Music with Guitar

 

In the age before electric amplification the guitar was a relatively quiet instrument. It provided useful chords to accompany a melody sung by a vocalist or played on an agile treble instrument but guitarists were never the front man in an ensemble. They usually sat at the side strumming along to keep the music moving. The placement of a guitar in this trio is typical. The two lead musicians play a mandolin and a zither, a string instrument played flat on a table which helps amplify its sound. The group had other instruments to add color: a violin, likely played by the mandolinist as it has the same string tuning; a wooden folk xylophone called a Strohfiedel or Straw Fiddle; and a collection of wine glasses improbably standing on a near vertical tray. They were tuned by filling with water (or even spirits) so that they vibrated at different pitches when stroked by the player's fingertips. There is one more instrument if you look carefully. As a clue, it is from the percussion family.

This unknown trio were photographed seated outdoors, possibly at the wine garden where they performed,  by a photographer from Dresden, Germany. Their colorful bow ties and satin trimmed coat collars are typical of professional musicians in the 1900s. The postcard was sent from Dresden (Altstadt), on 18 April 1910 to someone in Breslau, Germany which is now known as Wrocław, Poland. The handwriting is a peculiarly neat penmanship with completely indecipherable cursive letters that run together. Take a look at the third line — mnmnmnnm.Who could translate that? I believe the writer was the guitar player as he is marked with a discrete X. His signature looks like M. (or W.) Lappitsch.

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Sometimes a guitar defines a group's style even though it isn't the lead instrument. These four young ladies are the Original Damen Schrammel Quartett from the "Jankowski" Kozert Ensemble. The guitarist here plays a contraguitar called a Schrammel guitar which is an instrument associated with the light folk music of Wien or Vienna, Austria. In addition to the standard six strings the Schrammel guitar has a second, fretless neck supporting as many as nine bass strings that are tuned to a scale. This player accompanies two violinists and a button accordionist as they sit in a photographer's studio, but they very likely performed at a wine garden like the previous trio. 

The postcard has no postmark or date but is addressed to someone in Wilhelmsburg on the the Elbe river, a district of Hamburg. There is a faint imprint of a variety theater named Hohenziller(?). The card was printed in Leipzig, Germany probably in around 1910. 

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My last guitar photo is unusual as the guitarist is seated front and center of the ensemble. In this case it is a brass quintet with rotary valve instruments in five different different sizes, left to right: baritone horn, alto horn, bass tuba, tenor trumpet, and soprano trumpet. Needless to say, a brass band really has  no use for a guitarist, especially one with a guitar that looks a bit smaller than a standard modern acoustic guitar. Another odd thing is a small fir tree behind the tall trumpet player on the right. Perhaps this group is playing for the Christmas season. 

The photographer left an imprint on the back of this unposted postcard, R. Fuchs of Kurort Wörishofen. This place was a Kurort or "cure resort" in Bad Wörishofen, a spa town in Bavaria, Germany that is known for a water-cure or hydrotherapy developed by Sebastian Kneipp (1821–1897), a Catholic priest who once lived there. Many of the town's hotels and boarding-houses still offer their guests treatment using Kneipp's methods. 

I wonder if the guitarist is a spa guest who has joined with the health resort's band for a souvenir photo. He is neatly dressed in a nice suit with a small corsage in the lapel and some of the musicians have one too. Maybe he is a bridegroom celebrating his wedding day. But what amuses me is that the man's shoes are polished while the brass players' shoes could use a good cleaning. Evidently this guitarist did not march in any parade.

Did you spot the triangle in the first trio?

Since I don't often feature photos
of musical wine glasses, i.e. a glass harp,

here is a demonstration of one  by Anna Szafraniec from GlassDuo.

She plays an arrangement of a well known guitar piece,
the Spanish Romance by an anonymous 19th century composer.

This piece is a standard of any guitarist's repertoire
so I looked for another version played on guitar for contrast.
There are thousands of renditions of it on YouTube
but I found one that is played on a harp guitar,
an instrument very similar to the Schrammel guitar.
Here is the same Romance de Espana
performed by Canadian harp guitarist Jamie Dupuis.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where some guitarists always attract a crowd.