The Quintet for Guitar and Strings, op. 143 is one of the best known and most often performed works in Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s catalog. Until recently, few were aware that the composer had also penned three string quartets. This summer, Naxos issued a recording by Quartetto Adorno that features all three of the quartets, the first two of which in world premiere recordings. The scores for the three quartets are now available in critical editions edited by Angelo Gilardino for The Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Collection, which is published by Edizioni Curci in collaboration with CIDIM-Comitato Nazionale Italiano Musica. The recording, which is available on all digital platforms, was produced with support from CIDIM, the Accademia Musicale Chigiana and the Comune di Quattro Castella.
Clearly classical in form, the String Quartet No. 1 in G Major, Op. 58 (1929) reflects the positive state of mind of the composer when he wrote it, ten years before he would leave Italy because of the racial laws. In his autobiography, Una vita di musica, the composer describes the work:
The work is simple and clear, inspired by the countryside….The first movement opens with the sound of the viola beneath the swell of violins (giving the impression of rows of vineyards and olive trees). I would say that the viola is the predominant voice throughout the quartet…. The third movement is a Strimpellata, a kind of rustic serenade, and the final movement alternates a somber, almost processional theme with lively, bouncy rhythms reminiscent of a village festival.
Commissioned by and dedicated to the American music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864-1953), the String Quartet No.1 was performed for the first time at the Berkshire Festival in 1930 and was published by Casa Ricordi in 1931. After the Second World War, the work remained out of print for more than seventy years until a new edition was published by Edizioni Curci in 2021.
String Quartet No. 2 in F Minor, op. 139 (1948) reflects with great immediacy the mixed emotions that Castelnuovo-Tedesco felt when he traveled to Italy for the first time after his emigration to the United States nine years earlier. Although thrilled to return to his beloved Florence and the Tuscan countryside, he found these places changed and not for the better. Mario realized that the experience of emigration had changed his perspectives, too, and he evokes these complicated feelings with music that seamlessly melds melody, harmony, and counterpoint. The American Art String Quartet premiered String Quartet No. 2 in Los Angeles on 18 September 1949, and the work was published by Affiliated Musicians in 1953. The work ended up out of print for decades as well, until Curci published a new edition in 2019.
String Quartet No.3 in F Major, op.203, “Casa al Dono” is a warm, heartfelt and nostalgic tribute to Mario’s friend Bernard Berenson, the great Renaissance art historian. The piece evokes not just the man but familiar places near Berenson’s home in Vallombrosa (“Shaded Valley”), where, in 1952, Mario sketched out some themes on Berenson’s stationery. Back in Beverly Hills, he developed them into the Quartet in 1964. The Società Cameristica Italiana premiered the work on 16 May 1966 at Villa i Tatti, Berenson’s primary residence, located in the hills above Florence, which is today The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. The work remained unpublished until Edizioni Curci published the first edition in 2018.
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Founded in 2015, Quartetto Adorno won three prizes at the 2017 International String Quartet Competition ‘XI Premio Paolo Borciani’, the first Italian quartet to do so in the 30-year history of the competition. In 2018 it won the X International Competition ‘V. E. Rimbotti’ and also became an associate artist-in-residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. The Quartet’s name is a tribute to the twentieth century philosopher Theodor Adorno, who, in an age of musical and social decline, saw chamber music as the only path to salvation. Adorno claimed that this genre kept the relationship between human beings and music authentic, upholding values such as respect and a desire for perfection. Quartetto Adorno has performed at prestigious series, venues and festivals such as the London Chamber Music Society Series at Kings Place; Wigmore Hall; Musikerlebnis, Munich; Flagey, Brussels; and Amici della Musica, Florence.
Quartetto Adorno will perform one of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s quartets at the following concerts the fall of 2024, which will all take place in Italy: 20 September at the MiTo Festival, Teatro Minotti, Milan; 14 November at the Associazione Scarlatti, Naples; 15 November, AMA Eventi, Teatro Manfroce, Palmi; 16 November, AMA Eventi, Palazzo de Nobili, Catanzaro; 17 November AMA Eventi, Teatro Comunale, Lamezia Terme; 19 November IUC (La Sapienza Università di Roma), Rome; 13 December, Soc Teatro Musica, Teatro Massimo, Pescara; and 14 December, Amici della Musica, Campobasso.