When fellow émigré,
Ernst Toch presented the manuscript
of his Op. 35 Cello Concerto to Castelnuovo-Tedesco
in 1948 the Italian-born composer reciprocated
with the score of his Naomi and
Ruth. Toch referred to this
ten minute work as "one of the purest
and most touching compositions you have
ever written".
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
had been making his way in the world
of Hollywood film music after racism
poisoned the air in his homeland. He
worked happily in various capacities
on the scores of some 200 films. He
had some of the right connections. Jascha
Heifetz, was also basking in the perpetual
sunshine. Mario had written his Second
Violin Concerto I Profeti for
Heifetz in 1931. This work which I recall
as being in a demonstrative rather over-heated
style (paralleling the Achron First
Concerto of 1925) was recorded by Heifetz
for RCA.
Both Erich Korngold
and Franz Waxman had found Hollywood
their salvation and their curse. Both
continued to produce concert works alongside
the remunerative film scores. Waxman,
like Castelnuovo-Tedesco, also produced
pieces with biblical themes. A natural
if hardly inexpensive candidate for
a premiere recording project is Waxman’s
cantata for soli, chorus and orchestra:
Joshua. Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s
Naomi and Ruth is a more
modest yet masterly score. There is
no Jewish ‘accent’ to this music at
least none in the sense we hear in the
sway and ululation of the Bloch and
Achron violin concertos. In fact the
sound of Naomi and Ruth bears
an uncanny resemblance to the serenely
expressive music of Finzi, Vaughan Williams
(in his least polyphonic mode) and Rutter.
This CD presents a lovely performance
although Ana Maria Martinez’s voice
is too vibrantly operatic for this milieu.
In any event a highlight of this Milken
series.
Continuing the serene
style we come to the Sacred Service
of 1943. This was written for
choir, solo baritone and tenor and organ.
It has more of a Middle Eastern flavour.
Rather like Naomi and Ruth the
composer shows no pull towards modernism.
While Schoenberg may well have moved
in the same or neighbouring circles
Castelnuovo-Tedesco remained firmly
satisfied by singable tonality. There
is just one moment of mildly challenging
dissonance in Mi Khamokha (tr.
7) but otherwise he ploughs the fields
of ‘sweet harmony’. Even the dancing
celebratory organ line in Kiddush
(tr. 11) could have been written
by Rutter or Howells (though never toying
with dense harmonic ecstasy). Ronald
Corp’s London Chorus are well up to
the fervent demands of the score as
you can hear if you sample the Adon
Olam finale (tr. 16). The soloists
can be a little wobbly but nothing to
spoil. The composer’s dream that he
might hear his Sacred Service "once
in the synagogues of Florence" was never
fulfilled. Instead it was premiered
at New York's Park Avenue Synagogue.
The three extracts
from the Memorial Service for
the Departed (1960) leave me
enthusiastic to hear the whole work.
For a start it is sung to perfection
by a very fine cantor with a lean and
sensuous voice. Again the watchwords
are fervour and serenity.
I am not sure if the two qualities can
live side by side but these excerpts
seem to be proof that they can.
If you are open-minded
and have an interest in the mainstream
of music written for the Anglican communion
I think you will find that these are
pleasing discoveries. They are not works
with the distinctive and almost barbarously
exotic sway of Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh.
Then come three extracts
from a collection of ‘fantasies’ for
organ or as the composer calls them
‘Preludes’. Plainly entitled Prayers
My Grandfather Wrote these tunes
were written by the composer’s grandfather
during the nineteenth century. Barbara
Harbach plays with real reverence and
in the case of V. Ra’u Banim
with fitting exuberance.
By coincidence I recently
reviewed Mark Bebbington’s SOMM CD of
this composer’s pre-1925 piano music.
That music, all drifting, suggestive
half-lights and opulent impressionism,
is very different from this. In these
works Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s musical
sincerity and integrity is what shines
through untarnished by Hollywood’s allure
and materialism.
Rob Barnett
see
Milken Archive of American Jewish Music
Cantor Simon Spiro, tenor 