Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Concerto No. 1 in D Major for Guitar and Orchestra, Op. 99

Concerto No. 1 in D Major for Guitar and Orchestra, Op. 99

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
(1895-1968)

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco belongs to the generation of Italian musicians which emerged in that awkward period following the First World War (and the death of Puccini in 1924) when, for the first time in 500 years, Italy was no longer in the forefront of European music. A native of Florence, Castelnuovo-Tedesco studied with Pizzetti and Casella, and while still in his teens showed an extraordinary facility as a composer. Even today it is nearly impossible to make a balanced assessment of a career so prolific and varied, which included: 6 operas, 4 ballets, 11 overtures to Shakespeare plays, 9 concerti for various instruments (including 2 for guitar), 3 oratorios, several hundred songs, dozens of chamber works, dozens of instrumental sonatas, scores of piano works, 14 guitar works, and much more. Not surprisingly there is a great range of quality in this creative torrent, from works of sparkling wit and clarity to compositions notable both for technical mastery shameless note-spinning.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s musical style was formed in the heyday of Neo-classicism characteristic of Italian composers in the 1920s and ‘30s, reacting against the ingrained traditions of Italian operatic Romanticism, and not surprisingly was strongly influenced by such composers as Ravel, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. With the approach of the Second World War, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who was Jewish, emigrated to the USA, settling in Beverly Hills, becoming an American citizen in 1946. The prevailing neo-classical trends in American musical life were congenial to Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who received many commissions, composed film scores for Hollywood, and held several university positions as teacher of composition, continuing his active creative life to the very end.

The First Guitar Concerto, Op. 99, dates from 1939, early in the composer’s American period. The opening allegretto lays out a sprightly first subject in a short orchestral introduction, then taken up by the soloist, with lively interjections from winds and upper strings, The chordal secondary subject carries a surprising, faint suggestion of the Richard Strauss, always rhythmically pointed, the soloist in the forefront. The brief development is ushered in with a horncall figure in the background over rustling strings, leading to a more extended reworking of the primary thematic material. A section marked “quasi recitativo” for the solo guitar leads in the recapitulation, which proceeds as before.

The slow movement, andantino alla romanza opens with the guitar alone, reflective and lyrical, soon joined by the winds, with the clarinet and flute in a canonic dialogue. The strings provide an expessive background,with strumming chords in the solo instrument soon returning to the opening. Again unaccompanied, the guitar once more is meditative and at peace. Joined by winds against the rich sonority of the strings, the movement comes to a hushed close.

The finale, bearing the unusual marking ritmico e cavalleresco (“rhythmic and chivalrous”) lives up to expectations, sallying forth with a nimble, dancelike theme in the orchestra, immediately taken over by the guitar. A transitional passage in the oboe leads to an increasingly richly textured, often chromatically inflected middle section, with broad strumming chords in the solo instrument, and a hint of hispanic coloration as well. Following an episode with layers of wind sonority against sustained strings, the rhythmic figure from the opening recurs, background to a more slowly-moving melody in the guitar. An extended cadenza leads to the concluding section, the rhythmic energy of the opening theme bringing the concerto to a brilliant conclusion.