Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, born in Florence, studied
composition and pianoforte at the Instituto Musicale
Cherubini and later at the Liceo Musicale of Bologna.
His mentors were Pizzetti and Casella, members of the
influential and progressive Società Italiana di Musica, a
group of composers, including Malipiero and Respighi,
with whom Castelnuovo-Tedesco became closely
associated.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s interest in writing for the
guitar began with his introduction to Andrés Segovia,
who had travelled to Italy with Manuel de Falla, at the
Venice International Festival in 1932. As a result he was
to compose over one hundred works for the guitar,
including concertos, chamber music, many solos and
some of the finest pieces for two guitars, the latter
inspired by the illustrious French duo, Ida Presti and
Alexandre Lagoya.

In 1939, as a result of Mussolini’s anti-Jewish
edicts, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was obliged to seek refuge
abroad. After settling in California, he became aprolific
writer of film music between 1940 and 1956, in the
same period composing more than seventy concert
works. As a member of the faculty of the Los Angeles
Conservatory of Music, he numbered among his pupils
Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, André Previn, and the
composer, John Williams.

A guitar tradition of duo playing stretches back to
the early nineteenth century when Fernando Sor wrote
several outstanding duets to perform with his friend,
Dionisio Aguado, while various other
composer/performers such as Mauro Giuliani and
Fernando Carulli also composed fine works for two
guitars. In the twentieth century a number of
distinguished duos established an international
reputation, the most eminent being the famous duo of
Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya to whom Castelnuovo-Tedesco dedicated the Preludes and Fugues, Op. 199.

The two movements of Fuga elegiaca for two
guitars were composed in September and October 1967,
the composition