 Le compositeur italo-américain Castelnuovo-Tedesco est une des grandes figures musicales du vingtième siècle. Malheureusement, hormis quelques pièces pour guitare, on ne le connaît que trop peu. Une des raisons à cela est la frilosité éditoriale concernant les enregistrements. Voilà une goutte d'eau dans la mer pour ces pièces pour piano solo et en duo avec violon. Et encore une fois, même les premières pièces de la toute jeunesse du début du programme sont intéressantes. Les quatre portraits de stars hollywoodiennes de l'op.104, ainsi que la fin du disque, ont été écrites alors que l'auteur avait trouvé refuge aux États-Unis. Leur peinture nous montre l'art extrêmement souple de Castenuovo qui, tout en gardant son caractère, parvient à évoquer des éléments aussi divers que Marlène Dietrich ou les paysages de Californie de l'op.165 ! Enfin, les trois pièces pour violon et piano, où le modernisme d' « Exotica » et l'hommage à Heifetz et Spivakovsky ne tombent jamais dans la gratuité imitative. Angelo Arciglione joue un splendide Fazioli, Rolls-Royce des pianos, qui lui permet d'exprimer toute sa sensibilité. L'entente est parfaite avec sa partenaire Eleonora Turtur. Un premier cd qui mérite tous les éloges par son audace, la qualité d’interprétation et de prise de son. (Nicolas Mesnier-Nature) This album sees the light in a period of great attention to the music of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Florence, 1895-Beverly Hills, 1968), stimulated not only by the recurrence of the fiftieth anniversary of his death, but especially by the revaluation for the work of this composer from both the critics and the public, after years in which this musician was known to most only for his guitar works. The present work included a passionate research by the pianist Angelo Arciglione and the violinist Eleonora Turtur, to gather in this CD interpretations of various, almost unknown pages for piano and for violin and piano, all unpublished works, in the first world recording, that trace a metaphorical path, made by Mario Castelnuovo- Tedesco on his journey from Florence to the United States of America - after the forced exile, in 1939, to escape the anti-Semitic persecution - always taking in the heart of Tuscany, where he returned for his holidays, after the war, whenever he could. This "musical journey" starts with piano pieces composed before leaving Italy: the first published work - the Ninna Nanna (Berceuse) that Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote at the age of 10, in 1905 - and Calma (in Giramonte) a few years later (dated 19 July 1910), inspired by the enchanted landscape of the beloved Florentine hills around San Miniato al Monte; Scampanio (from the Wedding of Lisa Ricasoli and Boccaccio Adimari) - a work of 1911, inspired by a copy of the famous cassone (wedding chest) Adimari of the Galleria dell'Accademia - and Terrazze, of July 1936. The other works presented on the CD date back to the years after the exile, with the evocation of exotic and Californian landscapes (Exotica: A Rhapsody of the South Seas, for violin and piano, in the second version, of 1943; piano pages ten years later, El Encanto: Three California Sketches Op. 165) or Hollywood movie stars (Stars: 4 Sketches Op. 104, for piano, 1940), in which Castelnuovo-Tedesco found the main source of income to maintain his family with similar ease to that of the years preceding the exile. Various friends musicians met on his way were immortalized by the composer in a series of postcards (greeting cards), in which the names to celebrate are the inspiration for the thematic invention, as in the two pages for violin and piano inserted here, both of 1954, dedicated to famous violinists who were very close to him (Humoresque on the name of Tossy Spivakovsky Op. 170 No. 8, and Serenatella on the name of Jascha Heifetz Op. 170 No. 2, from Greeting Cards).
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