Carlo Curti bio

[Jacqke]

I compiled a Carlo Curti biography for Wikipedia, and found afterward that I still had almost nothing on Curti himself. I can always use others help, if anyone sees things I should add. If you go to the Wikipedia web page, you can also see newspaper clippings dealing with Curti and the Spanish Students.


Carlo Curti (1859, Potenza - 1926, Mexico City), also known as Carlos Curti, was an Italian immigrant to the United States whose most lasting contribution to American society was popularizing the mandolin in American music.[1][2][3] In his life he was a orchestra leader, composer, xylophonist, violinist, mandolinist and author of a mandolin method. He also contributed to Mexican society, organizing the Mexican Typical Orchestra in 1884 to represent Mexico at the New Orleans Cotton Exhibition.[4] He was the brother to harpist Giovanni (Juan or John) Curti.[5][6][3]

Spanish Students
Curti was a violinist who saw the opportunity to imitate one of the great acts of his day, the Estudiantina Figueroa or "Spanish Students" troupe, a bandurria-playing group from Spain that was the touring in the United States (as well as the United Kingdom and parts of South America in the early 1880s).[1][7] He established a similar group, made up of Italians playing mandolins, and blatantly used the Spanish Students name, touring the United States.[1][7] He later admitted what he had done, and started another group or changed his groups name to the "Roman Students".[7] His group left and impression on the people who saw it, and the mandolin, rather than the bandurria became established in the United States and Europe.[1]

Mexican Typical Orchestra (1884 — 1887)
The Orquesta Típica Mexicana (Mexican Typical Orchestra) was originally conceived by the salterio player Encarnación García and mandolonist Andrés Díaz de la Vega but its creation was consolidated in the hands of its director and founder, xylophone player and composer Carlos Curti (1861-1926), in August 1884.[4]

It consisted of 19 musicians, most of them from the Conservatorio Nacional de Música (Mexican National Conservatory of Music) and distributed as follows:[4][8]

Flute. Anastasio Meneses.
Harp. Juan Curti.
Salterio . Encarnación García y Mariano Aburto. Garcia played a 99 string Salterio that resembed a dulcimer.[9]
First mandolins. Andrés Díaz de la Vega. Pedro Zariñana, Mariano Pagani y Apolonio Domínguez.
Second Mandolins. Vidal Ordaz, Vicente Solís y José Borbolla.
Guitars. Pantaleón Dávila y Pedro Dávila.
Violins. Antonio Figueroa y Enrique Palacios.
Viola: Buenaventura Herrera.
Cellos. Rafale Galindo y Eduardo Gabrielli.
Xylophone. Carlos Curti.

The orchestra debuted Saturday night September 20, 1884 at a private concert, held at the Conservatory Orchestra's Theatre and alternating with the Conservatory Orchestra.[10] The Mexican Typical Orchestra played the following five works during the third part of programming:[4][8]

1. Obertura of the Opera "Raymond" by Ambroise Thomas
2. Mazurca "Los Ecos" para solo de Salterio by Encarnación García
3. Fantasía sobre la Opera "Norma" by Vincenzo Bellini
4. Marcha de la Opera "Tanhäuser" by Richard Wagner
5. Aires Nacionales Mexicanos by Carlos Curti.

This concert was attended by the president of Mexico, General Porfirio Diaz, who at the time named the group "Orquesta Típica Mexicana".[4][10] The president was interested in supporting the group, because he had issues during his election campaign in which his opponents used folk music as propaganda against him.[11] The "Aires Nacionales Mexicanos" (Mexican National Tunes) put together by Curti along with ethnic instruments like the salterio impressed the General.[11][10]

The orchestra toured Mexico, the United States and Europe.[4][11] They gave performances in several places in the Mexican capital.[10] The orchesta performed at the Arbeu Theater in a performance dedicated to the Honorable Foreign Colonies and to the Mexican students; this was also an audition, performed on December 3, 1884, and of Carlos Curti's arrangement of "Mexican National Tunes" was endorsed.[10] As a result, the orchestra invited to perform at the New Orleans Universal Expo.[10] Over the next three years the band made several tours; the first to the United States, starting for the Universal Exhibition in New Orleans and continuing to New York and several cities in the US. The second tour started in January 1886, visiting Zacatecas on January 8, and then again the US, Canada and Cuba returning to the City Mexico in July of 1887.[10] The band disintegrated abruptly in the city of Puebla, and little is known of its fate after so sudden dissolution.[10] It was understood that the musicians who should return to their academic activities at the National Conservatory of Music that had been abandoned during the touring[10]. Among these was Mr. Curti, who later dedicated himself to conduct the orchestra Circo Orrín. He then formed another group called "Orquesta Mexicana Curti" with made several recordings in New York to with Columbia Records in 1905, 1906 and 1912.

The Mexican typical orchestra would continue in 1901 with conductor Juan Velázquez, who was with the orchestra and Carlos Curti during his the second tour.[10]

Works

Not merely an imitator, Curio was a multi-instrumental musician and a composer as well:[12]

[I cut this list out to have room to post this. The Wikipedia article has a long list here.]


