Giglio Fiorentino – Plectrum Orchestra Music in Late-Nineteenth-Century Florence

A real rarity is offered to us by this album that includes original works for plectrum orchestra, meaning that particular ensemble in which the various orchestral sections are formed by mandolins and instruments derived from it, such as the mandola, the mandoloncello and mandolone, with the addition of guitars, harps, and other plectrum or pizzicato instruments depending on the various situations.
After the time when great composers like Vivaldi, Mozart and Beethoven wrote important pages where the mandolin was the protagonist, from the first decade of the XIX century interest in this instrument progressively diminished.
Yet, starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, throughout Europe spontaneously started many ensembles for plectrum and pizzicato.
After more than a century from their composition, this production wants to propose some suggestive pages of the most representative authors gravitating around Florence, the city that in the XIX century opened the doors to the golden age of the revival of mandolin in Italy and worldwide.
Founded in 1898, the Gino Neri orchestra was the star of that period of splendor, and now represents the oldest plectrum orchestra still preserving and disseminating this repertoire worldwide.