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17 Mar
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Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco music for solo piano, now newly publshed

Three New Piano Editions

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Edizioni Curci has just published three new editions of previously unavailable works for solo piano by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: a volume of early compositions from the composer’s years in Italy, titled Piano Works – Vol.1 “Firenze”; a volume of works written during his time in America, titled Piano Works – Vol. 2 “Hollywood”; and a third, stand-alone publication of his Six Pieces in the Form of Canons (1947). All three have been edited by the eminent composer and musicologist Angelo Gilardino and join Curci’s already extensive Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Collection. 
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06 Jan
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Castelnuovo-Tedesco 2019-2020 Guitar CDs

2020 Recordings: Music for Guitar

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Year upon year, guitarists around the world explore the compositions of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and to bring them to life in new recordings. 2019 brought important monograph CDs by Angelo Marchese and Giacomo Palazzesi, the release of a pair of two exceptional recordings of the Guitar Quintet (one by Sharon Isbin and the Pacifica Quartet and the other by Jason Vieaux and the Escher Quartet), and many more.  In 2020 guitarists continued to interpret Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s masterworks on their latest recordings.
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14 Dec
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Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco notable recordings 2020

Food for the Soul: New Recordings 2020

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

With few live concerts due to the pandemic, this year virtual performances have delivered much-needed beauty and hope to keep us going in these challenging times.  Many wonderful artists have released recordings of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music in the past (check out this list); in 2020,  an array of new monograph recording projects have brought to light even more of the composer’s extensive catalog. 
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01 Jul
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Experts discuss Castelnuovo-Tedesco Art Songs

Virtual Roundtable on the Art Songs of Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

A virtual roundtable on Sunday, 12 July 2020 at 3 p.m. Eastern (12 noon Pacific, 21h Central European)  will focus on a genre very dear to Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: art songs.  Much of his prolific output (220 songs), which the composer called “my most sincere and personal expressions,”  is rarely heard today and, until recently, had remained unrecorded. In conjunction with the release of Songs from a Lost World of Italian-Jewish Composers, Vol. III, the event will be a conversation about, and a chance to listen to, some of the composer’s settings of Italian poetry, and it will include a discussion of the context in which the songs were composed.
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15 Jun
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Los Caprichos de Goya cycle for guitar by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Exploring Los Caprichos de Goya

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

“Where can I find more information about Los Caprichos de Goya ?” is a question that often arises.

For those wishing to learn more about this cycle, which the composer himself described as his most ambitious guitar work, there are several primary sources (currently available only in Italian): the pages Mario dedicated to the work in his autobiography, Una Vita di Musica: Un Libro di Ricordi, published by Cadmo in 2005, as well as the letters of Andres Segovia to the composer, published in the volume Caro Mario: Lettere a Castelnuovo-Tedesco, edited by Angelo Gilardino and published by Edizioni Curci in 2018. Gilardino also discusses the work in the biography Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Un Fiorentino a Beverly Hills also published in 2018 by Curci In English, one can consult Lily Afshar’s 1989 dissertation, “Los Caprichos de Goya and their relation to Goya’s etchings” and several other doctoral theses, as well as the liner notes to Zoran Dukic’s 2009 recording of Los Caprichos  for Naxos.
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10 Jun
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Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Suite 508 for viola and piano

Spotlight on Suite 508 for viola and piano

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco mused in his autobiography  that if by chance his name were still remembered 100 years hence, musicologists might hear the title Suite 508 and ask, “What happened to the other 507 suites?”

He explained the origin of the title: Suite 508 was the number of his apartment in the Kellogg Center at Michigan State University (MSU) when he spent a semester as Distinguished Visiting Professor in the autumn of 1959. His stay in Michigan took place at the height of his post-war career, after he had made international headlines when he won the International Campari Prize for his opera The Merchant of Venice.
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02 Apr
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IN CELEBRATION OF CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO @ 125

In Celebration of Mario’s 125th birthday

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

On April 3, 1895,  Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was born in Florence “in the shadow of the Duomo,” as he liked to say.  Although his guitar compositions have always been popular, his chamber music, works for solo piano, orchestral music, and art songs were rarely performed for many years. Fortunately, in recent times his catalog has been rediscovered by a new generation of artists and audiences, in an ever-expanding collection of marvelous recordings. This rediscovery due in no small part to the availability of new editions of his compositions, primarily The Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Collection from Edizioni Curci, under the leadership of Angelo Gilardino, as well as from Ricordi, Theodore Presser, Alphonse Leduc, Carl Fischer, and others.  In honor of Mario’s 125th birthday, the composer’s family would like to thank all of the artists and scholars who have dedicated their passion, sensitivity, and energy into presenting this music, and the story behind it, to the public.
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20 Mar
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Exiles in Paradise

Emigre Composers in Hollywood

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

“During the war, the greatest names in music, both composers and performers, came to live in Hollywood and the surrounding area….Heifetz, Piatigorsky, Rachmaninoff, Rubinstein, Iturbi, Horowitz, Szigeti, Stokowski, Walter, Schönberg, Stravinsky, Toch, Tansman, and many others.”  — Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, A Life of Music: A Book of Memories.

In a new CD, Exiles in Paradise: Emigre Composers in Hollywood (Naxos), Brinton Averil Smith and Evelyn Chen explore, with artistry and finesse, the diverse output of the European expatriates through music for cello and piano. The recording includes Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s i Nottambuli [“The Nightowls”], a work written while the composer was still living in Italy and inspired by his evening strolls in Florence.
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24 Feb
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Castelnuovo-Tedesco Opera now on CD

Now Available: First Recording of The Importance of Being Earnest

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Boston’s Odyssey Opera recently announced the release of its latest recording, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: The Importance of Being Earnest. Scored for a cast of eight singers, two pianos and percussion, this witty three act chamber opera brings Oscar Wilde’s most famous play to life with music that pokes as much fun at the opera world as Wilde does with Victorian society.
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