Composer: Edward Harry Frey (1862-1932)

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Frey was from Lima, Ohio.  Basically all of the info I found on him is from S. S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal, which published a lot of his music.

 

The Journal described him as "the most prolific composer and arranger of music for the mandolin and guitar we know of. He has produced already some 1200 compositions, and they are all good. Some of the choicest mandolin and guitar selections played to-day are the work of Prof. Frey."  (Volume 12, No.4, p.9)

 

It also said of him:

 

...we deem Mr. Frey one of the most gifted guitarists and composers for that instrument in America. As a violinist, too, he takes high rank, and while much of his time is taken up in giving instruction to pupils on the guitar and mandolin, he still finds time to lead an orchestra in the Opera House, at Lima, and to compose the beautiful music for banjo, mandolin and guitar that is constantly being published. (Vol 11, No.3 p.3)

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Date: 1897 (Barn Dance), 1896 (The Gondolier's Serenade), 1891 (The Castanet Dance), 1889 (Mattie Mazurka)

 

Original Instrumentation: 

    2 Guitars (Barn Dance)

    Mandolin, Guitar (Gondolier's Serenade, Castanet Dance, Mattie's Mazurka)

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Movements:    

1. Barn Dance

2. The Gondolier's Serenade

3. The Castanet Dance

4. Mattie Mazurka

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Why this one:

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This is part of my late 19th Century series.  I found a lot of work by Frey and I liked a line in S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal that described him as "a talented and gentlemanly exponent of music."

 

I picked these four songs mostly because I liked the titles.  (Though Barn Dance was largely because I hadn't recorded a duet with 2 guitars yet.)

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Description:  

 

Barn Dance

Key:  C

Time: 4/4      BPM=110

 

This song is from S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal, Volume 14, No.5.  The tempo marking is "Tempo di Schottische."  A schottische is a central European country dance which was popular during the Victorian Era (1837-1901ish).

 

The rhythm guitar is mostly playing the stride-esque bass note - chord - base note - chord pattern that most of the American music in the music magazines from this era used.  The vast majority of the lead guitar part is single note melodic lines in a bouncy swing rhythm.  

 

The song is structured ABA'CA, with all sections being 16 measures, except for A' which is only 8, i.e. the back half of the regular A section.  The A section is in C major, the B section is in G, and the C is in F.  The chord harmony is pretty simple throughout, alternating between C, G, and D7 chords in the A and B section and hanging mostly on F in the C section.

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Performance:​

​I had never heard of this type of song before and wasn't sure what tempo to play it.  I saw it described as a slow polka but also that American Schottische's were typically faster than European ones so..... shrug?  I input it into my Sibelius notation software and tried to find a speed that didn't' sound weird.   

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The Gondolier's Serenade

Key: A

Time: 2/4      BPM=90

 

This song is from The Cadenza magazine Vol.7 No.9.  The Cadenza was a New York City music publication in the same vein as S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal (from Philadelphia) and The Crescendo (from Boston).

 

The piece is structured AABBCCA, with each section being 16 measures long.  The guitar accompaniment is largely a repeated rhythmic pattern of one swung beat followed by one beat of straight eighth notes.  

 

The building block of the section A melody in the mandolin consists of long strings of straight sixteenth notes in groups of four stair stepping down the staff, with some longish walk-ups to tie repeats of the sequence together.   This was actually written for the mandolin so there's notates tremolos in this section, something I don't see often in parts written for violin.  

 

The mandolin part on the B and C sections is largely voice led chordal passages in a short-long-short long-long pattern.  These sections are in D major, though all the voice leading results in a lot of accidentals.  

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Performance:

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This mandolin part was hard. Both B and C section were absolutely brutal.  I did the guitar first with the intent of recording the mandolin at my next session a few weeks later but I didn't start prep work right away and massively underestimated how difficult it was.  I slid Odell in front of this one to give me more time to get ready.

 

Recording the mandolin went slower than I'd hoped it would, but about as fast as I expected it to go.

The guitar had some tricky fingerings in it, but the difficulty was more in the initial figuring out the best way to play it.  Once I had it down it wasn't too bad to actually record.

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Errata:

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I have no idea what an actual serenade sung by a gondolier sounds like.

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The Castanet Dance

Key: G

Time: 3/4      BPM=110

 

This is from S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal Vol.8, No.1.  It's structured AABBCCAB, with each section being 16 measures long.  The accompanying guitar plays straight quarter note bass note - chord - chord rhythm almost exclusively. 

 

The melody in each section has a rather different character.  Part A is in E minor with a lot of swung notes and accidentals.  Part B modulates to C major and introduces full chords, which part A does not use.  The basic block in this section is a chord followed by two beats of straight eighth notes.  It's Interesting that there's non diatonic E major chords in here; some of the Odell pieces have similar major III non-diatonic chords, so presumably this is a characteristic of the style.

 

Part C is in G major and has a melody that is phrased almost a vocal line.  Like with "The Gondolier's Serenade" this one was written for mandolin and had tremolos notated in the C section.

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Performance:​

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This was pretty easy, especially compared to The Gondolier's Serenade and it was fun to play given how different the 3 different sections  were from each other.​

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Errata: 

 

Castanets are from Spain and used in flamenco.  I'm not very familiar with that style, so similar to "The Gondolier's Serenade" I don't have any sense of the verisimilitude of this with regards to what the title implies it should sound like.

 

Mattie Mazurka

Key: G

Time: 3/4      BPM=130

 

This song is from S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal, Vol.6, No.3.  A mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter and a "lively tempo."  

 

This one is structured AABBAACC, each section being 8 measures long.  The A section is in G major, the B section in D major, and the C section coda in C major.  Like "The Castanet Dance" the guitar plays straight quarter note bass note - chord - chord rhythm almost exclusively.

 

The most conspicuous element of the melody here is a dotted eighth note - sixteenth note swung pattern on the downbeat of most measures.  

 

Performance:

 

As with the schottische I wasn't sure what tempo to play this at, as I'm not sure I've consciously listened to a mazurka before.  I listened to a few recordings of other mazurkas and just sort of guessed at a tempo.

 

The mandolin part overall wasn't too difficult, except for a 2 measure run in the B section which was pretty tough at the final tempo.   

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Album Art:

 

This is an image from a very old postcard of Lima, Ohio (i.e. Frey's birthplace) that Dan Harshbarger from Beemo got me.  (Dan's from Ohio, not far from Lima.)