Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Greeting Cards

Between 1953 and 1967, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895–1968) wrote 53 works for various instrumental ensembles that were collected together as Opus 170 and given the title Greeting Cards. Castelnuovo-Tedesco described them as ‘alphabetic pieces’: he derived their musical themes derived from ascending and descending chromatic scales, in which each note is combined with a letter of the alphabet.
On this new album, Cristiano Porqueddu plays the 21 Greeting Cards composed for the guitar. They are small, unexpected homages that Castelnuovo-Tedesco liked to give his friends, to musicians who played his works, to his pupils and occasionally also to people who were not musicians. He later declared them to be minor works, but each of them is filled with
affection, regardless of the professional status of the subject. In this imaginary gallery there are thus portrayals of legendary musicians such as Jascha Heifetz and Andrés Segovia alongside several of his students, including André Previn, Christopher Parkening and Eugene Robin Escovado.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco made each Greeting Card a vivid portrait of the dedicatee, usually by combining rhythms and atmospheres that reflected nationality, as with the Tonadilla sul nome di Andrés Segovia or the Canción venezolana sul nome di Alirio Díaz. However, there are also more abstract references, such as the Rondel on the name of Siegfried Behrend (No.6) or evocations generated by the name itself: the Fantasia sul nome di Henry e Ronald Purcell (No.38), for instance, or the Volo d’Angeli sul nome di Angelo Gilardino (No.47). What they all have in common is a depth of feeling that transcends their superficial status as ‘occasional’ pieces.
The Sardinian guitarist Cristiano Porqueddu has become known as a major interpreter of modern guitar music, not least thanks to his extensive catalogue of recordings on Brilliant Classics. This includes his own music – solo and concertos – as well as albums dedicated to his teacher Angelo Gilardino and wide-ranging collections of works by European and American composers, many of which were composed especially for him.

• Tonadilla on the name of Andres Segovia; Rondel on the name of Siegfried Behrend; Preludio in forma di habanera on the name of Bruno Tonazzi; Tanka on the name of Isao Takahashi; A lullaby for Eugene to Eugene Robin Escovado; Song of the Azores on the name of Enos; Canzone Siciliana sul nome di Mario Gangi; Ballatella on the name of Christopher Parkening; Sarabande on the name of Rey de la Torre; Romanza sul nome di Oscar Ghiglia; Homage to Purcell; Cancion Cubana on the name of Hector Garcia; Cancion venezolana sul nome di Alirio Diaz; Cancion argentina sul nome di Ernesto Bitetti; Estudio sul nome di Manuel Lopez Ramos; Aria da Chiesa sul nome di Ruggero Chiesa; Brasileira sul nome di Laurindo Almeida; Japanese print on the name of Jiro Matsuda; Volo d'angeli sul nome di Angelo Gilardino; Canzone Calabrese on the name of Ernest Calabria; Tarantella campana on the name of Eugene Di Novi
  +Angelo Gilardino: Capriccio sopra la lonananza (Omaggio a Castelnuovo-Tedesco)
  +Sonata Mediterranea (in Erinnerung an Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco)