Music for Two Guitars - Vol. 2

Abstract

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, born in Florence, studied composition and pianoforte at the Istituto Musicalc Cherubini and later at the Lieeo Musicale of Bologna. His mentors were Pizzetti and Casella, members of the influential and progressive Societa Italiana di Musica, a group of composers, including Malipiero and Respighi, with whom Castelnuovo-Tedesco became closely associated. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's interest in writing for the guitar began with his introduction to Andres Segovia, who had travelled to Italy with Manuel de Falla, at the Venice International Festival in 1932. As a result he was to compose over one hundred works for the guitar, including concertos, chamber music, many solos and some of the finest pieces for two guitars, the latter inspired by the illustrious French duo, Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya. In 1939, as a result of Mussolini's anti-Jewish edicts, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was obliged to seek refuge abroad. After settling in California, he became a prolific writer of film music between 1940 and 1956, in the same period composing more than seventy concert works. As a member of the faculty of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, he numbered among his pupils Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Andre Previn, and the composer, John Williams. A guitar tradition of duo playing stretches back to the early nineteenth century when Fernando Sor wrote several outstanding duets to perform with his friend, Dionisio Aguado, while various other composer/performers such as Mauro Giuliani and Fernando Carulli also composed line works for two guitars. In the twentieth century a number of distinguished duos established an international reputation, the most eminent being the famous duo of Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya to whom Castelnuovo-Tedesco dedicated the Preludes and Fugues, Op. 199. The iwo movements of Fuga elegiaca for two guitars were composed in September and October 1967, the composition being written in response to the passing of Ida Presti at the tragically young age of 43 in April of that year. Fuga elegiaca proved to be one of the composer's final works before his death in March 1968, and for that reason is without an opus number. The Preludio is founded on a series of repeated chords. This begins agitato e tremante (agitated and trembling), followed by a theme in thirds shared between the performers and interspersed with more thickly textured chords. The Fuga opens with a gently poignant subject in A minor. After a short development section, this motif returns in octaves and chords, the coda making reference once more to the themes of the Preludio.