Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s lifelong love of literature is the unifying theme of the new CD Stories, Sonnets, and Serenades (Dynamic). Pianist Simonetta Heger and soprano Elizabeth Hertzberg present premiere recordings of a diverse selection of art songs set to texts by European poets including Heinrich Heine, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The CD also features a cycle for solo piano, The Stories of Joseph, dedicated in memoriam to the great writer Thomas Mann, whom Castelnuovo-Tedesco knew as a fellow exile in California. Simonetta and Elizabeth kindly agreed to tell us about their experience recording these works that are, as yet, little known to the public.
Interview with Simonetta Heger and Elizabeth Hertzberg by Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco — May 2025
How and when did your collaboration begin?
We began working together in 2017, for a concert of Aldo Finzi’s music at Carnegie Hall. In fact, it was one of the composer’s grandchildren who put us in touch. We got along so well that since then we’ve never stopped working together. Our work on this album has been the natural continuation of a musical relationship that is, by now, well-established.
When did Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music become part of your repertoire?
Simonetta started to become familiar with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music many years ago, and the first piece she studied was the Fantasia, op. 145 for guitar and piano, which she has performed many times. Back in 1988, she first performed Tre corali su melodie ebraiche [ Three Corales on Hebrew Melodies] at a concert at The Ridotto of La Scala focused on works by Jewish musicians who were persecuted under Fascism.
A few years ago, as a duo, we studied and performed the first book of the Heine Lieder and then a selection of the Shakespeare Sonnets, op. 125. Since the launch of our recording, we have recently returned to the Shakespeare Sonnets for some upcoming concerts. We have also added other works by Castelnuovo-Tedesco to our concert repertoire: Vocalise (Chant Hébraïque), Naomi’s Aria and Ruth’s Aria from the voice and piano version of the cantata Naomi and Ruth, Op. 137.
What motivated you to devote an entire CD to Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music?
We wanted to contribute as much as we could to the “Castelnuovo-Tedesco Renaissance” that is happening right now!
How did you select the works to include?
The idea for this recording actually came from you, Diana. After sitting in on one of our rehearsals of the first book of the Heine Lieder, which we were preparing for a concert, you mentioned that there were two other books in this series, and that no one had done a complete recording of them. So, we began to organize a project around the first complete recording of Mario’s settings of Heine poems as well as The Stories of Joseph, which had just been published by Curci. Not only was this piano cycle dedicated to the memory of Thomas Mann, but it was inspired directly by the German author’s eponymous novel. We then added three art songs that had never been recorded previously, all set to texts by English poets. Diana, you helped us to obtain the scores we needed – in some cases printed scores, in other cases manuscripts – from [The Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Papers at] The Library of Congress and the UCLA [Special Collections] Library. The manuscripts were then transcribed [with permission from the composer’s heirs, exclusively for use in this project] by Alessandro Guarneri. Although Mario’s handwriting is very clear, precise and elegant, when his manuscripts are scanned and then printed out, they are not easy to use for performances.
Your CD encompasses the composer’s eclectic tastes and polyglot tendencies. Through his artistic choices – setting poetry written in different periods and in different languages – is there a unifying principle?
Our intention was to underscore Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s connections to European, particularly English and German, literature, which, in his autobiography he says he always loved. The art songs on the album were all written in the 1920s, and the composer is so faithful to the texts that his musical writing reflects, each time in a different way, the poet’s intention. The Heine Lieder are ironic and irreverent, and technically very challenging for both of the performers, while the works based on the English poems are rendered in a style that is more meditative and melancholy.
The Stories of Joseph is a piece that might surprise people who are expecting to hear the kind of piano music Mario was writing during his early career in Italy. What are your thoughts about this work?
The Stories of Joseph is a musical cycle that we can almost call “program music”, inspired directly by the figure of Joseph as described by Thomas Mann describes in his novel Joseph and his Brothers. In 1955, when Mario wrote his piece, he had already worked on film music for many years, and one hears this: the music paints a precise picture of each scene depicted by the biblical verses that are ascribed to each piece. The allusions to European music and culture are frequent and a bit sarcastic: there are quasi Wagnerian leitmotifs and amusing citations of Schumann and Verdi.
Why do you think these pieces deserve the public’s attention?
Because of their beauty and their variety, and because it is music that deserves to be rediscovered and heard.
What emotions did recording these pieces, which are still yet to be fully discovered, evoke in you?
It was a very demanding project that had, as such things always do, highs and lows, but it excited us and was emotionally engaging, for us as well as for those who collaborated with us. In particular, our artistic director, Roberto Giglielmo, to whom we owe a great deal. Above all, he motivated us to continue to work with and to discover even more of Mario’s music.
Simonetta and Elizabeth, thank you very much for this lovely chat, and for everything you are doing to bring more attention to Mario’s compositions!