Born in
Florence, he was descended from a prominent banking family that had lived in
Tuscany, specifically in
Siena, until the latter half of the 19th century. His father was Amedeo and his elder brothers Ugo (born in 1890, lawyer) and Guido (born in 1891, engineer). Castelnuovo-Tedesco was first introduced to the piano by his mother, Noemi Senigaglia, and he composed his first pieces when he was just nine years old. After completing a degree in piano in 1914 under
Edgardo Del Valle de Paz (1861–1920), well-known composer and pianist pupil of Beniamino Cesi, he began studying composition under renowned Italian composer
Ildebrando Pizzetti, and received a diploma in composition in 1918. He soon came to the attention of composer and pianist
Alfredo Casella, who included the young Castelnuovo-Tedesco's work in his repertoire. Casella also ensured that Castelnuovo's works would be included in the repertoires of the
Società Italiana di Musica Moderna (later the
Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche), granting him exposure throughout Europe as one of Italy's up-and-coming young composers. Works by him were included in the first festival of the
International Society of Contemporary Music, held in
Salzburg,
Austria, in 1922. In 1926, Castelnuovo-Tedesco premiered his first opera
La Mandragola, based on a play by
Niccolò Machiavelli. It was the first of his many works inspired by great literature, and which included interpretations of works by
Aeschylus,
Virgil,
John Keats,
William Wordsworth,
Walt Whitman,
Miguel de Cervantes,
Federico García Lorca, and especially
William Shakespeare. Another major source of inspiration for him was his Jewish heritage, most notably the Bible and Jewish liturgy. His Violin Concerto No. 2 (1931), written at the request of
Jascha Heifetz, was also an expression of his pride in his Jewish origins, or as he described it, the "splendor of past days", in the face of rising
anti-Semitism that was sweeping across much of Europe. At the 1932 festival of the
International Society of Contemporary Music, held in
Venice, Castelnuovo-Tedesco first met the Spanish
guitarist Andrés Segovia. The meeting inspired Castelnuovo-Tedesco to write for the guitar, beginning with his
Variazioni attraverso i secoli (Variations à travers les siècles) (Variations through the ages), Op. 71 (1932), and later his Guitar Concerto No. 1 (1939). All in all, he wrote almost one hundred compositions for this instrument, which earned him a reputation as one of the foremost composers for the guitar in the twentieth century. Some of them were written and dedicated to Segovia, who was an enthusiast of his style (Segovia called him an "incorruptible servant of artistic truth"). Even before the Italian government promulgated the
Italian racial laws in late 1938, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was banned from the radio and performances of his work were cancelled. The new racial laws, however, convinced him that he should leave Italy. He wrote to
Arturo Toscanini, the former musical director of
La Scala, and violinist Jascha Heifetz, explaining his plight, and both responded with support. As an American citizen, Heifetz began paperwork to sponsor Castelnuovo-Tedesco as an immigrant in the United States. Castelnuovo-Tedesco left Italy in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of
World War II, and settled in
Larchmont,
Westchester County, New York. He wrote his Cello Concerto in G minor, Op. 72, for
Gregor Piatigorsky. It was premiered with the dedicatee under Arturo Toscanini in New York in 1935. For Piatigorsky he also wrote a Toccata (1935), and a piece called
Greeting Card, Op. 170/3, based on the spelling of Piatigorsky's name. Like many artists who fled fascism, Castelnuovo-Tedesco ended up in
Hollywood, where, with the help of Jascha Heifetz, he landed a contract with
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a film composer. Over the next fifteen years, he worked on scores for some 200 films there and at the other major film studios.
Rita Hayworth hired him to write the music for
The Loves of Carmen (1948), produced by Hayworth for her Beckworth Productions and released by
Columbia Pictures. As a teacher, Castelnuovo-Tedesco had a significant influence on other major film composers, including
Henry Mancini,
Nelson Riddle,
Herman Stein and
André Previn.
Jerry Goldsmith,
Marty Paich and
John Williams were all his pupils, as was
Scott Bradley, who studied privately with him while both were on staff at MGM. He also maintained close contact with composer
Robert Strassburg. His relationship to Hollywood was ambiguous: later in life he downplayed the influence that it had on his own work, but he also believed that it was an essentially American artform, much as opera was European. In 1946 he became a U.S. citizen, but he remained very close to Italy, which he frequently visited. In 1958 he won the
Concorso Campari with the opera
The Merchant of Venice, which was first performed in 1961 at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under the baton of
Gianandrea Gavazzeni. His oldest son was the psychiatrist
Pietro Castelnuovo-Tedesco. His younger son was the architect Lorenzo Castelnuovo-Tedesco of Los Angeles. ==Works==