Music for Violin and Piano (2018)

An unrivalled collection of chamber music charting the course of the 20th century through the eclectic voices and eventful musical journey of an Italian-American composer.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968) may still be regarded primarily as a composer for guitar, best known through his working partnership with Andres Segovia, but Brilliant Classics has illuminated other sides to this prolific musician through first recordings and modern rediscoveries of his piano music (BC94811) and his songs, most notably his settings of Shakespeare (BC95548).

Now the focus falls on his chamber music, with these new studio recordings of suites, sonatas, tone-poems and fantasies. From the piquant miniatures of the two Signorine Op.10 to the neoclassically economical Suite 508 Op.170, all the works here abound in the bitter-sweet harmonies and soaring melodic rapture which gave a distinctive flavour to Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music throughout his long career. Song without words is another thread to his output, first encountered here in the Tre canti all’aria aperta from 1919. Tuscan folksong and medieval troubadour tradition are spiced with Bartokian harmony in a fresh and appealing combination.

The writing for the string instruments is reliably extrovert and idiomatic, influenced by the music’s dedicatees and first performers such as Jascha Heifetz, Albert Spalding and Adila Fachiri, grandniece of Joseph Joachim. Notturno Adriatico is a tranquil, dream-like tone-picture with a tenuous hold on the repertoire, like the virtuoso flourish of Exotica: A Rhapsody of the South Seas. However, the extensive fantasy on themes from Donizetti’s La fille du regiment is a substantial rarity which deserves much wider currency. In the same tradition of the operatic fantasy is a paraphrase of Rossini’s ‘Largo al factotum’; like the two deft miniatures from a series of Greetings Cards Op.170, the paraphrase was issued in print, whereas most of the five-movement Donizetti fantasy remains unpublished. So does the Suite 508 for viola and piano, composed in 1960. With typical ingenuity, Castelnuovo-Tedesco works in the name of the different dedicatees to each of the seven movements, resulting in chromaticism on the verge of atonality at times, but reliably handled with verve and melodic prominence.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco:
 3 Canti all'aria aperta
 Capitan Fracassa, Op. 16
 Exotica: A Rhapsody of the South Seas
 Figaro Variations from Rossini’s ‘The Barber of Seville’
 Greeting Cards, Op. 170: No. 21. Suite 508
 Greetings Cards, Op. 170 No. 3
 La figlia del reggimento, Op. 110
 Notturno adriatico, Op. 34
 Ritmi, Op. 15
 Sea Murmurs
 Signorine, Op. 10
 Sonata quasi una fantasia, Op. 56
 The Lark

De Italiaanse componist Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) was de muzikale sparringpartner van de Spaanse meestergitarist Andrés Segovia, voor wie hij zo’n honderd gitaarwerken componeerde. Toen de Joodse componist in 1939 op de vlucht sloeg voor de nazi’s, was het geluk met hem. De al in 1933 naar de Verenigde Staten uitgeweken Italiaanse dirigent Arturo Toscanini was een groot bewonderaar van de muziek van zijn landgenoot. Hij voerde zijn werken regelmatig uit en bracht Castelnuovo-Tedesco al snel in contact met violist Jascha Heifetz, cellist Gregor Pjatigorski en pianist Walter Gieseking. Zij promootten zijn vaak aan hen opgedragen werken wereldwijd en op voorspraak van Heifetz werd hij in Hollywood aangesteld als filmcomponist. Naast de muziek voor ruim tweehonderd films zag Castelnuovo-Tedesco kans kamermuziek, soloconcerten, opera’s en balletmuziek te componeren. Violist Mauro Torterelli is geen Heifetz (luister naar diens uitvoering van het Tweede vioolconcert en je gaat voor de bijl!), maar hij heeft zijn Italiaanse hart wel op de juiste plaats om Castelnuova-Tedesco’s laatromantische, fantasierijke en vaak melancholieke taal genuanceerd en verfijnd, met beschaafd ingekleurde sentimenten over het voetlicht te brengen. De empathisch begeleidende pianiste Angela Meluso volgt hem op de voet.
Klassieke Zaken Magazine 5-2018