TANGO : from Appunti Opus 210 - Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco

“Appunti (Notes) OPUS 210” :
this opus contains preludes and studies, neo-Baroque and neo-Classical in character, which were developed in a close by collaboration with the musicologist and guitarist Ruggero Chiesa
There was a hidden didactic aim behind the Appunti which becomes clearer when the pieces are assembled together, but their individual charms raise their status from that of technical exercises or studies.
Accordingly, in this opus 210 Castelnuovo Tedesco wrote sets of (Dances) Danze del ’600 e del ’700, Danze dell’Ottocento and Danze del ’900, but died before the full intended four-volume scope of the ‘Notes’ (Appunti) could be realised, and the first two volumes had to be published as they stand.
Biographical notes:
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (3 April 1895 – 16 March 1968) was an Italian composer, pianist and writer. He was known as one of the “giants” of guitar composition having been the foremost “non guitarist” guitar composer in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for the six stringed instrument. Andres Segovia was the first one to ask him to consider to write music for guitar , with the aim of expand the repertoire and the musical horizons of his instrument.
In 1939 Castelnuovo Tedesco immigrated to the United States and became a famous and higly requested film composer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next fifteen years. He also wrote concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky.
Born in Florence, Castelnuovo Tedesco was the descendant of a prominent bankers family who had lived in Tuscany, specifically in Siena until the latter half of the 19th century.
His father was Amedeo and his elder brothers Ugo (born in 1890, lawyer) and Guido (born in 1891, engineer). Castelnuovo-Tedesco was first introduced to the piano by his mother, Noemi Senigaglia, and he composed his first pieces when he was just nine years old. After completing a degree in piano in 1914 under Edgardo Del Valle de Paz (1861–1920), well-known composer and pianist pupil of Beniamino Cesi, he began studying composition under renowned Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti, and received a diploma in composition in 1918.
In 1926, Castelnuovo-Tedesco premiered his first opera La Mandragola, based on a play by Niccolò Machiavelli. It was the first of his many works inspired by great literature, and which included interpretations of works by Aeschylus, Virgil, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Walt Whitman, Miguel de Cervantes, Federico García Lorca, and especially William Shakespeare. Another major source of inspiration for him was his Jewish heritage, most notably the Bible and Jewish liturgy. His Violin Concerto No. 2 (1931), written at the request of Jascha Heifetz, was also an expression of his pride in his Jewish origins, or as he described it, the "splendor of past days", in the face of rising anti-Semitism that was sweeping across much of Europe.
At the 1932 festival of the International Society of Contemporary Music, held in Venice, Castelnuovo-Tedesco first met the Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia. The meeting inspired Castelnuovo-Tedesco to write for the guitar, beginning with his Variazioni attraverso i secoli (Variations à travers les siècles), Op. 71 (1932), and later his Guitar Concerto No. 1 (1939).
Some of them were written and dedicated to Segovia, who was an enthusiast of his style.
Even before the Italian government promulgated the Italian racial laws in late 1938, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was banned from the radio and performances of his work were cancelled. The new racial laws, however, convinced him that he should leave Italy. He wrote to Arturo Toscanini, the former musical director of La Scala, and violinist Jascha Heifetz, explaining his plight, and both responded with support.

Like many artists who fled fascism, Castelnuovo-Tedesco ended up in Hollywood, where, with the help of Jascha Heifetz, he landed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a film composer.
Over the following fifteen years, he worked on scores for some 200 films there and at the other major film studios.
Rita Hayworth hired him to write the music for The Loves of Carmen (1948), produced by Hayworth for her Beckworth Productions and released by Columbia Pictures.
As a teacher, Castelnuovo-Tedesco had a significant influence on other major film composers, including Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Herman Stein and André Previn. Jerry Goldsmith, Marty Paich and John Williams were all his pupils,as was Scott Bradley, who studied privately with him.