“I’m a guy who loves challenges” is how the guitarist Cristiano Poli Cappelli describes himself. When you take a look at the kind of projects he creates, this characterization is fitting indeed. In 2014, he and Andrea Pace recorded Les Guitares Bien Tempérées [The Well-Tempered Guitars], Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s cycle of 24 preludes and fugues for two guitars. Recently he returned to Mario for another ambitious project, this time for solo guitar: a new Double CD (Davinci Classics) that features two works from 1961: the complete cycle of Los Caprichos de Goya and Tre Preludi al Circeo. Cristiano kindly agreed to answer our questions about his experience immersing himself in these masterworks from the composer’s final years.
Interview with Cristiano Poli Cappelli by Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco: September 2024
Cristiano, I remember that it was almost 10 years ago that Angelo Gilardino first told me about your splendid recording of Les Guitares Bien Tempérées. What motivated you to return to Mario’s music for your latest recording project?
Diana, first of all, thanks so much for this interview. It’s nice to be able to share my thoughts about Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music with you. To respond to your question: I don’t think that an experience like that of recording Les Guitares Bien Tempérées can help but have a lasting impression on the soul. The work that Andrea and I did was really thorough: analyzing the manuscripts, managing the division of the parts, delving deeper into Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s way of writing for two guitars. In this period of study, prior to the actual recording, we were able to enter into a wonderful state in which precision and irony merged to perfection. In a certain sense, it’s because of this experience as a duo that I started to consider the idea of recording Los Caprichos, but it took a long time for me to come to this decision. My life as a musician has always been characterized by an inner struggle between a love for challenges and a basic insecurity that leads me to think that there are guitarists better equipped than I am for certain important projects. And often the insecurity takes over! The fact remains that Les Guitares Bien Tempérées and Los Caprichos de Goya are the greatest masterpieces of the Maestro, and I am proud to have recorded them, even if [I was] very intimidated.
This new project is no less ambitious than the previous one! Los Caprichos de Goya are among the most complex, profound, and mysterious pieces that Mario wrote for guitar: talk about challenges! What attracted you to this cycle?
As I was saying, in these pieces Mario’s music reaches incredible heights, which is remarkable, given that he didn’t know how to play the guitar. I am a guy who loves challenges: they motivate me to continue to study and improve. After I overcame my inferiority complexes, I decided to start this project using all that I learned recording and performing Les Guitares Bien Tempérées live. It seemed like the right moment to do it: I feel sure enough of myself musically to be able to present my way of interpreting this composer. You are right: these pieces are mysterious. At the same time, however, Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s intentions are so clear and transparent that, at times, it seems impossible to make mistakes. His music is really a language, in the true sense of the word: it feels like one is hearing his voice explain what to do and how to do it!
How much attention did you give to the Goya etchings that inspired the pieces? In your opinion, were these images a creative vehicle to express emotions and aspects of the composer’s life?
I think that Goya’s images were a first and essential reference to understand the mood and were his primary inspiration for the cycle. I think that Castelnuovo-Tedesco takes his cue from the material, but ultimately he distances himself from the visual-literary meaning of Goya’s images, and thus from Goya’s language of meaning, to introduce and express personal feelings. These meanings can be more or less explicit. Who knows how many of his references I missed! As I also explain in the booklet that accompanies the CD, and Diana, you are well aware of this, the composer has strong connections to Spain, given his family’s distant Spanish origins. This was already a first cue to interpreting the music, to which one then adds all the meta-language related to the composer’s personal feelings, to his life experiences, to his opinions. In conclusion, I think that this work is a kind of Pandora’s Box from which a plethora of feelings and meanings spill out. I consider it a true work of art, a summation of his compositional and philosophical sphere. A defining musical testament. For this reason, I have great respect for the work, and I dedicated a lot of study to it before making the final decision to start this recording project.
How did you approach studying these pieces and how did you find your interpretive path?
