CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO, Mario 1895-1968

[Op. 37]. "Le danze del Re David" [Solo piano]

(Rapsodia ebraica su temi tradizionali)

Firenze: A. Forlivesi & C. [PN 11260], 1926.

Folio (340 x 255 mm). Original publisher's heavy ivory wrappers with titling and illustration within heavy line border in dark red and olive green to upper. 1f. (recto title, verso notes), 31 pp.

Wrappers slightly worn and soiled. Light uniform browning.

First Edition. Op. 37 was composed in 1925.

"By the early 1930s Castelnuovo-Tedesco became increasingly concerned for Italian Jewry, and when Heifetz approached him for a concerto (I profeti, 1931), he saw an opportunity to take a stand, later commenting (in 1940) ... 'I felt proud of belonging to a race so unjustly persecuted; I wanted to express this pride in some large work, glorifying the splendour of the past days and the burning inspiration which inflamed the envoys of God, the prophets’. About the purge which began in Italy in January 1938 he wrote, 'I happened to be the “pioneer”. My music was suddenly banished from the Italian radio and some performances of my works were cancelled. A public performance [of I profeti] scheduled by Italian radio in Turin, in January 1938 was suddenly cancelled by a mysterious telephone order from Rome, and that happened six months before the anti-Semitic laws were issued.'

In the summer of 1939, shortly before the outbreak of war, he left with his family for New York, staying in Larchmont for a year and a half before moving to California. There, in autumn 1940, he signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, beginning a relationship (from 1940 to 1956) with several Hollywood studios including Columbia, Universal, Warner Brothers, 20th-Century Fox and CBS." James Westby in Grove Music Online.

Item #34161

Price: $35.00  other currencies