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News

14 Mar
Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Segovia Correspondence

Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s guitar repertoire via his correspondence with Andrés Segovia

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s 36-year collaboration with the legendary guitarist Andrés Segovia resulted in 35 works featuring the guitar. The correspondence between these two artists provides an unprecedented source of information for performers and scholars. Beginning in 2014, for his PhD thesis at the University of Surrey, the guitarist Benjamin Bruant began a six-year journey that led him to eventually gather and translate into English (from the original French) Segovia’s letters to MCT  as well as the extant letters by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, held in the Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Papers at the Library of Congress. Published in 2021, his doctoral thesis, From Commission to Publication: a Study of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Guitar Repertoire Informed by his Correspondence with Andrés Segovia, presents his annotated translations of decades of correspondence along with commentary on each of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s compositions discussed in the letters. Benjamin kindly agreed to tell us more about his project in this recent interview. 
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20 Feb
Happy Birthday Andres Segovia

Happy Birthday Andrés Segovia

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

21 February 2023 marks the 130th birthday of Andrés Segovia.  In celebration of this milestone and the friendship and artistic collaboration between Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Segovia,  we would like to share some extracts from the essay Mario wrote for Segovia’s 3-LP box set, Segovia: The Golden Jubilee, released in November 1958 to honor the guitarist’s fifty year career.  Mario’s essay recognizes Segovia’s unique artistry and chronicles their artistic relationship, as well as highlighting some of the dozens of works Segovia commissioned from other composers. The boxed set was met with critical success. Not only did reviewers praise the quality of the recording  and the addition of newly recorded compositions to Segovia’s discography,  but they also drew attention to the important contributions presented in the booklet.  The Golden Jubilee boxed set was awarded a Grammy Award in 1959.
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04 Feb
Musicologist Fernando Liuzzi was Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's brother in law and close friend

Rediscovering the life of Fernando Liuzzi

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s brother-in-law Fernando Liuzzi (1884-1940) was also a close friend and colleague. A composer, musicologist, music critic, and professor of aesthetics, Liuzzi had a successful career in Italy that abruptly ended when Mussolini’s racial laws came into effect. Like Mario, Liuzzi found his way to New York just before World War II. However, he soon returned to Italy after suffering a serious heart attack at age 55; he died a few months later, in October 1940. In the intervening years, Liuzzi’s life and work have remained in the shadows. Professor Patrizia Guarnieri, historian at the University of Florence and director of the digital history project Intellectuals Displaced from Fascist Italy, has just published an in-depth and meticulously researched exploration of Liuzzi’s life and career. It is available on the English version of the site here.
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31 Jan
Stein-Erik Olsen explores Castelnuovo-Tedesco Quintet on new CD

Guitar Chamber Music: Stein-Erik Olsen Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

As part of our occasional series of interviews with performers about their experiences recording Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s chamber music, we posed some questions to Stein-Erik Olsen, the esteemed Norwegian guitarist and professor at the Grieg Academy of the University of Bergen. He has a long-standing commitment to guitar chamber music,  demonstrated once again by his latest release: Stein-Erik Olsen: The Fifties and NOW (Simax Classics)
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10 Dec
Castelnuovo-Tedesco Greeting Cards Interview C. Porqueddu

Greeting Cards: Cristiano Porqueddu Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Cristiano Porqueddu is recognized as one of the major interpreters of 20th and 21st century guitar music. His activities encompass live performances, recording projects and composition work. In November 2022 he released his latest project, a double CD that represents the first complete recording of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Greeting Cards for guitar based on the 2019 Ricordi edition edited by Frédéric Zigante. Cristiano kindly agreed to tell us about his experiences studying and recording these intimate and sometimes illusive pieces.
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01 Dec
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco The Importance of Being Earnest piano reduction cover

Newly Published: The Importance of Being Earnest

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s 1962 chamber opera The Importance of Being Earnest is now available from Edizioni Curci and ready for the stage!  This pure divertissement based on Oscar’s Wilde’s celebrated play is scored for the unusual ensemble of eight voices, two pianos, and percussion, with a libretto by the composer. Both the voice and piano reduction and the full score are available from the publisher.
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29 Nov
Concert Nov 13, 2022 at Wilshire Boulevard Temple of Castelnuovo-Tedesco String Trio Op. 147

String Trio returns “home” to L.A.

