About This Item
The recording is a tribute to Ettore Desderi (1892-1974) and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968), two composers of about the same age, highly influenced in their formation by Ildebrando Pizzetti, both sharing the same cultivated and refined compositive vision, love for poetry as a source of inspiration, deep curiosity in the musical expressivity of the guitar, which ended up in Desderi regrettably too soon. With the intent of uniting and giving value to the two authors' works for guitar, we collected Desderi's complete works for solo guitar and made a first world recording of their two beautiful works for voice and guitar, which were composed within only a few years of each other Desderi's Due Cacce quattrocentesche (1955) and Castelnuovo- Tedesco's Vogelweide, Ein Lieder-Cyclus op. 186 (1960). If Castelnuovo-Tedesco is universally known for his contribution to the guitar repertoire, Desderi still needs to be rediscovered and appreciated. Born in Asti, he was a professor of composition in Bolzano and Milan - Castiglioni and Donatoni were among his students - Director of the Liceo Musicale of Alessandria and of the Conservatory of Bologna, a versatile composer, an essayist, a critic and a music promoter as well. He took a degree in architecture from the Polytechnic of Turin in 1920, and a second degree in composition with Alfano in Bologna in 1921. Moreover, he had the opportunity to study in Florence with Pizzetti. A short trip to Germany in 1928 brought him close to the International Sacred Music Association, of which he founded, in the same year, an Italian section. The great reviews he received by German music critics to his cantata Job linked him to the German culture, especially in the field of sacred music.