Recordings

His compositions were recorded 10 times on Victor Records.[13] including:

Saravia, Antonio Vargas, 1902
The flower of Mexico, Arthur Pryor's Band, 1904
Tipica polka, W. Eugene Page ; D. F. Ramseyer, 1909
Blue ribbon, Conway's Band, 1914
La tipica, Trio Romano[ i.e., Cibelli's Neapolitan Orchestra], 1921
La cuarta plana, Banda de Zapadores, 1905
La cuarta plana, Trío Arriaga, 1905
Canción de la saravia, Esperanza Iris, 1906

References

Sparks, Paul1995. The Classical Mandolin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 26-27. ISBN 978-0-19-517337-6.
Ancestry web page with info from National Archives: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897. Microfilm Publication M237, 675 rolls. NAI: 6256867. Records of the U.S. Customs Service, Record Group 36. National Archives at Washington, D.C., Year: 1911; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 1739; Line: 6; Page Number: 14
Carlos Curti in the 1910 United States Federal Census Year: 1910; Census Place: Manhattan Ward 12, New York, New York; Roll: T624_1027; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 1420; FHL microfilm: 1375040
Chavez, Humberto Dominguez. "Programa de Cómputo para la Enseñanza: Cultura y Vida Cotidiana: 1900-1920, Historia de México II Primera Unidad: Crisis del Porfiriato y México Revolucionario 1900-1920, La música y el teatro popular de 1900 a 1920". Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
"Carlos Curti". mandoisland.de.
Charles Curti in the 1880 United States Federal Census Year: 1880; Census Place: New York City, New York, New York; Roll: 869; Family History Film: 1254869; Page: 426A; Enumeration District: 055; Image: 0207
Dickson, jean. "Mandolin Mania in Buffalo's Italian Community, 1895 to 1918" (PDF). Journal of World Anthropology: Occasional Papers II (2): 1. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
de Olavarría y Ferrari, Enrique (1895). Reseña histórica del teatro en México, Volumes 3-4. La Europea. p. 408-409.
Loza, Steven Joseph (1993). Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American Music in Los Angeles. University of Illinois Press. p. 15.
Zarabozo, Raúl (2000). "Remembering Daniel Zarabozo, History of the Music in Mexico, 1964.". Retrieved September 9, 2015. "This text for this web-page source was taken mainly from "De los Mixcoacallis a la Orquesta Típica" (Selection of Texts, Chronologies and Notes of Fernando Muñoz), Mexico, 1987."
Oorts, Paul. World Mandolin: La Tipica (PDF). p. 1.
"Curti, Carlos 1861-1926". composers-classical-music.com. Retrieved September 9, 2015.

"Carlos Curti (composer)". Discography of American Historical Recordings. UC Santa Barbara. Retrieved September 9, 2015.

[Jacqke]

I added/modified the article. What I hadn't really grasped until writing was that Carlo Curti made major contributions to the music of two cultures in only seven years. Mandolin in the U.S. and Mariachi performance culture in Mexico. I am pasting in the intro as modified:

Carlo Curti (1859, Potenza - 1926, Mexico City), also known as Carlos Curti, was an Italian immigrant to the United States whose most lasting contribution to American society was popularizing the mandolin in American music by starting a national "grass-roots mandolin orchestra craze" (that lasted from 1880 until the 1920s).[1][2][3][4][5]

He also contributed to Mexican society in 1884 by creating one of Mexico's oldest orchestras, the Mexican Typical Orchestra. The orchestra under his leadership represented Mexico at the New Orleans Cotton Exhibition.[6] As with his Spanish Students, Curti dressed his Mexican band in costumes, choosing the charro cowboy outfit.[7][6] The patriotic value of having Mexico represented on the international stage gave a boost to mariachi bands (which had normally been repressed by social elites); the mariachis began using charro outfits as Curti's orchestra had done, expressing pride in being Mexican.[7][8] Curti's Orquestra Típica Mexicana has been called the "predecesor of the Mariachi bands."[9]

He was an orchestra leader, composer, xylophonist, violinist, mandolinist and author of a mandolin method. He was the brother to harpist Giovanni (Juan or John) Curti.[3][4][10]

[Dante]

The Estudiantina in the early 1880's was "Figaro" (not Figueroa)

[Jacqke]

I got the name from the academic paper by Jean Dickson, "Mandolin Mania in Buffalo's Italian Community, 1895 to 1918". I used it because I haven't managed to talk to her about her source.

I did find the name "Estudiantina Figaro" in an 1879 newspaper, the Chicago Daily Tribune, August 31, 1879, page 11.

[Jacqke]

I changed the line in Wikipedia as follows:

"Curti saw the opportunity to imitate one of the great acts of his day, the Estudiantina Figaro, also known as the Estudiantina Figueroa or "Spanish Students" troupe"...

Outside of Jean Dickson's paper, I haven't seen the word "Figueroa", but there are enough different groups calling themselves the Spanish Students in the old newspapers that it is conceivable that it exists in a newspaper archive that I haven't accessed.

Thank you for pointing out the issue.

[jeandickson]

Hi! This is Jean Dickson. I actually wrote more about Carlos Curti, namely an article in Heterofonia, a Mexican journal of musicology. It's in Spanish, and unfortunately the journal is not readily available. I'm retired now, and I don't have as much access to databases, but I can add some details to the account of his life.

[Jacqke]

Hi Jean,

That would be great. Your work has been invaluable in understanding Curti.

Jack

[jeandickson]

The article, from no. 140 of Heterofonia, 2009, is entitled "Carlos Curti: compositor, director, rey de xilofono, camaleon? Quien fue Carlos Curti?" I don't quite know how to shorten and expedite this. I can photocopy and mail this to you, Jack, or to anyone else who is interested. I'm in Buffalo. I have appointments today and tomorrow, but I would love to go into the research I did -- some of which is in my article. My email address is dickson.jean@gmail.com.

[Jairo Ramos]

Yes, the number 140 of 2009 of Heterofonia is available in pdf and has the article about Carlo Curti, this is the link:

http://inbadigital.bellasartes.gob.mx:8080/jspui/handle/11271/600

[jeandickson]

Wow, thank-you! I'm glad that there are a few other people in the world who are interested in Carlos Curti, a fascinating musician of the 19th and 20th century.
The offer still stands, though. If anyone wants a copy of the article, I'll send the pdf. --jean