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

The String Trio op. 147 was performed in Los Angeles, Mario’s adopted city,  on November 13, 2022 in a concert presented by the Wilshire Boulevard Temple and the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles, under the auspices of the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices. This work was composed in 1950 at the composer’s home in Beverly Hills, just a few miles from the Temple. However, this concert was the first time the Trio had been heard live in Los Angeles since 1968, when it was performed at a memorial service for the composer.
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18 Nov
Musicisti Contro l'oppressione - Milano Novembre 2022

Musicians Against Oppression in Milan

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Musicisti contro l’oppressione [Musicians Against Oppression] is the title of a two part concert series in Milan this month, created and led by Italian composer Carlo Boccadoro under the auspices of the Teatro alla Scala in collaboration with the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. The first concert, which took place on 6 November, featured Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Ballade op. 107, performed by Andrea Pecolo, violin and Andrea Rebaudengo, piano. The work was very well-received by the audience at the sold-out Sunday morning event.
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19 Oct
New CD by Puerta Vazquez Duo - Appunti - 2022

New CD: Puerta-Vázquez Duo Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

—In the early 1960s, at the request of the legendary Presti-Lagoya Duo, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco composed his first work for two guitars,  the Sonatina Canonica, op 196 (1961). He went on to write three more: Les Guitares Bien Tempérées  op. 199 (1962), the Concerto for two Guitars and Orchestra, op. 201 (1962), and, after Ida Presti’s untimely death in 1967, he composed the Fuga Elegiaca in her memory. In 1967 he also began work on the Appunti op.210, an ambitious project dedicated to young guitarists. Conceived as a four-volume collection of solo guitar pieces based on the fundamentals of modern guitar music, only the first two books were completed before the composer’s death in 1968. On their their new recording, Appunti (Contrastes), the Arizona-based duo of José Luis Puerta and Alfredo Vázquez explore some of these late guitar works. The title of their CD reflects the heart of the project: transcriptions for two guitars by the late Prof. David Grimes of ten short pieces from the second volume of the Appunti, which Mario had based on dances of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  The Duo kindly agreed to tell us more about themselves and the realization of their recording project.
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26 May
Castelnuovo Tedesco Violin Concerto in Rome

Violin Concerto The Prophets in Rome

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

After many years’ absence, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Violin Concerto no.2 The Prophets returned to the stage in Rome on the evenings of April 28, 29, and 30, 2022. The concert on April 29 was also live streamed on Italian Radio (RAI 3) and broadcast the following day on Italian Television (RAI 5).   Congratulations to Maestro Sakari Oramo, soloist Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for their moving, unforgettable performances of this work. 

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20 Apr

New light on Intellectuals who fled Fascist Italy

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco is among those profiled in a new and fascinating digital history project, Intellectuals Displaced from Fascist Italy. Led by Patrizia Guarnieri, professor of cultural history at the University of Florence, this ambitious bi-lingual web portal focuses attention on the brain drain that took place in Italy during the fascist years, particularly after the anti-semitic laws were promulgated in 1938. 
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02 Apr
Recording of the 1963 premiere of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Song of Songs

Song of Songs: A Hidden Treasure

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

In celebration of Mario’s birthday on 3 April, we present a long-buried treasure: a recording of the world-premiere of The Song of Songs, which took place in Los Angeles on 7 August 1963. This scenic oratorio, a setting of the biblical book The Song of Solomon, was performed by a group of the city’s most gifted young musicians as part of a summer program, The Hollywood Theater Arts Workshop. Mario called these young performers “the surprise of America” and commented that this production was “one of the happiest experiences of my life”.
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20 Feb
San Michele a Monteripaldi by Giovanni Colacicchi, 1927

In Memoriam Angelo Gilardino

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Composer, musicologist, editor and author Angelo Gilardino left us on January 14, 2022, shortly after celebrating his 80th birthday last November. While others have lauded his creative achievements,  I would like to reflect on his friendship with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and his lifelong advocacy for Mario’s music.  Angelo’s tireless work to make his mentor’s music available — and always in its most authentic forms — has been essential to the advancement of Mario’s music in recent years.
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28 Jan
Carl Fischer's new editions of Castelnuovo-Tedesco transcriptions

Mario’s Transcriptions: New Editions

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

In the 1940s, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote a number of  transcriptions of iconic melodies. Although some were purely commercial commissions, others he did just for fun, to offer to his famous friends to perform in concerts.  Some of these “experiments,” as Mario called them, have recently been reissued by Carl Fischer in two new editions, one of violin and piano arrangements and the other of cello and piano arrangements. Both volumes are anchored by the most famous of these arrangements, Figaro from The Barber of Seville by Rossini, originally published in 1945.  Originally conceived for cello and piano for his friend Gregor Piatigorsky, the work was at first rejected by the famous cellist, who was unsure how the public would receive a caricature of such a famous work. Jascha Heifetz was game, so Mario created an arrangement for violin and piano as well, which Heifetz performed for delighted audiences. 
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22 Jan
Jason Vieaux CD Dance

