Rebecca Andrade, assistant editor, Oral History Program, UCLA.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Beverly Hills, California, home.
January 18, April 25, May 9, June 13 and 20, 1981.
These midday sessions lasted from thirty minutes to one hour. A total of three and a half hours of conversation was recorded.
Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Andrade. Lorenzo Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Castelnuovo-Tedesco's younger son, was present during some of the early sessions.
The purpose of this oral history was to gather material on the lives of Clara Castelnuovo-Tedesco and her late husband, the composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. By way of preparation the interviewer chatted with associates of the composer in the Los Angeles music community and studied standard library references, such as David Ewen's
The approach taken was roughly chronological, covering the early years of Clara and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, their marriage, their emigration from Italy to the United States, and his music.
Lorenzo Castelnuovo-Tedesco was helpful in translating some of the interviewer's questions into Italian and some of his mother's responses into English. He provided some biographical material concerning his father as well.
Transcription of the tapes and the initial audit editing were done by the interviewer. She checked the transcript against the original tape recordings, editing for punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling and verifying proper nouns. Words and phrases inserted at the time of editing have been bracketed. Castelnuovo-Tedesco reviewed and approved the edited transcript. She provided the Italian spellings of some names mentioned and answered the editor's queries. At her request, an excerpt from her husband's autobiography was included in the volume.
Mitch Tuchman, senior editor, reviewed the edited transcript. Intrigued by the appearance of certain Spanish phrases, such as como se dice and como se llama , he checked the original tape recordings. There he found that the phrases transcribed in Spanish (and subsequently rendered in Italian by Castelnuovo-Tedesco in her review) had been recorded in Italian as had other Italian words and phrases, which had been deleted during the original transcription. Some English language questions and responses had also been deleted. With the aid of Sylvia Tidwell, an assistant editor with a knowledge of Italian, all of this material was restored; the entire manuscript was then reedited.
At Castelnuovo-Tedesco 's request, Nick Rossi wrote the introduction. Other front matter and the index were prepared by Oral History Program staff.
The original tape recordings and edited transcript of the interview are in the university archives and are available under the regulations governing the use of permanent, noncurrent records of the university. Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the Oral History Program.