Word: tedesco
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...probably doesn't know the meaning of the word. Son of a Berlin piano teacher who immigrated to the U.S. when Andre was nine, he has made a success of all the many keys he touched. Previn studied classical music under Italian Composer-Conductor Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, did considerable moonlighting in Hollywood, "cheating every minute." With a friend, Composer Lukas Foss, he recorded all the four-hand piano music of Mozart. He wrote a symphony and a quantity of piano works and chamber music. He did the arrangements for several bestselling jazz albums. And he fared well as guest...
...minor. Sunday, Verdi's String Quartet in e minor; Tchaikovskii's Fatum, Symphonic Poem, Opus 77; Strauss's Symphonia domestica, Opus 53; and The Genesis Suite (Prelude by Schonberg, Creation by Shilkret, Adam and Eve by Tansman, Cain and Abel by Milhaud, Noah's Ark by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Babel by Stravinsky, and The Covenant by Toch...
...performed at Florence's annual Maggio Musicale, The Merchant was a taut and impressive work. Composer Castelnuovo-Tedesco had so skillfully stitched music to text that every word rang with its original clarity. The opera, like much of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's work, was elegantly orchestrated, marked by sweeping vocal lines and shimmering lyric passages that echoed his admiration for Puccini. Although the Italian lines fell strangely on some ears ("Non ha un ebreo occhi?"-Hath not a Jew eyes?), the audience gave Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Merchant 15 echoing curtain calls...
Castelnuovo-Tedesco feels that in a way he is "contemporaneous" with Shylock, since "some of my ancestors were bankers in Florence when Shylock was a banker in Venice." A promising pianist, Castelnuovo-Tedesco studied composition under Ildebrando (Murder in the Cathedral) Pizzetti, built a successful prewar career, but in 1939 his music was banned by Mussolini. He fled with his family to California, where he composed movie scores, taught, and became a U.S. citizen. Although he still lives in Beverly Hills most of the time, he returns to Italy periodically, because "there is not much future in writing opera...
From the beginning, Castelnuovo-Tedesco never had any doubt that his opera would win the Campari Prize and triumph over the jinx. "The Merchant is one of the least properly exploited of Shakespeare's plays," said he last week. And he added, paraphrasing his contemporary, Shylock: "I am content...