Carlo Curti


Carlo Curti, also known as Carlos Curti, was an Italian musician, composer and bandleader. He moved 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".
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.
As with his Spanish Students, Curti dressed his Mexican band in costumes, choosing the charro cowboy outfit. The patriotic value of having Mexico represented on the international stage gave a boost to mariachi bands ; the mariachis began using charro outfits as Curti's orchestra had done, expressing pride in being Mexican. Curti's Orquestra Típica Mexicana has been called the "predecessor of the Mariachi bands."
He was an orchestra leader, composer, educator at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música, xylophonist, violinist, mandolinist and author of a mandolin method. He directed the orchestra at the New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel in his later career.
Also known as a composer of zarzuelas and dance music, among his most noted tunes are "La Tipica" and "Flower of Mexico". His brother was harpist Giovanni Curti, who also was a member of his orchestra.

Spanish Students (1880 — 1884)

Curti was born in Gallicchio, province of Potenza, Basilicata. About five years after he arrived in the United States, 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, a costumed, dancing, bandurria-playing group from Spain that was touring in the United States. Curti had experience in show business, working with a small traveling opera, along with his brother John. He took advantage, figuring that people wouldn't see the difference when he pretended to be Spanish. He even started using Carlos, instead of Carlo.
He established a group similar to the Spanish Students, but made up of Italians playing mandolins. The group blatantly used the Spanish Students' name while touring the United States. He later admitted what he had done, and started another group or changed his groups' name to the "Roman Students".
The imitators' use of mandolins helped to generate enormous public interest in an instrument previously relatively unknown in the United States. They left an impression on the people who saw them, and the mandolin, rather than the bandurria became established in the United States and Europe.

Mexican Typical Orchestra (1884 — 1887)

Beginning in 1884

Curti took his knowledge of the elaborate costumed performances he had participated in and organized since coming to the United States, and created a new show in Mexico, what became the Orquesta Típica Mexicana. The Mexican Typical Orchestra was originally conceived by the salterio player Encarnación García and bandolónist Andrés Díaz de la Vega but its creation was consolidated in the hands of its director and founder, xylophone player and composer Carlos Curti, in August 1884.
It initially consisted of 19 musicians, most of them from the Conservatorio Nacional de Música and distributed as follows:

First concert

The orchestra debuted Saturday night September 20, 1884 at a private concert, held at the Conservatory Orchestra's Theatre and alternated in the concert with the Conservatory Orchestra. The Mexican Typical Orchestra played the following five works during the third part of programming:
This concert was attended by the president of Mexico, General Porfirio Diaz, who at the time named the group "Orquesta Típica Mexicana". 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. The president wanted to bring order and stability and modernity to Mexico, and music was one of the tools he used. The "Aires Nacionales Mexicanos" put together by Curti along with ethnic instruments like the salterio impressed the General.
The orchestra toured Mexico, the United States and Europe. They gave performances in several places in the Mexican capital. The orchestra 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. As a result, the orchestra was invited to perform at the New Orleans Universal Expo. 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 1887. The band disintegrated abruptly in the city of Puebla, and little is known of its fate after so sudden dissolution. 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. Among these was Mr. Curti, who later dedicated himself to conduct the orchestra Circo Orrín.

The orchestra after Carlo Curti

The Mexican typical orchestra would continue in 1901 with conductor Juan Velázquez, who was with the orchestra and Carlos Curti during his second tour. The third lead was Miguel Lerdo de Tejada who organized it as the Orquesta Típica Lerdo in 1901. The orchestra is still in existence, after 120 years, and was declared a "Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Capital" on May 31, 2011.

Last years

After fourteen years in Mexico, Curti returned to New York in 1897. At the beginning of the 1900's, he was conductor of the Waldorf–Astoria Orchestra for several years. He also formed another group called "Orquesta Mexicana Curti" with whom made recordings for Columbia Records in 1905, 1906 and 1912. His later life was marked by tragic events: he suffered financial difficulties and his wife Carmen shot herself on January 28, 1914, after he had lost his job at the Waldorf-Astoria. Then Curti came back to Mexico City, where he committed suicide in 1926.

Works

Not merely an imitator, Curti was a multi-instrumental musician and a composer as well. He published sheet music as early as 1880 in New York, but also published extensively in Mexico.

Victor

His compositions were recorded 10 times on Victor Records. including:
Among modern reinterpretations are:
These links are about two groups performing under the name "Spanish Students" that were identifiable by their promoter's name. The links are limited to those two groups, even though there were other groups using the name.

Abbey and Hickey, the first Spanish Students, and Humpty Dumpty

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