Exotica

This album sees the light in the music of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, stimulated not only by the fiftieth anniversary of his death, but especially by the revaluation for the work of this composer from both critics and the public, after years in which this musician was known to most only for his guitar works. The present album included passionate research by pianist Angelo Arciglione and violinist Eleonora Turtur, to gather in this release interpretations of various, almost unknown pages for piano and for violin and piano solo. All of these pieces are unpublished works, receiving their first recording. They trace a metaphorical path, made by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco on his journey from Florence to the United States of America - after the forced exile, in 1939, to escape the anti-Semitic persecution - always taking in the heart of Tuscany, where he returned for his holidays, after the war, whenever he could. This "musical journey" starts with piano pieces composed before leaving Italy. The other works presented date back to the years after the exile, with the evocation of exotic and Californian landscapes or Hollywood movie stars. Various musicians he met on his way were immortalized by the composer in a series of postcards in which the names to celebrate are the inspiration for the thematic invention, as in the two pages for violin and piano inserted here, both of 1954, dedicated to famous violinists who were very close to him.