Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco - Evangélion (Alessandro Marangoni)

Information

Composer: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

• (01) Evangélion, Pt. I The Infancy
• (07) Evangélion, Pt. II The Life
• (15) Evangélion, Pt. III The Words
• (22) Evangélion, Pt. IV The Passion

Alessandro Marangoni, piano

Date: 2014

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.573316

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Review

Alessandro Marangoni follows his disc of the two piano concertos (9/12) with a first complete recording of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Evangélion (‘The Story of Jesus’), music of an introspection in marked contrast to the all-the-fun-of-the-fair flamboyance of the concertos. Willing, like Villa-Lobos, to try his hand at anything, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was scarcely less prolific, his output during his Hollywood years encompassing virtually every imaginable genre.

Though he was Jewish, much of his music is centred on New Testament texts and the present 28-piece cycle takes us from ‘The Infancy’ to ‘The Passion’. There is a pronounced Spanish flavour (possibly deriving from the composer’s association with Segovia), though to claim that the writing is ‘dramatically virtuosic’ when not ‘profoundly introspective’ is stretching things. Slight when not periodically charming and engaging, there is little to compare with, say, Mompou’s religious distillation (his Música callada) or the opulent religious masterpieces of Liszt and Messiaen. ‘The Three Kings’ plod along in comically unceremonial style (though no comedy is intended); and although ‘The Woman of Samaria’ gives us an attractive forlane, there is too little to delight and surprise those looking for unusual encores. ‘Gethsemane’ is more lengthy than moving and a final burst of hymn-like joy in ‘The Resurrection’ comes too late to redeem music that fails to match or conjure its biblical inspiration. The performance is, however, suitably poised and devotional, and Naxos’s sound is excellent.

-- Bryce Morrison, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2015/Jan/CastelnuovoT_Evangelion_8573316.htm

https://www.naxos.com/Review/Detail/?catalogueid=8.573316&languageid=EN

https://www.amazon.com/Castelnuovo-Tedesco-Evang%C3%A9lion-Alessandro-Marangoni/dp/B00ND81SP2

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Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (3 April 1895 in Florence – 16 March 1968 in Beverly Hills, California) was an Italian composer, pianist and writer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he immigrated to the United States and became a composer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next fifteen years. As a teacher, Castelnuovo-Tedesco had a significant influence on other major film composers, such as Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams. He also wrote concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Castelnuovo-Tedesco

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Alessandro Marangoni (born 1979) is an Italian classical pianist. He studied piano with Marco Vincenzi, and, after a diploma summa cum laude, continued his studies at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole with Maria Tipo. Marangoni has won a number of awards, both in his native Italy and abroad, including, in 2007, the prestigious Amici di Milano International Prize for Music. He has performed in many European countries, and in the United States, as a soloist and as a member of chamber groups. He has recorded music by composers such as Rossini, Muzio Clementi, and Liszt, for the Naxos record label.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Marangoni
http://www.alessandromarangoni.com/

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