Silvia Chiesa / Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Della RAI / Massimiliano Caldi CELLO CONCERTOS

In April 2017, the Houston Symphony and principal cellist Brinton Averil Smith will give the first professional performance of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Cello Concerto in the US since its premiere by the New York Philharmonic and Arturo Toscanini in 1935.
Born in Italy in 1895, Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s reputation grew rapidly thanks to the support of violinist Jascha Heifetz and guitarist Andrés Segovia, who each asked him to compose concertos for them when he was in his 30’s.
Later, a few years before emigrating from Europe to flee religious persecution in 1938, Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote another concerto for the great cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.
In 1935 Piatigorsky premiered the work with the New York Philharmonic and Arturo Toscanini. Despite being championed by powerful advocates and being the work of a well-known composer, the work did not catch on. Piatigorsky, who was unwilling to give up exclusive rights to the work, eventually let it drop and the concerto fell into obscurity, like so many other works by European émigrés who settled in California and began composing primarily for film. 

Fifty years after the death of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Sony Classical releases the first Italian recording of the monumental piece Concerto for cello and orchestra featuring soloist Silvia Chiesa and the RAI Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Massimiliano Caldi. This album also contains two concerts by Gian Francesco Malipiero and Riccardo Malipiero.