Ensemble Italiano CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Chamber Music

 

CHAMBER MUSIC

 

Antipodes Duo DANCES & DREAMS

DANCES & DREAMS

Raphaela Gromes / Julian Riem SERENATA ITALIANA

Italy produced a wealth of fine Romantic instrumental music between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, and some of the names on this disc used to be far more familiar than they are today. So don’t be put off by the packaging: this really isn’t the sort of potboiler you might expect. The young German cellist Raphaela Gromes deserves only applause for putting together such an imaginative debut recital.

The 16-year old Busoni’s skittish, lilting Serenata serves as an overture to the disc’s centrepiece, the Cello Sonata by Giuseppe Martucci. Already, two things are clear: the cello seems to have inspired this particular school of Italian composers to music that’s either melancholy or sparkling. And Gromes makes a very attractive sound, warm but clearly defined at the top, big and sonorous at the bottom. The piano is slightly recessed and the acoustic is generous, which inevitably means that the cello’s C string has a tendency to boom at the expense of Julian Riem’s stylish piano-playing; a minor quibble.

And Gromes clearly feels passionately about the Martucci, which she compares to Brahms, though I found that a little of Martucci’s soaring cello over turbulent piano-writing goes a long way. Matilde Capuis’s wartime Animato con passione contains nothing that would have startled Verdi, but Gromes combines sincere expression and needlepoint brilliance in Sinigaglia’s two miniatures and wraps it all up with an effortlessly nonchalant account of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s jaw-droppingly flashy paraphrase on Rossini’s ‘Largo al factotum’. Some cellists give a triumphant shout of ‘Figaro!’ at the end of this piece. Gromes, modestly, doesn’t: a shame, because she’s earned it. (Richard Bratby / Gramophone)

Francesca Dego / Francesca Leonardi SUITE ITALIENNE

The Italian violin and piano duo Francesca Dego and Francesca Leonardi will release a new disc on Deutsche Grammophon this October, featuring Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, Respighi’s Violin Sonata in B minor for violin and piano and the world premiere recording of three works by the Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

In addition to violin paraphrases of operas by Rossini and Verdi, the disc includes Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s “Ballade” Op. 107 for violin and piano, which was written for and premiered by Tossy Spivakovsky in 1940. It was left to gather dust until February 2018, when it was recovered by Dego with the assistance of the composer’s granddaughter, Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco. It is now available internationally in print thanks to Edizioni Curci.

Gran Duo Italiano CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Music for Violin and Piano

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.

Renata Arlotti SUITES AND HOMAGES

When talent meets devotion towards an artistic expression, and a particular musical instrument appears to win the attention of a young girl, this combination of precious factors fosters the start of a life dedicated to that instrument. Growing up in such a suggestive land as Sardinia, whose song has inspired some great artists and poets, this lucky one, now a successful guitarist, has been uprooted by destiny, which has offered her skills, numerous challenges, and opportunities to fulfill her growing ability to express herself at her best in some of the most important centers of the Western world. This release, her first attempt to show guitar lovers and fans an exceptionally ambitious choice of classical Italian and Spanish repertoire, will be a successful step into the clan of our best recording artists. Renata Arlotti has chosen Tedesco and Asencio's solo masterpieces for this album. Renata Arlotti began studying classical guitar in her home town of Sassari before continuing in Milan with Lorenzo Micheli. She earned her Bachelors degree from the Conservatoire de la Vallee dAoste, graduating in 2011 with highest honors. She went on to study at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiano and then the Royal Academy of Music in London.

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.

Joanna Klisowska / Giulio Tampalini CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO The Divan of Moses Ibn Ezra

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) wrote his song cycle “The Divan of Moses Ibn Ezra” in the last years of his life, a work of reflection on the human condition. Moses Ibn Ezra (1055-1138) was a Jewish poet who took refuge in Spain after the conquest of his land by the Berber Almoravids, an obvious and deep inspiration for the Jew Castelnuovo-Tedesco who experienced the same fate of exile when moving in 1939 to the USA, fleeing the Nazi threat.

The song cycle “Divan of Moses Ibn Ezra” is in English, a translation of the original Hebrew poetry. The work is divided in 5 parts, and describes the stages of human life and its fate: “Songs of Wandering”, “Songs of Friendship”, “Wine and the delights of Sons of Men”, “the World and its Vicissitudes” and “the Transience of the World”. The musical tone is elegiac, sometimes melancholy, a bittersweet reflection on a long life full of glory and despair.

A beautiful interpretation by soprano Joanna Klisowska, specialist in Early Music and 20th century repertoire, and master guitarist Giulio Tampalini.

The booklet contains excellent liner notes written by the famous composer Angelo Gilardino, in both English and Italian.

Isabelle Druet / Anne LeBozec SHAKESPEARE SONGS

There are thousands of vocal and instrumental settings of Shakespeare's texts, drawn from his comedies, tragedies and sonnets alike. The music celebrating his verse covers more than four centuries: this fascination has lived on into the 20th century and does not appear to be running out of steam.
A linguistic virtuoso, a master of human emotions, an expert in Machiavellian stories of intrigue and tyranny, and a bard of love and of the moment - these are but a few of the many facets of the Shakespearian message. We follow him into the heart of humanity and its excesses, from madness to the burlesque, from despair to bonhomie, from hatred of one's fellow man to universal love. So is it really surprising that so many composers in so many languages have used such a rich tapestry of humanity, or that we - the singers at the end of this great chain - have decided to devote a recital to him? Several figures recur: Ophelia “in her sweet madness” and Desdemona in her despair, two women of high birth, infinitely fragile, victims of the machinery of power, of the vengeance and jealousy that eats at the hearts of men. Also appearing regularly is the fool or jester, the only member of the court - where everyone is muzzled - who can tell the truth in the form of a caricature or lament.
But this program also has a certain lightness, for it too undergirds the world, and Shakespeare celebrates it with Silvia or Cymbeline: idealized female figures who are depicted with ardor, astonishment, and rapture.
Shakespeare shows us the path through this labyrinth. He knows where the world is headed.
Let's follow him! (Isabelle Druet & Anne Le Bozec)

Duo Pace Poli Cappelli CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Complete music for Two Guitars

Florentine composer Castelnuovo-Tedesco contributed a vast array of music to the guitar literature, and this engaging release celebrates his output for two guitars, drawing focus to what isperhaps the repertoire’s most awe-inspiring collection: the cycle of 24 preludes and fugues known as Les guitares bien tempérées. The unique nature of this work lies in the composer’s great ability to use ‘raw’ materials, polishing them with an almost unparalleled skill to create smll, perfect and autonomous scenes that draw on light and extremely effective use of counterpoint; appending them is the Fuga elegiaca, a work that functions as the perfect conclusion on account of its original key of G minor, the same key in which the series opens.

The Fuga was to be Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s parting gift to the world, and the Sonatina canonica that follows takes us back to his first composition for two guitars, one which the composer himself described as a ‘modest’ little piece. Once again drawing on a hugely diverse range of material, it’s an engaging conclusion to a set for which the artists have paid especial attention to the original manuscripts, determined to achieve performances worthy of the great Italian maestro. “This they certainly attain; Pace and Poli Cappelli, whose duo has in little over a year become one of the most sought-after of its kind, marry virtuosic display with sensitive, intelligent readings” (Brilliant Classics)