Chamber Music with Guitar: Jason Vieaux Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Grammy Award winner Jason Vieaux has been described by NPR as “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation.” An avid chamber musician, he maintains an active teaching schedule at the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Curtis Institute and online with ArtistWorks. Given his dedication to guitar chamber music, it’s no surprise that he has deep experience with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Quintet for Guitar and Strings, op. 143. In fact, he  recorded the piece in collaboration with the Escher Quartet on their 2019 CD Dance (Azica).  Jason kindly shared his thoughts about this work. 
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05 Jan
Tedesco-Quintett

Chamber Music with Guitar: Leonard Becker Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco enjoyed encouraging young musicians.  So it’s always a delight to meet young artists who discover Mario’s music and become passionate about performing it. Guitarist Leonard Becker (pictured above at center), who has been studying with Professor Franz Halasz in Munich since 2017, exemplifies this spirit.  Alongside Louis Vandory (violin), Valerie Steenken (violin), Elisabeth Buchner (viola) and Márton Braun (cello), he founded the Tedesco-Quintett, which won First Prize at the International Chamber Music Competition ‘Gerhard Vogt’ in 2019. For their first CD, released by Naxos in 2021, Leonard and his collaborators focused on Mario’s chamber music with guitar.  In this endeavor they were joined by Chloé Dufossez (flute),  Eloi Huscenot (English horn), and  Clara Isabella Siegle (piano).  Naturally we were curious to learn more about Leonard’s experience recording this music. He kindly agreed to answer a few questions about his project and what this music means to him.
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30 Dec
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Chamber Music

Chamber Music with Guitar: Duilio Meucci Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s 125th birthday came and went in April 2020, during the first, terrifying COVID lockdown. Events and concerts were all cancelled; everyone was on edge. However, in spite of all the obstacles, Duilio Meucci, with his prodigious talents as a guitarist and as a video director, managed to find an ingenious way to pay homage to the composer. Duilio and his collaborators created a socially distanced recording of a few bars from the unforgettable second movement of Mario’s Quintet for Guitar and Strings, Op.143. The result was as inspired as it was moving: in less than two minutes, these musicians truly captured the spirit of the moment.  When Duilio informed us that he and his collaborators (the Quartetto Felix, the violinist Antonella D’Andrea, the flautist Marco Salvio, and guitarist Pietro Locatto) intended to record an entire CD of Mario’s chamber music with guitar, naturally we couldn’t wait to hear what they would come up with.  The CD, titled Notes: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Chamber Music , was released in 2021 by the label Stradivarius.
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27 Dec
Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Chamber Music Bandini Interview

Chamber Music with Guitar: Giampaolo Bandini Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Guitarist Giampaolo Bandini has performed, championed and taught Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music for many years. In 2017, at the l’Istituto Musicale “Luigi Boccherini” in Lucca, Italy he organized the most extensive festival ever dedicated to the Florentine composer’s guitar music. After releasing more than 10 CDs, Giampaolo chose to dedicate time during the pandemic to an exploration of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s complete chamber music with guitar. He put together an outstanding  group of musicians to collaborate with him on the project: the Quartetto Adorno (Edoardo Zosi violin, Liù Pelliciari, violin, Benedetta Bucci, viola, and Danilo Squitieri, cello); Stefano Cerrato, cello; Francesco Di Rosa, oboe; Alberto Miodini, piano; Augusto Mianti, English horn; and Andrea Oliva, flute. Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Chamber Works: The Complete Edition (Decca)  was released in Fall 2021. The recording includes extensive liner notes by Professor Stefano Campagnolo.  Giampaolo graciously agreed to talk with us about his long standing interest and recent immersion in Mario’s chamber music. 
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18 Dec
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Chamber Music Sharon Isbin

Chamber Music with Guitar: Sharon Isbin Interview

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

We are thrilled to begin our series of conversations about Mario’s Guitar chamber music with Sharon Isbin, multiple Grammy Award winner, Musical America’s 2020 Artist of the Year, and the director of the guitar departments at the Aspen Music Festival and the Juilliard School. Sharon recently recorded the Quintet for Guitar and Strings Op. 143 with the Pacifica Quartet (Simin Ganatra, violin; Austin Hartman, violin; Mark Holloway, viola; Brandon Vamos, cello) on their CD, Souvenirs of Spain & Italy (Cedille). 
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17 Dec
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Chamber Music with Guitar

