Platero y Yo: A new setting for Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s musical ideas

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was a central figure in the Twentieth Century’s Italian and European musical culture. His works were played by the best soloists of his generation: Jascha Heifetz, Walter Gieseking and Andrés Segovia. To the latter he dedicated much of his compositional impetus to the development of a modern guitar repertoire.

My project involves the work Platero y Yo, based on the poems by Juan Ramón Jiménez, written by the Italian composer for reciting voice and solo guitar. The literary work talks about the friendship between the poet and a donkey, called Platero, which is narrated through a series of short prose works, describing also the Andalusian landscapes.

The main aim of the project is to arrange the pieces for a small chamber ensemble including reciting voice, guitar, violin, cello, flute and clarinet. Despite having written very much for the guitar, Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s intentions cannot be entirely expressed on the instrument without a proper revision. My will is to expand and reinforce through the ensemble’s timbrical nuances, the connections between the music of Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Jiménez’s poetry.