Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Author(s): J. C. G. Waterhouse
Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 109, No. 1503 (May, 1968), p. 467
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/952421 .
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I also wonder whether for these
grand polychoral
pieces
the
very large
and
beautifully
clear Schirmer
print,
which allows
only
two or three bars on each
page,
does not cut
up
the music
just
a shade too
much to
give
the
performers
a
feeling
of
continuity.
To be
constantly turning
the
page
is as
disturbing
to
singers
as to the audience-not to mention
putting
up
the
price. Perhaps
for
large-scale
music a little
less
opulence
in
production
would be a
positive
help.
Not that it matters for
four-part music,
such
as Hans Leo Hassler's Dixit Maria Mass in the
Penn State
edition,
which is the
height
of
elegance.
Built on the material of one of his
previously pub-
lished
motets,
it shows Hassler
taking up
the missa
brevis, surely
after the
knowledge
of such Italian
composers
as Giovanni
Croce,
whose
style
is
very
similar. This is attractive music, easy
to
sing
with
its diatonic
harmony
and
madrigalian rhythms.
Again
a little more information about
transposition
(if any)
and
original
note values would have been
welcome.
Equally
attractive is the short motet Mach dich
auf,
werde Licht
by
Johann
Schein,
made into a
practical
version
by
Dietrich
Kriiger,
who has
taken his text from the collected edition of the com-
poser's
music. Like
many
motets of the
early
17th
century,
it has solo
sections,
with the voices accom-
panied by strings
and
continuo, given shape by
tutti
passages
in
triple time,
in which the instru-
ments double the voices. This would be an
espec-
ially
useful
companion piece
to
something
like
Praetorius's
readily
available Wie
sch6n
leuchtet der
Morgenstern.
Finally,
three numbers from a series called
'German
Songs
of the Renaissance'. This could
clearly
be an
extremely
useful
series,
for the
Eng-
lishman's
knowledge
of
foreign
secular music of the
Elizabethan and
early
Jacobean
period
is
very
sketchy
indeed. These
pieces by
Johann Steffens
(who
Italianized his name to
Stephani just
as
Cooper did to Coperario) show the influence of the
Gastoldi balletto and the north Italian canzonetta,
in much the same way as do the secular works of
Weelkes and Tomkins.
A bird on the hedge-row did
sit will not seem at all strange to anyone who
knows Weelkes's The Nightingale or Lady the birds
right fairly, nor will the tricky rhythms of Let him
who would not smart surprise those who have been
caught out by See, see the shepherd's queen. Just
the stuff for an enterprising madrigal group, and
edited sensibly, with quite adequate information
given by Marlin Merrill. DENIS ARNOLD
On
p.361
last month it is stated that Danzi's Variations on a
theme from Don Giovanni is
published by Schott;
in fact the
publishers
are
Breitkopf/British
& Continental-our apologies
to both,
and to misled readers.
OBITUARY
MARIO CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO died in
Hollywood
on March
16, aged
72.
Though
not the
most
important
Italian
composer
born in the
1890s,
he was the best known outside
Italy,
thanks
mainly
to the success of his
early songs
and of his
guitar
music written for
Segovia.
His talent was slender but
genuine,
seen at its best in smaller
works-notably
in some of his
many songs
from
Shakespeare plays
(1921-5).
Several of
these,
like some other
early
songs,
deserve
lasting places
in the
repertory:
their
melodic freshness and harmonic and textural refine-
ment are often
beautifully
suited to the texts and
they
invite
intriguing comparison
with the
Shakespeare
songs
of British
contemporaries.
His
larger works,
by contrast,
are seldom
inspired throughout:
pleasant
ideas are all too
readily
diluted.
A
pupil
of
Pizzetti,
he was for a time interested in
the more 'advanced' Italian trends associated with
Casella;
but the fact that
II Raggio
Verde
(1916)
at
first aroused violent
opposition
reflects the extreme
conservatism of Italian taste rather than
any
marked
modernity
in the
piece.
He soon lost contact with
modern
tendencies, though
the well known Guitar
Concerto
(1939)
shows that he was
receptive
to neo-
classical ideals at a
light weight
level. After his
emigration
to America in 1939
(he
was a
Jew)
he
won success in a field for which his talents
eminently
suited him: film music. J. C. G. WATERHOUSE
SCORES RECEIVED
J. N. DAVID Variationen uiber ein Thema von Josquin
des
Pr6s,
for flute, horn,
and
string
orchestra. Breitkopf/British
& Continental, Ils 6d
ANTHONY GILBERT Sinfonia for chamber
orchestra, op
5.
Schott 12s 6d
NICHOLAS MAW Chamber Music,
for
oboe, clarinet, horn,
bassoon,
and
piano (see
Susan Bradshaw's article on Maw,
MT
Sept 1962, p.608). Chester,
12s 6d
MOZART Serenade in
D, K203,
and March, K237,
ed Sadie.
Eulenburg,
12s 6d
SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet
No 9. Boosey,
12s 6d
ROGER SMALLEY Missa brevis (see Stephen
Walsh's
article on
Smalley,
MT Feb 1968, p.131). Faber,
30s
TIPPETT Symphony
No 2.
Schott,
28s
THOMAS WILSON Touchstone, portrait
for
orchestra, op
27
(see
Wilson's article,
MT Aug 1967, pp.697-8;
review of the
first performance, Oct 1967, p.920). International Music
Co, 17s 6d
ANDREA DELLA
CORTE,
the Italian critic and
musicologist,
died in Turin on March
13;
he was 84.
He was critic of La
Stampa
from 1919 until last
May,
and was
professor
at the Conservatorio G. Verdi and
the
University
of Turin. His books cover a wide
range:
on
composers
from
Paisiello, Piccini,
and
Gluck to
Paganini, Bellini, Verdi,
and
Alfano;
studies on
baroque opera
and on
interpretation;
and
books and articles on
many
other musical
topics.
KATHLEEN LONG, the English pianist, died in
Cambridge on March 20; she was 71. She went to
the RCM on an open scholarship in 1910, and soon
made a name for herself as a
fine Mozart player.
Endowed with a rich sense of humour, perhaps she
never took her own gifts seriously enough to reach
the highest peaks of the profession; or perhaps she
made music with such evident delight that she could
not bring herself to specialize exclusively on any one
aspect of the piano repertory. Thus, apart from her
Mozart, her Faurt ,
Debussy,
and Ravel were
equally accomplished; and many an English com-
poser has been grateful for her championing of new
music. From 1920 until recently
she
taught at the
RCM and in 1957 she was awarded the CBE.
BORIS A. MOKROUSOV, the Russian composer
of songs, operatic, symphonic, and incidental music,
and winner of a Stalin prize in 1948, has died; he was
59.
ELLY NEY,
the
German pianist,
died in
Tutzing on
March
31; she was 85. She was born in Diisseldorf,
studied in Cologne, and was widely known inter-
nationally between the wars; she had a robust,
masculine style and was particularly noted for her
playing of Beethoven and Brahms.
DEREK OLDHAM, principal tenor in the D'Oyly
Carte Opera Company between the two world wars,
died in March; he was 75.
THOMAS SIDEBOTTOM, the violinist, died in
March; he was 83. He had been awarded the Halle
Concerts Society Gold Medal for 20 years' service
in the orchestra.
467
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