Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1968, a 72-year old Italian-born American composer named Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco died in Beverly Hills, California. As a young man, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was already known as a rising composer, concert pianist, music critic and essayist.

In 1939 he left Mussolini’s Italy and came to America, and like a lot of European musicians of the time, he found work writing film scores for major Hollywood studios. Castelnuovo-Tedesco became an American citizen, and eventually taught at the Los Angeles Conservatory, where his pupils included many famous names from the next generation of film composers, including Jerry Goldsmith, Henry Mancini, Andre Previn, Nelson Riddle and John Williams.

In addition to film scores, Castelnuovo-Tedesco composed a significant body of concert music, including concertos for the likes of Heifetz and Sergovia. One high point in the composer’s post-war career occurred in the 1960s, when his Shakespearean opera “The Merchant of Venice” was staged in both Italy and Los Angeles.

A number of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s works are directly related to his Jewish faith, including a choral work from 1947, entitled “Naomi and Ruth.” The composer’s mother was named Naomi, and he claimed the faithful Ruth in the Biblical story reminded him of his own wife, Clara. “In a certain sense,” he wrote, “it was really my symbolic autobiography, existing before I decided to write—to open my heart—in these pages.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895 - 1968) Naomi and Ruth St.Martin's Academy and Chorus; Sir Neville Marriner, cond. Naxos 8.559404

On This Day

Births

• 1937 - American composer David Del Tredici, in Cloverdale, Calif.;

Deaths

• 1736 - Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, age 26 (of consumption), in Pozzuoli;

• 1881 - Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (Gregorian date: Mar. 28)

• 1968 - Italian-born American composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, age 62, in Los Angeles;

• 1985 - American composer Roger Sessions, age 88, in Princeton, N.J.;

Premieres

• 1735 - Handel: Organ Concertos Op. 4, nos. 2-3 (Julian date: March 5);

• 1750 - Handel: oratorio "Theodora," in London at the Covent Garden Theater; At the same event, the possible premiere of Handel's Organ Concerto Op. 7, no. 5, as well (Gregorian date: March 27);

• 1751 - Handel: oratorio "The Choice of Hercules" in London at the Covent Garden Theater; At the same event, Handel's Organ Concerto Op. 7, no. 3 premieres following Act II of a revival performance of Handel's cantata "Alexander's Feast" on the same program (Gregorian date: March 27);

• 1833 - Bellini: opera "Beatrice di Tenda" in Venice at the Teatro la Fenice;

• 1870 - Tchaikovsky: fantasy-overture "Romeo and Juliet," in Moscow, with Nicolas Rubinstien conducting (Julian date: Mar. 4);

• 1871 - Tchaikovsky: String Quartet in D, Op. 11, in Moscow, by members of the Russian Musical Society (Gregorian date: Mar. 28);

• 1879 - Dvorák: choral setting of Psalm No. 149, Op. 79, in Prague;

• 1888 - American premiere of the revised version of Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 ("Romantic"), with New York Philharmonic-Society conducted by Anton Seidl; In the preface to a book on Bruckner, the elderly conductor Walter Damrosch claimed he conducted the American premiere of this symphony (His memory played him false: Damrosch led the first American performance of Bruckner's THIRD Symphony;

• 1894 - Massenet: opera "Thaïs," at the Paris Opéra;

• 1938 - Martinu: opera "Julietta," in Prague at the National Theater;

• 1942 - Martinu: "Sinfonietta giocosa," for piano and chamber orchestra, in New York City;

• 2002 - Paul Schoenfield: "Nocturne" for solo cello, oboe and strings, by cellist Peter Howard, with oboist Kathryn Greenbank and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Gilbert Varga conducting.