Four Centuries of Great Music April 20, 2025 Anniversaries of April Composer Birthdays

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music we are celebrating the anniversaries of the births of for four composers born in the month of April: Imogen Holst, Germaine Tailleferre, Alberto Ginastera and Mario Castelnouvo-Tedesco.


Imogen Holst was a successful British composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, musicologist, and festival administrator, who was born on April 12, 1907 in Richmond England, a  riverside town to the west of London.    She was the daughter of composer Gustav Holst.  From a young age, Holst showed precocious talent in composing and performance. After attending Eothen School and St Paul's Girls' School, she entered the Royal College of Music, where she developed her skills as a conductor and won several prizes for composing. Unable to follow her initial ambitions to be a pianist or a dancer for health reasons, Holst spent most of the 1930s teaching, and as a full-time organizer and composer.


Imogen Holst:  Suite for String Orchestra -  I. Prelude
Imogen Holst:  Suite for String Orchestra -  II. Fugue
Imogen Holst:  Suite for String Orchestra -  III. Intermezzo
Imogen Holst:  Suite for String Orchestra -  IV. Jig
BBC Concert Orchestra & Alice Farnham
Imogen Holst: Discovering Imogen
NMC Recordings


Germaine Tailleferre was born Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse in  Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne, France on April 19, 1892.  On previous episodes of Four Centuries of Great Music I have described her changing her name from "Taillefesse" to "Tailleferre" to spite her father, who had refused to support her musical studies.  She studied piano with her mother at home, composing short works of her own, after which she began studying at the Paris Conservatory where she met Louis Durey, Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, and Arthur Honegger the other composers who with her became known as Les Six.

Lets listen to a couple of works by Germaine Tailleferre.

Germaine Tailleferre: Concerto Pour Piano: I.
Germaine Tailleferre: Concerto Pour Piano: II.
Germaine Tailleferre: Concerto Pour Piano: III.
California Parallèle Ensemble, UC Santa Cruz Orchestra & Nicole Paiement
La musique de Germaine Tailleferre, Vol. II
Helicon Records


Germaine Tailleferre: Trio pour Piano, Violon et Violoncelle: I. Allegro animato
Germaine Tailleferre: Trio pour Piano, Violon et Violoncelle: II. Allegro vivace
Germaine Tailleferre: Trio pour Piano, Violon et Violoncelle: III. Moderato
Germaine Tailleferre: Trio pour Piano, Violon et Violoncelle: IV. Tres Anime

Manuel Zigante, Cristina Ariagno & Massimo Marin
Tailleferre: Chamber Music and Piano Music
Brilliant Classics


Alberto Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires on April 11, 1916 and received his musical education at Williams Conservatory in Buenos Aires, graduating in 1938.  He studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood in 1945–47.  As a young professor, he held a number of teaching posts. Among his notable students was Ástor Piazzolla (who studied with him in 1941).

Ginastera wrote the music for Estancia in 1941 following a commission by the American dance company Ballet Caravan. Given his deep knowledge of the Argentinian landscape,
Ginastera was perhaps the only composer qualified to take on such a project–and as he began to work on the score, he had in mind a series of rustic scenes from the Pampas.

Ginastera finished the work on schedule, but Ballet Caravan was disbanded in 1942, forcing the premiere to be postponed. The four-movement suite from the ballet, however, was performed on 12th May 1943, at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, before the full ballet finally received its premiere at the same venue more than nine years later.

Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 1, El Amanecer - Introducción y escena
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 1, El Amanecer -
Pegueña danza            
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 2, La Mañana -
Danza del trigo           
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 2, La Mañana -
Los trabajadores agrícolas        
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 2, La Mañana -
Los peones de hacienda       
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 2, La Mañana - Los puéblelos            
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 3, La Tarde - Triste targe          
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 3, La Tarde - La doma               
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 3, La Tarde - Idilio crepuscular           
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 4, La Noche - Nocturno           
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 5, El Amanecer - Escena       
Alberto Ginastera:  Estancia, Op. 8: Scene 5, El Amanecer - Danza final (Malambo)       

Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel & Gustavo Castillo
Fandango
Los Angeles Philharmonic Release

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was burn in Florence Italy on April 3, 1895.  He 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, but has written works ranging from opera, to art songs, to chamber music to a cello concerto. In 1939 he emigrated to the United States and became a film composer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next fifteen years, most of which he did not receive composer credit for.


Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco:  String Quartet No. 1 in G major, Op. 58 (1929)
String Quartet No. 1 in G major, Op. 58 I. Arioso e sereno – Un poco meno mosso – Più mosso e agitato – Tempo I
     
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco:  String Quartet No. 1 in G major, Op. 58 II. ‘Strimpellata’: Mosso e spensierato – Dolce e arioso – Tempo I – Dolce e arioso –      Più tranquillo – Tempo I – Calmo              

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco:  String Quartet No. 1 in G major, Op. 58 III. Introduzione, Molto moderato – Più mosso – Moderato – Più mosso – Allegro rustico Tranquillo – Più mosso – Deciso – Vivace e danzante – Tempo I – Più tranquillo – Vivace – Deciso           

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco:  String Quartet No. 1 in G major, Op. 58 (1929)
Quartetto Adorno
Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Complete String Quartets
Naxos