Guitar Quintet Op.143 (1950)

The broad outlines of Castelnovo-Tedesco’s career are roughly parallel to those of Erich Korngold. They were forced out of their native countries – Castelnuovo-Tedesco from Italy, Korngold from Austria – at much the same time and for the same reason; they both settled in the United States and both found a professional refuge in the film studios. If Castelnuovo-Tedesco was less successful as a film composer than Korngold, his broadly neo-classical style proved to be more acceptable in the concert hall in the years after the War than Korngold’s post-Hollywood romanticism. Indeed, he was highly prolific, producing not far short of 100 works for guitar alone – all of them, he said, inspired by Andrés Segovia who, as an admirer of the Guitar Concerto of 1939, persuaded him to write the Guitar Quintet for a concert with the Paganini Quartet in Los Angeles in 1950.

According to the composer, the Quintet is “a melodious and serene work, partly neo-classic and partly neo-romantic (like most of my works).” Certainly, the two main themes of the sonata-form Allegro vivo e schietto (schiettto, incidentally, means “straightforward”) are contrasted by the classical manner of the first and the romantic shape of the second, although they are actually related by the rhythmic figure they have in common. An interesting feature of the Andante mesto is that, while it has a classically quasi-fugal beginning, it is romantic enough to include a second theme marked “Souvenir d’Espagne” in tribute to Segovia. The third movement is a resourcefully scored combination of scherzo and march incorporating two witty trios. Again following classical precedent, the Finale is a lively rondo and, again paying tribute to Segovia, it includes an episode with unmistakably Spanish dance rhythms.