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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The Complete HMV Recordings 1926-1955
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 25-08-2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Cello Suites, BWV 1007 - 1012
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 06-03-2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ludwig van Beethoven: The Complete Works for Cello and Piano
Música de cámara - Editado por Praga Digitals el 01-05-2017
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach by Pablo Casals: The 6 Cello Suites
Clásica - Editado por Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording el 16-09-2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pablo Casals - A Concert at the White House
Clásica - Editado por Sony Classical el 19-02-1962
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Chamber Music
Alfred Cortot, Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals
Música de cámara - Editado por Warner Classics el 19-05-2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Suites for Solo Cello, Bvw 1007-1012 (Live)
Clásica - Editado por Altair el 07-07-2021
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
6 suites pour violoncelle seul
Música concertante - Editado por Naxos el 01-01-1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach, Beethoven, Mozart & Schumann (Diapason n°582)
Música concertante - Editado por Les Indispensables de Diapason el 28-07-2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pablo Casals: 'Song of the Birds' and Cello Encores
Clásica - Editado por Musical Concepts el 01-01-2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Brandenburg Concerti Nos. 1 - 3 & Orchestral Suite No. 1
Clásica - Editado por Sony Classical el 01-01-1965
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trios No. 3 & No. 7 "Archduke"
Sándor Végh, Pablo Casals, Mieczysław Horszowski
Música de cámara - Editado por Praga Digitals el 01-01-2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Pablo Casals: El Pessebre (2022 Remastered Version)
Clásica - Editado por Sony Classical el 22-12-2023
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Les plus belles sardanes
La principal de Gerone, Pablo Casals, Enric Casals
España - Editado por Marianne Mélodie el 01-01-2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pablo Casals: Song of the Birds (Cello Encores)
Clásica - Editado por Regis Records el 01-01-2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: The complete Cello Suites 1-6
Clásica - Editado por Archipel el 07-04-2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
BACH: CELLO SUITES
Clásica - Editado por Nar Classical el 13-09-2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven Complete Sonatas for Cello & Piano (Restauración 2023)
Música de cámara - Editado por Lantower Records el 21-09-2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven/Schubert: Piano Trios
Alfred Cortot, Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 06-09-1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Complete Cello Sonatas & Variations on Die Zauberflöte Themes
Clásica - Editado por Sony Classical el 23-11-1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach, Beethoven & Brahms: Cello Suite and Sonatas
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 01-02-1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo