Castelnuovo-Tedesco Piano Music - Claudio Curti Gialdino

Review

The following is an excerpt from Keyed In (March 2016) which can be read in its entirety here.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco occupies that sparse region of Italian composers whose works were not principally operatic. Perhaps best known for his guitar and film works, his small body of piano compositions is often overlooked. Claudio Curti Gialdino’s recent disc, Castelnuovo-Tedesco Piano Music (Brilliant Classics 94811) offers a fine example of how this composer blended his own voice with the French and Russian influences of the early 20th century. The repertoire represents the composer’s early work before he fled fascist Italy in 1939, to settle in the US.

Alt Wien Op.30 has a strong feel of Ravel’s La Valse about it. While it’s not nearly as deconstructionist, it does share a similar scale and language. The work’s unique feature is the anti-rhythmic way the composer has cast the dances of the opening and closing movements. Gialdino captures this wonderfully by holding back the Waltz and Fox-Trot, never letting them emerge as quite the dances we expect.

Despite its programmatic title, Le danze del Re David Op.37 is a freely impressionistic collection of eight rhythmic caricatures. It’s clever writing and fine playing. Gialdino brings a distinctive bounce to this set that is very appealing. He goes even further in his performance of Piedigrotta Op.32 (Rapsodia napoletana). Here, an underlying sense of Russian grandness supports a series of five colourful vignettes that concludes with some serious keyboard muscle.

Gialdino plays a Kawai in this recording, and I suspect it might be less than full concert size. It’s brightly voiced and delivers the music well.