Antonio Gomes Carlo - Il Guarany: Tank Patassini - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Album Tracks 1. Toccata 2. Canzone 3. Studio 4. Meditazione Op.43 5. Preludio 6. Ave Maria 7. Fantasia in Re Maggiore 8. Allegretto Di Concerto Op.64 9. Canto Serafico Op.70 10. Alla Fonte Di Cristo, Piccola Impressione Per Organo Op.71 11. L'annunciazione, Fantasia Pastorale Op.72 12. Libera Fantasia Op.73

The guitar became increasingly important to Castelnuovo-Tedesco through the course of his long career. 'My art tends progressively to simplify itself,' he wrote, 'and the guitar has become one of my favorite means of expression because it has led me towards the essential.' He was first drawn to the instrument after meeting Andres Segovia in Venice in 1932. The Variations á travers les siècles Op.71 followed almost immediately. Over the course of the next seven years, Castelnuovo-Tedesco produced a string of equally successful pieces for the instrument. Most substantial is the four movement Guitar Sonata subtitled as a 'Homage to Boccherini' an elegant essay in neoclassicism which evokes the courtly elegance of Boccherini's Guitar Quintets while sounding entirely true to Castelnuovo-Tedesco's own language. There followed a Capriccio Diabolico, which lives up to it's title as a homage to Paganini with fiendish figuration which delighted Segovia. Sharing the Capriccio's Opus number of 87 is a contrastingly restrained character-study of Sicilian flavor, 'Oranges in Bloom'. The last guitar piece written by Castelnuovo-Tedesco before leaving Europe for good was the Variations plaisantes sur un petit air populaire Op.95, which takes it's theme from a French folk melody after a Swiss critic had taken aim at the Sonata as merely a display piece for Segovia. Castelnuovo-Tedesco proved him wrong with another demonstration of his deep feeling for the guitar as an instrument of both display and reflection, ending with an elaborate fugue. This album is the latest in a series of new recordings documenting the output of Castenuovo-Tedesco. Rather than playing from the standard editions of these pieces by Segovia, Antonio Rugolo has gone back to the composer's manuscripts as well as consulting newer editions by Angelo Gilardino, resulting in performances which are truer to the compos

Following the example of his distant 'great uncle' Felix, Arnold Mendelssohn (1853-1933) was a highly regarded composer, particularly in the field of Protestant sacred music, in which his famous relative had already distinguished himself. In contrast, his serious interest in the classical-romantic instrumental genres only began during the First World War, as if the composer wanted to reassure himself of tradition before all of the old structures collapsed. He was already approaching seventy when he wrote his violin concerto and, immediately afterwards, the second of his three symphonies-two witty masquerades whose broad spectrum between expressive meditation and a cheerful finale offers plenty of room for reminiscence, but not imitation. Mendelssohn juggles with symbols of the past but is never at their mercy. He masters them with ease.