My study of these works began many years ago, perhaps even before I ever read through the music. I still remember – it was years ago when I was very young – the first time I heard “El sueno de la razon produce Monstruos” performed live by an excellent guitarist. I thought that nothing more beautiful could be played on the guitar! The various interpretations of these pieces influenced me and sparked my own ideas about them, influencing and preparing me to create my own interpretation. I can say that I already understood thirty years ago how I would want to play some of these pieces, that is, what feelings I wanted to evoke. I must also say that my approach to the music of MCT, also in the work I did in duo with Andrea Pace, is quite intellectual and precise: I maintain that his manuscripts tell us a great deal about how to interpret the works. When an author clearly indicates which and how many notes should be played staccato, which ones are to be played legato, which chords are arpeggiated, when an author’s writing is so meticulous and precise, it means he is pondering every detail. It means that this precision is law, and that the interpreter must step aside and be the voice of an extremely clear idea. This has been my basic approach. At times Andrea and I found ourselves wanting to do it our way, believing that a particular dynamic indicated by Castelnuovo-Tedesco was not the most effective; and often we had to then admit that we were wrong and, listening again to the recording, we realized that the composer’s original idea was more effective! Certainly we are all human, and one doesn’t alway succeed in being the perfect interpreter: at times technical challenges or instrumental difficulties can require the performer to deviate from what is written in the score, but it should not be the rule. I don’t believe that staying so close to the written score means playing in a way that is cold or lacking in passion. A rule, a tighter constraint, a fence that precisely marks the boundaries: these things can actually strengthen an interpretation, because, within those rules, we are then completely free. It’s a bit like how writing poetry in rhyme and respecting meter can provide a strength that breaks through to a poetic thought, a force that doesn’t happen with free verse. Only after having tried to respect the will of the composer is it possible for the performer to emerge. The result is, certainly, a vision that is less dramatic and showy, but my goal was to dig deep and to be respectful of the work, not to be some sort of charlatan.
In this cycle of 24 pieces, there are a few of the Caprichos that have become part of the repertoire of many guitarists today. I am thinking of “Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Pintor”[Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Painter], “Obsequio a el maestro” [Gift to the master], etc. Others, however, remain less well known. Through this project did you discover some pieces that perhaps you didn’t know well before, ones that are now among your favorites?
You are totally right. In today’s era of YouTube and online music, I find that there is an unwillingness to read and experiment with new music. If a certain famous guitarist plays a piece, everyone starts to play that piece. Many guitarists, students or not, don’t have the imagination or the energy to go and read new things, not even to listen to them! When I was a student I had a few guitar LPs, and to discover new music, the only option was to browse through the scores and to try to read them…If today I check which pieces from my CD people are listening to, I find that the tracks that are downloaded most often are most famous of the Caprichos. Many are not even interested in listening to the less famous ones, much less in reading music that hasn’t yet been performed! For example, I find Capricho XVII, ““De quel mal morira?” [Of what ill will he die?] to be a jewel for my somewhat melancholic way of interpreting music. The last Capricho, “Sueno de la mentira y inconstancia” [Dream of lying and inconstancy] also contains some brilliant guitar ideas: I find it magnificent. And Capricho VI, “El amor y la muerte” [Love and death], is a masterpiece. One just needs to read them, listen to them, study them! Perhaps then we would stop complaining about the scarcity of guitar repertoire, and, moreover, performing “contemporary” works that are, in all honesty, horrible, and is music that we don’t even listen to ourselves and inexorably drives people away from concert halls. On this point I am very, very critical, though I understand that not everyone will like my opinions. If some third-rate singers fill stadiums, and we cannot manage to fill a fifty person hall, not even gratis, then perhaps we need to ask ourselves a few questions and have some self-assessment. We won’t change the situation and ensure the future of classical music by proposing bizarre and, at this point anachronistic, music.
For this project you also recorded the Tre Preludi al Circeo, written in the same period as Los Caprichos, the early 1960s. Tell us about this piece, which was freely inspired by three scenes from The Odyssey. Can you tell us about the musical and technical challenges that you encountered in this piece and how you overcame them?
I am very happy that I chose to record this work, which was practically forgotten. Unfortunately, until now this piece has been performed very seldom by guitarists and is little known to the public. Perhaps it doesn’t reach the compositional heights of Los Caprichos, but it represents, in my opinion, an attempt on the part of Castelnuovo-Tedesco to write in a different way than he usually did for our instrument, in this instance with an almost descriptive intent: I tried to imagine the piece as film music, written for Hollywood movie about Ulysses. As if I was working with music meant to accompany visual images, I tried to build in this visual aspect by imagining the context: the smells, the sounds, the boat, the waves on the sea. I believe that to understand this music we must take things a bit farther than with Los Caprichos; we have to go beyond just being performers or listeners and actually create images. Honestly, I don’t know if I succeeded in overcoming these difficulties. My love of Greek mythology and the Homeric poems, which I have read many times and of which have seen many film versions, helped me to visualize some inspiring images as I read through the pieces. I think that, in the end, it’s a good performance! Who knows if perhaps it will motivate some other guitarists to dust off the Tre Preludi al Circeo!
As you studied and performed these works, what emotions did you feel? After having studied these pieces in depth, do you feel closer to Castelnuovo-Tedesco in some way?
As I said at the beginning of this conversation, studying the music of Castelnuovo-Tedesco has given me a lot, musically, technically, and professionally. I think that studying his works is good experience for us guitarists. We must be proud of the huge volume of works that Castelnuovo-Tedesco left us. It’s a legacy that will endure. I feel very proud to have had the opportunity to give my own little opinion and to have come a bit closer to the composer’s inner world: it’s only my opinion, of course, but I am proud of it.
Cristiano, congratulations and thanks very much for sharing your observations about it with us!