Chamber Music with Guitar (1950-1968)

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

After nearly two decades of writing for the guitar, in 1950 Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote his first works of guitar chamber music. What began as experiments of a curious mind evolved into a group of works that are beloved today by both musicians and audiences.  The Quintet for Guitar and Strings op 143 (1950) is without a doubt the most high-profile of these works, since it was requested, premiered* and first recorded** by his friend Andrés Segovia.
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28 Jul
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Ophelia

Ofelia returns to “her” Florence

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Two of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s lifelong passions were Shakespeare and the visual arts. So it’s no wonder that he was drawn to Ofelia (Ophelia), a terracotta sculpture by Arturo Martini when he saw it at an exhibition in Florence in 1932. Castelnuovo-Tedesco acquired the sensual and tragic representation of the young Danish noblewoman of Hamlet for his personal collection. This work has now returned to Florence for the exhibition Arturo Martini and Florence at the Museo Novecento through November 14, 2021.
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03 Jul
Castelnuovo-Tedesco Chamber Music

Mario’s Return to Chamber Music (1945-1950)

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

In the mid-1940s, with the trauma of emigration starting to fade, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco returned to writing chamber music. During the period from 1945-1950, he wrote the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (Ricordi), the String Trio (Curci) and his Second String Quartet (Curci).  This second wave of chamber music also includes a series of three sonatas for string instruments, in which he enjoyed experimenting with the technical and expressive possibilities of different combinations.
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14 Jun
Premiere of Castelnuovo-Tedesco Cello Concerto in Poland

Premiere of the Cello Concerto in Poland

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Since 2018, the Italian cellist Silvia Chiesa has been reintroducing Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Concerto for cello and orchestra, opus 72, to European audiences. On Friday 18 June 2021 she will premiere the work in Poland, in Jelenia Góra, with the Lower Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Massimiliano Caldi. This performance had been planned for March 2020, but it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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07 Jun
New Ricordi edition Castelnuovo-Tedesco Complete Greeting Cards for Piano

The Complete Greeting Cards for Piano

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco composed 52 Greeting Cards for various instruments between 1953 and 1967, which he developed in a non-systematic manner up to the year before his death. These pieces were conceived as gifts for his interpreters, friends, and students, whom the author wished to delight with short musical portraits. The 18 Greeting Cards for piano (17 for solo piano and one for two pianos) represent an equilibrium between experimentation and tradition. During the composer’s life, only a handful of these short works were published. Now, for the first time, Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s complete Greeting Cards for piano are available in a critical edition, edited by Luca Ciammarughi and published by Ricordi. 
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10 May
New book of Essays

Exile and Creativity: An Anthology

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco is among the men and women featured in Exile and Creativity, a volume of essays inspired by a series of programs held in 2017-18 by the Italian Cultural Institute in New York jointly with Centro Primo Levi. The essays examine the lives of intellectuals, artists, and scientists who were forced into or chose exile during the Fascist era.  Among those highlighted in the book are the Nobel-prize winning physicist Enrico Fermi, the sculptor Costantino Nivola, the writer and cultural figure Amelia Rosselli, and the legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini. 
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17 Mar
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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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21 Jan
Nuovo volume su Castelnuovo-Tedesco

First Collection of Musicological Essays about Castelnuovo-Tedesco published in Italy

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

L’ignoto iconoclasta:studi su Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco [The Unknown Iconoclast: Studies about Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco], published in late 2019 by Libreria Musicale Italiana, grew out of an idea by Assonanze (The Association of Young Musicologists of Sapienza University of Rome) and was developed following the international conference of the same name, held at the University in 2018.

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29 Nov

Three newly published chamber works 

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Three previously unavailable works by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco are now published by Edizioni Curci in collaboration with CIDIM (Comitato Nazionale Italiano Musica): Three Shakespeare Duets for soprano, tenor and piano; the Second String Quartet, and Suite 508 for viola and piano.

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28 Oct

80th Anniversary of the Première of Opus 99

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Exactly eighty years ago, on 28 October 1939, the Concerto in D Major for Guitar and Orchestra, Opus 99  by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco had its world premiere in Montevideo, Uruguay. 

