Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s musical identity has always resisted easy categorization. He explicitly rejected affiliation with “modernism, neo-classicism, or any other -isms,” choosing instead to pursue a deeply individual path.* His style reflects a rich constellation of influences: the Great Masters, the teachings of his mentor Ildebrando Pizzetti and other members of the Generazione dell’Ottanta, early 20th-century French music (especially Debussy and Ravel), his Spanish roots, Jewish culture, and various folk traditions. While Ravel is often mentioned as one of many influences, a recently published article in the Italian journal [divulgazioneaudiotestuale], argues that the connection was much deeper. The guitarist and musicologist Marco Surace demonstrates that Ravel was a significant source of inspiration for Castelnuovo-Tedesco throughout his career, from his formative years in Florence to his exile in America. Surace proposes a perspective that enriches—and in some cases reshapes—our understanding of Mario’s distinctive musical language. As 2025—the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth—comes to a close, we invited Marco to tell us more about these ideas in the following interview.
Interview with Marco Surace by Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco – December 2025
As a guitarist and a musicologist, you have had Castelnuovo-Tedesco on your radar for some time now. What made you believe that re-examining Mario’s links to Ravel would be a fruitful undertaking?
I like to think that some research projects just call out to you. However, research doesn’t always follow a linear path, and, in this case, the seeds of ideas that eventually took root in my research took a long time to blossom. I loved Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music ever since my years studying guitar at the Conservatory, performing many of his pieces, both solo works such as Tarantella, Rondò and chamber works (from the Sonatina for flute and guitar to the Divan of Moses Ibn Ezra to the Concerto in D Major for guitar and orchestra). I think that this first “imprinting” was fundamental for me. In time I approached, a bit by chance, his non-guitar works. I recall when I discovered L’Infinito, one of his most beautiful art songs. I was so taken with it that I chose it for a musical analysis exam (sometime later I also spoke about it in an article for Quinte Parallele).
In the meantime, from all my daily listening, I grew to love Maurice Ravel’s music, which profoundly nurtured my expressive and imaginative side, beyond the instrument I play. As I explored these two authors’ works more deeply, I began to notice some shared resonances. Little by little, these little insights spurred my curiosity and motivated me to do some research, which turned out to be fascinating and (I believe) necessary. The musicological essays and texts about Castelnuovo-Tedesco I had read up until then spoke above all of the “Italianità” of his musical style and mentioned some musical influences, among them Debussy and Ravel. The more I listened, the more I read, and the more I then believed that Ravel was very present in Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music and that not enough had been said about it. I felt that it was the right moment to delve more deeply into this subject, especially given that this year marks the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth. Besides, I have always been very interested in the branch of musicology that looks at how composers influence, and are received by, their younger “colleagues” or by later generations more broadly. It’s a field that is compelling in so many ways, because it allows us to gauge the historical impact of a certain musician, to define a composer’s style more clearly through the lens of his influences and,above all, it reminds us that artistic creation must be seen as both a conscious act as well as an unconscious one.
In Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s case, I noticed that the connection to Ravel operates on multiple levels: consciously, in his references to Ravel’s ideas and markings, in his use of Ravel’s musical material, in his explicit evocation of Ravel’s style or character, and in his transcription work; and unconsciously, in ways that emerge particularly in his piano gesture and in his musical and personal immersion in circles of musicians and artists attuned to the French composer’s aesthetic sensibility. All of this was very inspiring to me, and it motivated me to explore Ravel’s influence across Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s career.
Before your article, scholars have linked Ravel’s influence mainly to Mario’s early years in Italy. You, however, see it as a life-long thread. Please tell us more about the conclusions you reached and the evidence that supports them.
In the article, I look at Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s style through the lens of Ravel’s influence, reaching essentially two conclusions: the first is that Ravel’s impact is not a something limited to his early years in Florence, but rather, it returns at different points in his musical production; the second is that this influence manifests itself in different forms, depending on the context in which the pieces were created. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s earliest works for piano and chamber ensemble demonstrate elements of a musical language with similarities to Debussy and Ravel, composers Mario turned to from an early age and whose music he also performed in concert as a pianist. In those years, certain stylistic traits were already present. However, they never radically changed, and they returned many times in different works over the years, including during his years in America (from 1939 to 1968). Some of these elements are very close to Ravel’s sensibility: the focus on melody and its connection with counterpoint, the sense of form and a preference for short forms, attention to timbre, and certain taste for hispanicizing and a broad but cautious openness toward new sources of inspiration (not necessarily musical), while remaining firmly based in tradition.
