Old fashioned and long neglected, the piano music of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco provides enough unexplored and flashy material for a young pianist to create a sensation, but not enough substance on which to establish a career.
Mark Bebbington has dipped into Castelnuovo-Tedesco's obscure keyboard oeuvre for a few representative selections, and his debut CD for Somm may deserve more than passing attention. The music has surface charm, and is demanding enough for
Bebbington to display his considerable skills. Yet the impressionistic Le Danze del Re David, the schmaltzy Alt Wien, and the pretty but banal Piedigrotta are unabashedly derivative; despite their attractive melodies and washes of color, they are emotionally hollow, as if Castelnuovo-Tedesco had a gift for stylistic mimicry but little to offer of his own character and feeling. Similarly, Questo fu il carro della morte and I Naviganti are unoriginal late-Romantic reveries, though they are at least short and make their points with few clichés. To
Bebbington's credit, he plays the music with energy and flair, and his sympathetic performances suggest that he finds merit in these pieces. However, to further his career, he would do well to explore better composers, posthaste, and not specialize in Castelnuovo-Tedesco's limited, second-rate output. Somm's recording is pleasant, though a little distant.