The Italian Old-Time Trio plays traditional Italian mandolin music with mandolin, guitar and double bass. It is one of the few ensembles that still plays the traditional Italian mandolin in Italy, the homeland of the mandolin.
Last year the trio had been invited to the 8th Korea Mandolin Festival. Several videos of their performance in Korea are available at youtube. The sound in those videos is quite impressive, I think that the sound has been enhanced with at least some reverb. There are some other videos made in Italy recently with a more natural sound. The first one is a piece by Giovanni Giovale – Idillio Primaverale:
Idillio primaverile (G. Gioviale) – Italian Old-time Trio
The Italian Old-time Triob specializes in traditional Italian dance music composed during the late 19th and early 20th century for mandolin, bass and guitar. The Trio is comprised of three professional musicians from Rome, Fabio Menditto, Angelo Ercoli, and Fabio Refrigeri, who come from diverse musical backgrounds. They are dedicated to performing for modern audiences the live, complex, tradtional dance music of waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, and tarantellas that dominated popular music in Italy before recordings came into existence. The trio has performed widely in Italy and abroad. This video was recorded at the John Felice Rome Center on September 29, 2009, hosting “Sacco and Vanzetti Vivono: Their cultural legacy in film, music and history”.
– video has been removed –
Now one of the videos made in Korea at the Korea Mandolin Festival 2009:
Viale fiorito (G. Gioviale) – Italian Old-time Trio
This video was recorded at the 8th Korea Mandolin Festival 2009.
– video has been removed –
Playlist with 3 videos that are still available:
More videos can be found in the youtube channel of the Italian Old-Time Trio triesis: http://www.youtube.com/user/Triesis
Additonal Information
Informationen about Giovanni Giovale on the homepage of the Federazione Mandolinistica Italiana (FMI) with some free sheet music for download: http://www.federmandolino.it/gioviale.htm