Annunzio Mantovani

Mantovani (1970)

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Singles

The Song From The Moulin Rouge   DE 6th 03/01/1954 (12 weeks) Charmaine   DE 26th 05/01/1954 (9 weeks)

Annunzio Paolo Mantovani (born November 15, 1905 in Venice , Italy , † March 29, 1980 in Royal Tunbridge Wells , Kent , Great Britain ), better known simply as Mantovani , was an Italian orchestra conductor who worked in England and had his own orchestra and one own style (so-called " Cascading Strings ") had great success.

Life

He was born into a musical family. His father was first violinist at La Scala in Milan with Arturo Toscanini and later for many years concertmaster at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London , where the family had moved in 1912. "Monty", as he was called by his friends, received violin lessons from his father and studied music and counterpoint at Trinity College of Music for two years . Even after graduation, the family played a major role in the early success of his “Tipica Orchestra”. He even recorded pieces of music with his father as a musician in the orchestra and his sister as a vocal soloist.

The theater organist, arranger and composer Ronald Binge also played in one of his early orchestras : his short piece " Sailing By " became a well-known composition, and his Elisabeth Serenade also contributed to the great success of Mantovani's orchestra. Binge helped Mantovani to develop his own style of music, which is called "Cascading Strings" in English and is based on an arranged reverb effect using overlapping strings. This Mantovani sound had been developed for an American commission to produce slow waltzes, and this sound became his trademark. Probably the greatest success in this style was the instrumental title Charmaine, composed by Ernö Rapée and Lew Pollack in 1951 . The interpretation of Greensleeves , a traditionally arranged by binge, was also a great success, and Mantovani was so enthusiastic about the title that he even named his residence after it. Around The World in 1957 , the film theme from The Sundowners in 1960 and the theme from Exodus in 1961 were long on the Billboard charts . Countless record releases and concerts made Mantovani a wealthy man.

In addition to the concert halls, Mantovani also worked for the theater and produced arrangements for Noël Coward , among others . He also worked in feature films, for example in the German music film Guitars of Love (1954) alongside Vico Torriani and Harald Juhnke and in Ein Herz voll Musik (1955), also with Vico Torriani and Boy Gobert .

Mantovani's Piccolo Bolero ( based on Maurice Ravel's style) was used by Loriot to accompany the three-minute sketch The picture hangs crookedly .

Mantovani was married to Winifred Kathleen Moss and had two children.

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Canada 1978: for the album Mantovani's Golden Hits  United States 1961: for the album Theater Land 1961: for the Strauss Waltzes album 1961: for the album Gems Forever 1961: for the album Film Encores Volume I. 1961: for the album Christmas Carols 1963: for the album Exodus 1970: for the album Mantovani's Golden Hits Platinum record  United Kingdom 1979: for the album 20 Golden Greats

Country / Region	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Canada (MC)	gold1	-	50,000	musiccanada.com
United States (RIAA)	7 × gold7th	-	3,500,000	riaa.com
United Kingdom (BPI)	-	platinum1	300,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	8 × gold8th	platinum1

Web links

• Literature by and about Annunzio Mantovani in the catalog of the German National Library
• Annunzio Mantovani in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Official website authorized by the family

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Charts DE