Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Mario Castelnuovo.
image of Mario Castelnuovo

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (3 April 1895 – 16 March 1968) was an Italian composer, pianist and writer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he immigrated to the United States and became a film composer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next fifteen years. He also wrote concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky.

Biography

Born in

International Society of Contemporary Music, held in Salzburg, Austria, in 1922.[1]

In 1926, Castelnuovo-Tedesco premiered his first

anti-Semitism
that was sweeping across much of Europe.

At the 1932 festival of the

International Society of Contemporary Music, held in Venice, Castelnuovo-Tedesco first met the Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia. The meeting inspired Castelnuovo-Tedesco to write for the guitar, beginning with his Variazioni attraverso i secoli (Variations à travers les siècles) (Variations through the ages), Op. 71 (1932), and later his Guitar Concerto No. 1 (1939). All in all, he wrote almost one hundred compositions for this instrument, which earned him a reputation as one of the foremost composers for the guitar in the twentieth century. Some of them were written and dedicated to Segovia, who was an enthusiast of his style (Segovia called him an "incorruptible servant of artistic truth"[2]
).

Even before the Italian government promulgated the

Westchester County, New York (state)
.

He wrote his Cello Concerto in F major, Op. 72, for Gregor Piatigorsky. It was premiered with the dedicatee under Arturo Toscanini in New York in 1935.[4] For Piatigorsky he also wrote a Toccata (1935), and a piece called Greeting Card, Op. 170/3, based on the spelling of Piatigorsky's name.[5]

Like many artists who fled fascism, Castelnuovo-Tedesco ended up in Hollywood, where, with the help of Jascha Heifetz, he landed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a film composer. Over the next fifteen years, he worked on scores for some 200 films there and at the other major film studios. Rita Hayworth hired him to write the music for The Loves of Carmen (1948), produced by Hayworth for her Beckworth Productions and released by Columbia Pictures.

As a teacher, Castelnuovo-Tedesco had a significant influence on other major film composers, including Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Herman Stein and André Previn. Jerry Goldsmith, Marty Paich and John Williams were all his pupils,[6] as was Scott Bradley, who studied privately with him while both were on staff at MGM. He also maintained close contact with composer Robert Strassburg.[7] His relationship to Hollywood was ambiguous: later in life he downplayed the influence that it had on his own work, but he also believed that it was an essentially American artform, much as opera was European.

In 1946 he became a U.S. citizen, but he remained very close to Italy, which he frequently visited[citation needed]. In 1958 he won the Concorso Campari with the opera The Merchant of Venice, which was first performed in 1961 at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under the baton of Gianandrea Gavazzeni.[3]

In 1962 he wrote Les Guitares bien tempérées ("The Well-Tempered Guitars") for two guitars, a set of 24 preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, for the duo-guitarists Alexandre Lagoya and Ida Presti. This was inspired by The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach, a composer Castelnuovo-Tedesco revered.

In the United States, Castelnuovo-Tedesco also composed new operas and works based on

Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
.

The Library of Congress in Washington, DC, hosts the Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Collection, a collection of the composer's manuscripts donated by his family in 2000. The catalogue is accessible online.[8]

His oldest son was the psychiatrist Pietro Castelnuovo-Tedesco.[9] His younger son was the architect Lorenzo Castelnuovo-Tedesco of Los Angeles.

Works

Main article: List of compositions by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Castelnuovo-Tedesco's autobiography, A life in music: a book of memories, written shortly before his death, was published decades later:

  • Una vita di musica: un libro di ricordi (in Italian), James Westby (ed.), with an introduction by Mila De Sanctis, Fiesole: Cadmo, 2005.
    ISBN 978-88-7923-195-4

Other writings by the composer have been catalogued.[10]

In 2018 a collection of contemporary guitar music in homage to Castelnuovo-Tedesco was published, edited by Piero Bonaguri. It includes works by composers Filippo Ferruggiara, Daniele Mandonico, Marco Reghezza, Marco Simoni, Alessandro Spazzoli, and Paolo Ugoletti.[2]

In 2018, a film was released about his life entitled

Oaxaca Film Festival and the 2018 Albuquerque Film & Music Experience.[14][15]

References

  1. ^ A. Compagno: "Gli anni fiorentini di Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco", Carrara, 2000.
  2. ^ a b Bonaguri, Piero, ed. (2018). Homage to Castelnuovo-Tedesco, An Anthology of Contemporary Music for Guitar. Bologna: Ut Orpheus. pp. Preface.
  3. ^ a b "CASTELNUOVO TEDESCO, Mario in "Dizionario Biografico"". www.treccani.it. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  4. ^ "Cello Chat". 10 November 2010.
  5. ISBN 9780786456260
    .
  6. YouTube
    by Jon Burlingame. Retrieved 16 February 2011.
  7. ^ "Strassburg, Robert". Milken Archive of Jewish Music. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  8. ^ Library of Congress: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Collection. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
  9. ^ "Physician to Wed Lisbeth M. Stone". The New York Times. 22 September 1957.
  10. ^ See Westby (Grove); Westby 2005.
  11. ^ "Tallgrass International Film Festival (2018)". IMDb. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  12. ^ "The WINNERS!". THE BSFF. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  13. ^ "2018 RIIFF Awards". www.film-festival.org. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  14. ^ "Xander Berkeley". IMDb. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  15. ^ "2019 AWARD WINNERS". AFMX. Retrieved 14 September 2020.

Sources and further reading

External links

Archives at
LocationLibrary of Congress
SourceMario Castelnuovo-Tedesco papers, 1822-1998
How to use archival material
Wikiquote has quotations related to Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
  • Shakespeare Sonnets Ashley Riches (baritone) and Emma Abbate (piano) (Resonus Classics RES 10141). The world-première recording of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Shakespeare Sonnets.
  1. OCLC 1030816092.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mario_Castelnuovo-Tedesco&oldid=1219669623"