in Brisbane on the
>rare occasions that they have required it.  Due to this I did some research
>as to what music there was for orchestral mandolin.  I found the following:

I shall check some other sources, but there is at least one instance:
Pijper's symphonies.  No.3 uses a mandolin.  No.2 uses one mandolin in
Karel Mengelberg's rescoring, but the original version uses six mandolins!
Both these symphonies are extremely interesting.  No.2 was obviously
reminiscent of Mahler -- not in an epigonal way, though, while No.1 was
very close to Mahler indeed.  Pijper spent a lot of time on the road across
Europe to hear as many performances of Mahler symphonies as he could.
All of Pijper's important works should be easily available by Donemus
Amsterdam.

A work which may be a little more of a concerto is Jakob Jez's "Strune,
milo se glasite" (translated as "Sweet strings", I'd rather say "Strings,
you sound with a sweet voice"), for mandolin and 18 string instruments.
The score was published by Edicije DSS in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Jan Morthenson composed his Coloratura II for strings, 3 percussionnists,
piano, electric guitar and mandolin.  The publisher is Nordiska
Musikforlaget in Stockholm, and orders can be placed through Warner.
In theory...  If you ever get a reply from them, please let me know!

You should have more luck with the excellent Swedish Music Information
Centre, their Editio Suecia has published the Theatre Music No.4 (from
the music for Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice) by Gosta Nystroem, one
of Sweden's finest composers between 1920 and 1965.  The score includes
a guitar, a mandolin and a harpsichord.

I would not be too surprised if there were Croatian pieces with orchestral
mandolin (maybe by Frano Parac,for instance).  You can ask the Croatian MIC
([log in to unmask]), they are terribly busy but they should be able to give you
an answer.

I hope this helps,

Thanh-Tam Le
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