Written at the request of his friend Andres Segovia, the work was conceived in the shadow of  Italy’s anti-semitic campaign, a painful time which ultimately led the composer to seek exile in the United States.
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16 Oct

At the Lyceum Club in Florence

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Founded in 1908, the Lyceum Club Internazionale di Firenze was the first women’s club to be founded in Italy, dedicated to women’s emancipation, internationalism, and peace. In addition, cultural programs have been an objective of the Club since its birth more than 100 years ago.   As a young man, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco performed frequently at the Lyceum, and today the Lyceum continues to host concerts to raise awareness of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music among the Florentine public. 

In 2015 the composer’s family donated a collection of scores and books to the Lyceum which Castelnuovo-Tedesco had kept at his home in Florence. The collection includes more than 700 pieces of music, both manuscripts and printed music, which date from 1620 to 1964. More than 100 composers are represented, with texts in five languages and three Italian dialects! Most of the works date from the 19th and 20th centuries, and many also have dedications to the composer from teachers, friends, and colleagues.
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21 Aug
una cantafavola del XII secolo per una voce, qualche strumento e qualche marionetta

AUCASSIN ET NICOLETTE RETURNS TO ITALY

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

On August 31, 2019, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s  Aucassin et Nicolette will premiere in its Italian language version at the Teatro Pergolesi in Jesi, Italy.

Written in 1938, just months before Castelnuovo-Tedesco left Italy to emigrate to the United States because of Mussolini’s racial laws, Aucassin et Nicolette is based on a 12th century French chantefable and was conceived for “one voice, some instruments and some marionettes”.
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12 Jun

The Bologna Connection

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco is mostly closely associated with his native city of Florence – where he studied and lived until his emigration to the United States in 1939 – and the Tuscan countryside that so profoundly inspired him. However, the composer also has a little known connection with Bologna and its conservatory; Bologna is where Castelnuovo-Tedesco took the exams for his diploma in composition in 1918. Maestro Piero Bonaguri and Professor Annarosa Vannoni of the Conservatorio di Musica Giovan Battista Martini of Bologna  recently uncovered  Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s exams and related documents in the conservatory’s archives,  and they kindly shared their findings with the Castelnuovo-Tedesco Archives.
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02 May

Parkening Remembers Mario

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Christopher Parkening still recalls the date: March 10, 1963. On this long-ago evening, he first performed Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Concerto in D Major, Opus 99 at Royce Hall at the University of California at Los Angeles. In this excerpt from his interview with Marcelo Kayath of the Guitar Coop, Parkening shares his memories of learning the piece, with weekly coaching from the composer, at age 15.

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17 Apr

New Critical Edition: Greeting Cards for Guitar

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Although Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco described his musical Greeting Cards as a pastime, he continued to write them for 14 years, leaving a total of 52 works composed for various instruments. Now, the Greeting Cards he composed for guitar have been collected for the first time in a critical edition by Frédéric Zigante (Ricordi). The edition is available at Music Shop Europe.

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17 Mar

The Prophets in Florence

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

After premiering at Carnegie Hall in 1933, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s second violin concerto, The Prophets, was supposed to have had its first Italian performance in early 1938. However, the Italian premiere of this work, inspired by the composer’s Jewish origins, was cancelled for mysterious reasons. A few months later, the arrival of Italy’s anti-semitic laws made the situation painfully clear and prompted Castelnuovo-Tedesco to seek exile in the United States.

On March 5, 2019 the concerto finally arrived in Florence, in a magnificent performance by Orchestra della Toscana, conducted by Daniele Rustioni and featuring the violinist Francesca Dego as soloist.

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26 Jan

New Chamber Music Editions

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

Two previously unpublished chamber music works written by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco during his American years are now available from Edizioni Curci. Published in collaboration with CIDIM – Comitato Nazionale Italiano Musica, the new editions are: the String Trio for violin, viola and cello, Opus 147, and the Third String Quartet, Opus 203.

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23 Nov

Edizioni Curci and Naxos Collaboration

Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco / News /

In 2015, the Castelnuovo-Tedesco family began working with Edizioni Curci with the goal of publishing previously unavailable  works. With Maestro Angelo Gilardino as editor, The Castelnuovo-Tedesco Collection today includes eight previously unpublished and rarely, if ever, heard pieces, as well as the first biography of the composer (in Italian). Three chamber works recently published in this collection: The Concerto No. 3 op. 102 for violin and piano; String Trio op. 147; and the Sonata for violin and cello  op. 148; have been brought to vivid life on a Naxos CD released this month. All three pieces were written by Castelnuovo-Tedesco in the decade following his emigration to the United States, and none have ever been recorded previously. 
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