Ravel’s influence is everywhere in his music and is particularly visible in works Castelnuovo-Tedesco composed for and with the piano in the 1920s and 1930s – from Alt Wien: Rapsodia viennese (1923), which we could define as Castelnuovo’s La Valse, to the second of the Three Shakespeare Duets (1937), “Lorenzo and Jessica,” in which appears a quote from the Pavane pour une infante defunte – as well as during his American years, from Mirages [on the name of Gieseking for piano] (1954), a mix of Ravel’s Miroirs and Debussy’s Images, to the Sonatina Zoologica for piano (1960),which was inspired by Ravel’s Histoires Naturelles, as well as by Miroirs. There are also references to Ravel in other pieces by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, both before and after emigration: think of the hispanicising touches – idealized through the sensibility of the French composer and manifesting itself in the sound of the guitar, the instrument he preferred in his later years – in the Concertino for Harp (1937), in the Fantasia for guitar and piano and in the Quintet for Guitar and Strings (both from 1950), or in works such as the Sonatina for Bassoon and Piano (1946), which has a certain Ravelian flavor, as Castelnuovo himself said.
Then there are the transcriptions he did in the 1940s and 1950s, which include those of the Pavane, Jeux d’Eau, Alborada del Gracioso e La Vallée des Cloches. Lastly, a fact that clearly emerges from Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s autobiography and other writings: Ravel is mentioned constantly. He demonstrates sincere admiration for Ravel’s music (he considered him “one of the masters of his generation”) and recalls their meetings, referring often to Ravel’s works and even borrowing a few quotes in French to express his thoughts. Thus, Ravel has a consistent presence in Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s aesthetic horizon throughout his entire creative career, and Ravel is a key link between the Old and New Worlds.
Was Ravel’s influence on Mario’s works composed in the United States different from what you observed in his Italian works?
I would say that the fundamental difference is the context in which the influence of Ravel manifests itself, rather than an absence or presence in the different phases of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s life. In his Italian works (those of the Florentine and pre-emigration periods), the affinity with Ravel is first and foremost via the piano, and is recognizable in terms of melodies, harmonies and colors. In the United States, the sense of melody, color and timbric clarity do not disappear, but they become integrated into Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s mature style and channeled into the creative output of a composer who is open to both new combinations of instruments and to the panorama of American culture. Beyond contextual differences, Castelnuovo-Tedesco is and remains a composer who is “genuinely Italian” in style, even while living in America, a “Florentine Ravel” who was fascinated with the new expressive possibilities the United States offered him.
When you studied the scores of the two composers, did you discover things that surprised you?
Many! Off the top of my head, what comes to mind is the fact that, before undertaking this research, Ravel’s music had impressed me principally through listening alone. I had not yet had many opportunities to actually study his scores in depth. When I started analyzing Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s works for their affinities with Ravel, it was surprising—and almost moving—to realize that this remarkable sonic richness in both composers emerges from writing of rare balance and extraordinary clarity (something that Aloma Bardi [musicologist and founding director of ICAMus – The International Center for American Music] and I were discussing just a few months ago).
Another aspect that I found very interesting involves the score markings, in which there are some differences between the two composers. Ravel is more precise in his requests, more meticulous in providing agogic, dynamic, timbral and formal details. For the French composer, the sense of clarity and of structure are essential elements to reveal the musical beauty to which he aspires. Castelnuovo-Tedesco, too, offers a range of markings, though his often carry a more poetic and imaginative tone. Among the markings that made an impression on me are scintillante [sparkling], or con sentimento esagerato! [with exaggerated feeling!] and capriccioso ed elegante, a piacere [whimsical and elegant, as you wish]. Reading Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s scores reveals a whole world, even before it comes to life as sound—and then as music!
How does this study help us to understand and interpret Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s compositional style in a different light?
This study, like the many initiatives and contributions of scholars, performers, concert organizations, publishers (and of course your work, Diana, which helped make all this possible), becomes part of the “Castelnuovo-Tedesco Renaissance” and seeks to enrich the critical dialogue generated by the revival of interest in the composer. My idea is to view Castelnuovo-Tedesco as a composer, who, also in his American years, is in constant dialogue with a wider European aesthetic horizon, and not as a composer limited only to the Italian tradition, relegated to a single identity (as a composer of guitar music, for example) or rigidly “divisible” in two creative phases (the Florentine one and the American one).
Bringing to light the continuity of the Ravelian influence encourages us to look at the composer from new perspectives, which allow us to appreciate the internal coherence of his musical language throughout his life — even when the functions and the context of the music change. This can be useful both to the academic community as well as to performers, giving them new analytical and interpretive tools for approaching Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music with greater stylistic awareness. Ultimately, this perspective aims to engage critically with others, in order to restore the full complexity of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s musical art and to encourage readings that are more nuanced and less stereotyped—of how he made, created, and lived music.
Marco, thank you for sharing your fascinating research with us!
You can read Marco’s article (in Italian) HERE.
Photo of Maurice Ravel courtesy of Fondation Maurice Ravel.
*Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mario. “The Composer Speaks”, in Ewen. D. (1942) The Book of Modern Composers, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p.393.