Pablo Casals
As the first modern cello virtuoso, Pablo Casals created a new appreciation of the instrument and its repertory when the concert stage was still considered the exclusive playground of the piano and violin. Casals also devoted his formidable musical skills to composition and conducting, leaving many insightful readings of the standard orchestral repertory to posterity via recordings. He is remembered today as much for his pacifism and regard for human life as for his musicianship (he once stated that "the life of a single child is worth more to me than all my music").
Casals came to his true instrument relatively late in life, having first developed some degree of skill on the piano, violin, and organ. Discovery of the cello at the age of 11 led to studies (from 1887 on) with J. Garcia at the Barcelona Municipal Music School. After a period of supporting himself playing in local cafés, Casals was granted a royal scholarship to the Madrid Conservatory in 1893, where he worked with Tomás Bretón, and later in Brussels in 1895.
After a brief tenure as a cellist at the Folies-Marigny music hall in Paris, Casals returned to teach and perform in Barcelona, and joined the first of a series of notable chamber ensembles with which he would be associated: a piano trio with Belgian violinist Crickboom and well known pianist and composer Enrique Granados. In 1919 Casals founded the Orquestra Pau Casals in Barcelona. Although the project was quite successful, the outbreak of civil war in 1936 forced its dissolution. Casals, who spoke out vehemently against the Franco regime, was forced to seek refuge in the Catalan village of Prades. Following the Second World War, saddened by the lack of any definitive action against the Franco regime by major world powers, Casals elected to cease performing as an act of protest.
Inspired by the Bach bicentenary celebrations of 1950 at the first annual Prades Festival, Casals came out of retirement to begin a new series of recordings and concerts. In 1956 he made a new home in Puerto Rico, where he founded the Puerto Rico Festival. Though nearing 85, he began a campaign for peace in 1962, traveling around the world to conduct performances of his oratorio El pessebre (The Manger). Casals continued to make occasional concert appearances until virtually the end of his life in 1973.
Casals' impact on cello playing in the twentieth century cannot be overestimated. His radical approach to bow and finger technique produced a mechanical prowess far beyond any other cellist of the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. In addition, Casals was the first cellist to incorporate the kind of left-hand shifting techniques which had been employed for decades by violinists, thus allowing for far greater agility on the cello than had been previously thought possible. Always scornful of "flashy," superficial virtuosi, Casals strove tirelessly to develop and maintain the kind of intense musical concentration which he considered to be the true artist's responsibility.
Casals' virtues as a composer are less unimpeachable; very little of his music was published during his life. Works such as his Hymn to the United Nations (1971), on text by W.H. Auden, and, of course, El pessebre (composed 1943-1960) did receive numerous performances, but his works received little more than cursory notice by the musical establishment. However, the steadfast devotion which so defined his performing persona is evident in such works as the Revérie for cello and piano (1896), or the much later Sonata for violin and piano, which he worked on sporadically from about 1945 to 1972.
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Beethoven: Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1; Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 3; Violin Sonata No. 9 'Kreutzer' (Wilhelm Kempff: Complete Decca Recordings, Vol. 13)
Wilhelm Kempff, Pablo Casals, Paul Grümmer, Georg Kulenkampff
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on May 13, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: String Quintet in C Major, D.956 (Pablo Casals – The Philips Legacy, Vol. 5)
Sándor Végh, Sandor Zöldy, Georges Janzer, Pablo Casals, Paul Szabo
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on Jan 1, 1961
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pablo Casals: Bach - 6 Suites para Cello Solo
Classical - Released by Classic Themes on Mar 8, 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: St. John Passion, BWV 245 (Remastered 2024) (Live)
Pablo Casals, Prades Festival Orchestra, Hugues Cuenod, Doda Conrad
Classical - Released by Archipel on Mar 1, 2024
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Casals - Serkin: Beethoven - Sonatas Completas para Cello y Piano
Classical - Released by Classic Themes on Jun 13, 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach Suites Para Cello
Classical - Released by DiscMedi S.A. on Jun 9, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 5 No. 2; Cello Sonata No. 5 in D Major, Op. 102 No. 2 (Pablo Casals – The Philips Legacy, Vol. 1)
Pablo Casals, Mieczysław Horszowski
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on Jan 1, 1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Concertos
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Nov 8, 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Julius Katchen, Vol. 1: Bach & Beethoven (Live)
Doremi, Julius Katchen, Pablo Casals, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Eugen Jochum, Unknown Artist
Classical - Released by DOREMI on Sep 14, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pau Casals Plays Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn, et al.
Pablo Casals, Jacques Thibaud, Alfred Cortot
Classical - Released by DiscMedi S.A. on Jun 4, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Boccherini, Haydn, Elgar & Others: Cello Concertos
Pablo Casals, London Symphony Orchestra, The BBC Symphony Orchestra, Landon Ronald, Sir Adrian Boult
Classical - Released by Biddulph Recordings on Oct 13, 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Trio No. 7 in B-Flat Major, Op. 97 'Archduke' (Pablo Casals – The Philips Legacy, Vol. 3)
Sándor Végh, Mieczysław Horszowski, Pablo Casals
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on Jan 1, 1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Piano Trio No. 5 in D Major, Op. 70 No. 1 'Geistertrio'; Cello Sonata No. 1 in F Major, Op. 5 No. 1 (Pablo Casals – The Philips Legacy, Vol. 4)
Karl Engel, Sándor Végh, Pablo Casals, Wilhelm Kempff
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on Jan 1, 1962
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 1 No. 3; Cello Sonata in F Major, Op. 17 (Pablo Casals – The Philips Legacy, Vol. 2)
Sándor Végh, Pablo Casals, Mieczysław Horszowski
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on Jan 1, 1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Piano Trio No. 1 in B flat, Op. 99
Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot
Classical - Released by Infinity on Jun 30, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Early Recordings 1925-1928
Classical - Released by RCA Gold Seal on Nov 29, 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven : Complete Cello Sonatas - Variations on Zauberflöte Themes
Chamber Music - Released by Sony Classical on Nov 23, 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: 3 Cello Sonatas & Beethoven: 12 Variations, WoO 45
Pablo Casals, Paul Baumgartner, Rudolf Serkin
Chamber Music - Released by Urania on Jan 1, 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pablo Casals - l'émotion du violoncelle
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on Feb 10, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Naydn: Cello Concerto in D Major, H.VIIb No. 2; Boccherini: Cello Concerto in B-Flat Major, G.482 (Pablo Casals – The Philips Legacy, Vol. 7)
Maurice Gendron, Orchestre Lamoureux, Pablo Casals
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on Jan 1, 1961
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pau Casal - Dvorak Elgar Schumann
Classical - Released by Ermitage Records on Oct 23, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo