Pablo Casals | Biography & History | AllMusic google+ Artist Biography by Blair Johnston 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. Pablo Casals (Conductor, Cello) - Short Biography Born: December 29, 1876 - Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain Died: October 22, 1973 - San Juan, Puerto Rico The great Spanish cellist (and conductor), Pablo Casals (actually, Pau Carlos Salvador Defilló), legend has it, supported by Casals himself, that he was conceived when Johannes Brahms began his B-flat Major Quartet, of which Casals owned the original manuscript, and that he was born when J. Brahms completed its composition. This legend is rendered moot by the fact that the quartet in question was completed and performed before Casals was even born.

But even the ascertainable facts of the life of Casals make it a glorious tale. His father, the parish organist and choirmaster in Vendrell, gave Casals instruction in piano, violin, and organ. When Casals was 11, he first heard the cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to study the instrument. In 1888 his mother took him to Barcelona, where he enrolled in the Escuela Municipal de Música. There he studied cello with José García, theory with José Rodoreda, and piano with Joaquín Malats and Francisco Costa Llobera. His progress as a cellist was nothing short of prodigious, and he was able to give a solo recital in Barcelona at the age of 14, on February 23, 1891; he graduated with honors in 1893. Albéniz, who heard him play in a cafe trio, gave Pablo Casals a 1etter of introduction to Count Morphy, the private secretary to María Cristina, the Queen Regent, in Madrid.

Casals was asked to play at informal concerts in the palace, and was granted a royal stipend for composition study with Tomás Bretón. In 1893 he entered the Conservatory de Musica y Declamacion in Madrid, where he attended chamber music classes of Jesus de Monasterio. He also played in the newly organized Quartet Society there (1894-1895). In 1895 he went to Paris and, deprived of his stipend from Spain, earned a living by playing 2nd cello in the theater orchestra of the Folies Marigny. He decided to return to Spain, where he received, in 1896, an appointment to the faculty of the Escuela Municipal de Música in Barcelona; he was also principal cellist in the orchestra of the Gran Teatro del Liceo. In 1897 he appeared as soloist with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, and was awarded the Order of Carlos III from the Queen. His career as a cello virtuoso was then assured. In 1899 Pablo Casals played at.

the Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria at her summer residence at Cowes, Isle of Wight. On November 12, 1899, he appeared as a soloist at a prestigious Lamoureux Concert in Paris, and played with Lamoureux again on December 17, 1899, obtaining exceptional success With both the public and the press. He toured Spain and Holland with the pianist Harold Bauer (1900-1901); then made his first tour of the USA (1901-1902). In 1903 he made a grand tour of South America. On January 15, 1904, he was invited to play at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1906 he became associated with the talented young Portuguese cellist Guilhermina Suggia, who studied with him and began to appear in concerts as Mme. P. Casals-Suggia, although they were not legally married.

Their liaison was dissolved in 1912; in 1914 Casals married the American socialite and singer Susan Metcalfe; they were separated in 1928, but did not divorce until 1957. Continuing his brilliant career, Pablo Casals organized, in Paris, a concert trio with the piariist Alfred Cortot and the violinist Thibaud; they played concerts together until 1937. Casals also became interested in conducting, and in 1919 he organized, in Barcelona, the Orquesta Pall Casals and led itsftrst concert on October 13, 1920. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, the Orquesta Pau Casals ceased its activities. Casals was an ardent supporter of the Spanish Republican government, and after its defeat vowed never to return to Spain until democracy was restored. He settled in the French village of Prades, on the Spanish frontier; between 1939 and 1942 he made sporadic appearances as a cellist in the unoccupied zone of southern France and in Switzerland.

So fierce was his opposition to the Franco regime in Spain that he declined to appear in countries that recognized the totalitarian Spanish government, making an exception when he took part ill a concert of chamber music in the White House on November 13, 1961, at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy, whom he admired. In 1950 Pablo Casals resumed his career as conductor and cellist at the Prades Festival, organized in commemoration of the bicentennial of the death of J.S. Bach; he continued leading the Prades Festivals until 1966. He made his permanent residence in 1956, when he settled in San Juan, Puerto Rico (his mother was born there when the island was still under Spanish rule). In 1957 an annual Festival Casals was inaugurated there. During all these years, he developed energetic activities as a pedagogue, leading master classes in Switzerland, Italy, Berkeley, California, and Marlboro, Vermount, some of which were televised. Pablo Casals was also a composer; perhaps his most effective work is La sardana, for an ensemble of cellos, which he composed in 1926.

His oratorio El pessebre (The Manger) was performed for the first time in Acapulco, Mexico, on December 17, 1960. One of his last compositions was the Himno a las Naciones Unidas (Hymn of the United Nations); he conducted its ftrst performance in a special concert at the United Nations on October 24, 1971, 2 months before his 95th birthday. On August 3, 1957, at the age of 80, Casals married his young pupil Marta Montañez; following his death, she married the pianist Eugene Istomin , on February 15, 1975. Casals did not live to see the liberation of Spain from the Franco dictatorship, but he was posthumously honored by the Spanish government under King Juan Carlos I, which issued in 1976 a commemorative postage stamp in honor of his 100th birthday.

Source: Bakerן¿½s Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Classical Musicians (1997) Contributed by Aryeh Oron (March 2002) What It Means To Play Pablo Casals' Cello : Deceptive Cadence : NPR What It Means To Play Pablo Casals' Cello Embed Embed What It Means To Play Pablo Casals' Cello What It Means To Play Pablo Casals' Cello Embed Embed Amit Peled is preparing to re-create a century-old cello recital by Pablo Casals, using the master's own instrument. Here, he shows if off in NPR's Washington, D.C., studios. Colin Marshall/NPR hide caption toggle caption Colin Marshall/NPR Amit Peled is preparing to re-create a century-old cello recital by Pablo Casals, using the master's own instrument. Here, he shows if off in NPR's Washington, D.C., studios. Colin Marshall/NPR When Amit Peled was 10, his parents gave him a gift: a cassette of music by cello master Pablo Casals. Peled had no classical background; his parents were not musicians.

He says his own budding interest in the cello was a scam, a way of getting close to a girl in his town who happened to play the instrument. And yet, every night, he would fall asleep with the tape playing from a boombox beside his bed. The music made an impression. "I would call him the grandfather of classical music of the 20th century — not just for cellists," Peled says. "He really shaped what we know today of how to make a phrase, and was a bridge from the old times, from romantic music, to our day. He played the Brahms Sonata for Brahms. I mean, that link is something that you can't stop thinking about." Peled's obsession became devotion; today he's an acclaimed cellist himself. Now, he's found another way to follow in his idol's footsteps. On Thursday, Feb. 12, Peled will appear at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, where Casals gave a recital 100 years ago this week, to perform the exact same program in a live webcast .

More than that, he'll do it with the same instrument: Casals' 1733 Goffriller cello, presented to him by the late master's widow. Article continues after sponsorship He joined David Greene in NPR's Washington, D.C., studios to play the instrument and talk about its significance and his own journey to this moment. Hear their conversation at the audio link. Centuries-Old Cello Is Awakened; Smells Like The Maestro's Pipe Centuries-Old Cello Is Awakened; Smells Like The Maestro's Pipe Embed Embed What It Means To Play Pablo Casals' Cello What It Means To Play Pablo Casals' Cello Embed Embed In the second part of a conversation, David Greene talks to Amit Peled about playing the cello of his idol, the late Pablo Casales. Peled performs a recital at Baltimore's Peabody Institute Thursday. DAVID GREENE, HOST: Did you ever go up in the attic or down in the basement and find a really old piece of furniture and think, I could use this? Well, here's someone who can relate.

AMIT PELED: If you take an old furniture from 1733 - an old antique that was covered for years and years and years, and you want to put it back in the living room, you'll have to probably fix it. There are cracks. You'll have to glue again. You'll have to take the dust away. At the end of the day, it's a piece of wood. GREENE: That's Amit Peled. And the piece of wood he's talking about is a centuries-old cello once owned by his idol, the late, great cellist Pablo Casals. As a child, Amit listened to Casals' music on cassette, again and again. And as he told us on yesterday's program, the late maestro's wife loaned him Casals' cello after some probing interviews. We wanted to hear more today about what it was like to first take that cello out of the case. PELED: Your dream is, OK, I'll take this cello, and I'll put the bow and it will sound like the most amazing cello I remember from that tape cassette from my childhood.

But I took it out, and it was like an old man saying to me, why are you bothering me? Let me keep sleeping. What are you doing? And I could smell his pipe. Casals would teach with his pipe on. And the ashes would fall into the cello. He wouldn't care. He loved the cello, but he would just - full of ashes. And you know people who smoke pipe. You smell the pipe through them all the time. GREENE: Yeah. PELED: And I could smell it. The cello was alive in that sense but was dead musically. GREENE: After some restoration, it is now alive. And he played it for us in our studios. (SOUNDBITE OF CELLO) GREENE: And Amit will play this cello again tonight at Baltimore's Peabody Institute, where he teaches. He'll be performing the same set of music that Casals himself performed at Peabody on this very day a hundred years ago. PELED: And I like to call it - it's like a good meal, starting with aperitif, which is a Handel sonata. Then comes a big steak, which in this case is a Bach suite.

And then, second half, it's all desserts. GREENE: These will be some more fun pieces that you play there. PELED: Fun pieces, yeah. That's exactly the word - short pieces, fun, short poetry. Who goes to a restaurant and eats three steaks and then feel good? GREENE: I love the metaphor. So you are making a cello recital cool again? PELED: That's exactly what I want to do. GREENE: Amit, I don't know. Do we say break a leg for a cello recital? PELED: You can say break a leg. GREENE: Break a leg. PELED: I just hope to stay alive after this recital. It's little bit of pressure. GREENE: Well, thank you for coming in and chatting with us. PELED: My pleasure. (SOUNDBITE OF CELLO) GREENE: That's Amit Peled, playing on the cello that belonged to his idol, Pablo Casals. Copyright © 2015 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc.

, an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Pablo Casals Pablo Casals Tweet The great Spanish cellist (and conductor), Pablo Casals (actually, Pau Carlos Salvador Defilló), legend has it, supported by Casals himself, that he was conceived when Johannes Brahms began his B-flat Major Quartet, of which Casals owned the original manuscript, and that he was born when J. Brahms completed its composition. This legend is rendered moot by the fact that the quartet in question was completed and performed before Casals was even born. But even the ascertainable facts of the life of Casals make it a glorious tale. His father, the parish organist and choirmaster in Vendrell, gave Casals instruction in piano, violin, and organ. When Casals was eleven, he first heard the cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to study the instrument.

In 1888 his mother took him to Barcelona, where he enrolled in the Escuela Municipal de Música. There he studied cello with José García, theory with José Rodoreda, and piano with Joaquín Malats and Francisco Costa Llobera. His progress as a cellist was nothing short of prodigious, and he was able to give a solo recital in Barcelona at the age of fourteen, on February 23, 1891; he graduated with honors in 1893. Pablo Casals was also a composer; perhaps his most effective work is La sardana, for an ensemble of cellos, which he composed in 1926. His oratorio El pessebre (The Manger) was performed for the first time in Acapulco, Mexico, on December 17, 1960. One of his last compositions was the Himno a las Naciones Unidas (Hymn of the United Nations); he conducted its first performance in a special concert at the United Nations on October 24, 1971, two months before his 95th birthday.

On August 3, 1957, at the age of 80, Casals married his young pupil Marta Montañez; following his death, she married the pianist Eugene Istomin, on February 15, 1975. Casals did not live to see the liberation of Spain from the Franco dictatorship, but he was posthumously honored by the Spanish government under King Juan Carlos I, which issued in 1976 a commemorative postage stamp in honor of his 100th birthday. Pablo Casals Pablo Casals Biography Born: December 29, 1876; Vendrell, Catalonia Died: October 22, 1973; San Juan, Puerto Rico 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 Read more 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 cafï¿½s, Casals was granted a royal scholarship to the Madrid Conservatory in 1893, where he worked with Tomï¿½s Bretï¿½n, 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 Revï¿½rie for cello and piano (1896), or the much later Sonata for violin and piano, which he worked on sporadically from about 1945 to 1972. Read less Browse 1-25 of 34 Available Recordings Sort By: Label: Warner Classics Catalog: 555053 Release Date: 04/22/2016 Number of Discs: 7 Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Niccolï¿½ Paganini, Pablo de Sarasate ... Performer: Yehudi Menuhin, Eugene Istomin, Pablo Casals, Mieczyslaw Horszowski ... Conductor: Georg Schnï¿½evoigt, Gary Bertini, Edmond de Stoutz, Istvï¿½n Kertï¿½sz ... Orchestra/Ensemble: New Friends of Music Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra ...

CD: $26.99 Label: Warner Classics Catalog: 555050 Release Date: 04/22/2016 Number of Discs: 91 Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny, Arcangelo Corelli ... Performer: Yehudi Menuhin, Hubert Giesen, Artur Balsam, Marcel Gazelle ... Conductor: Landon Ronald, Pierre Monteux, Jean Fournet, Anatole Fistoulari ... Orchestra/Ensemble: London Symphony Orchestra, Paris Symphonic Orchestra, Colonne Concerts Orchestra ... On sale! Label: Sepia Records Catalog: 1234 Release Date: 09/10/2013 Number of Discs: 2 Composer: Morton Gould, Recorded Sound, Pablo Casals, Spoken Word ... Performer: Harald Tusberg, Lasse Kolstad, Kaare Terland, Sven Libaek ...

Conductor: Jack Shaindlin Label: Warner Classics Catalog: 35922 Release Date: 07/02/2013 Number of Discs: 19 Composer: Sir Edward Elgar, Johann Sebastian Bach, Frï¿½dï¿½ric Chopin Performer: Yehudi Menuhin, Pablo Casals, Paul Tortelier, Ida Haendel ... Conductor: Sir Adrian Boult, Sir Philip Ledger Orchestra/Ensemble: London Philharmonic Orchestra, New Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra ... Recommendation Label: Emi Classics Catalog: 780032 Release Date: 02/05/2013 Number of Discs: 4 Composer: Antonï¿½n Dvorï¿½k, Sir Edward Elgar, Max Bruch, Franz Schubert ... Performer: Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot, Jacques Thibaud, Otto Schulhof Conductor: George Szell, Sir Adrian Boult, Landon Ronald, Pablo Casals Orchestra/Ensemble: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra ... On sale!

Label: Emi Classics Catalog: 4907 Release Date: 11/19/2012 Number of Discs: 40 Composer: Isaac Albeniz, Claude Debussy, Frï¿½dï¿½ric Chopin, Franz Liszt ... Performer: Alfred Cortot, Pablo Casals, Jacques Thibaud, Charles Panzera ... Orchestra/Ensemble: International String Quartet Label: Opus Kura Catalog: 2100 Release Date: 09/11/2012 Number of Discs: 1 Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert ... Performer: Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot On sale! Label: Zyx Records Catalog: 10131 Release Date: 05/25/2012 Number of Discs: 5 Composer: Robert Schumann Performer: Pablo Casals, Yehudi Menuhin, Dinu Lipatti, Walter Gieseking ... Conductor: Piero Coppola, Leonard Bernstein, Henry Adolph, Josef Krips ...

CD: $12.99 Label: Regis Catalog: 5010 Release Date: 03/13/2012 Number of Discs: 5 Composer: Sir Edward Elgar Performer: Alfredo Campoli, Pablo Casals Conductor: Sir Adrian Boult Orchestra/Ensemble: London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra On sale!

Label: Warner Classics Catalog: 85290 Release Date: 01/24/2012 Number of Discs: 2 Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach Label: Zyx Records Catalog: 10105 Release Date: 11/19/2010 Number of Discs: 2 Composer: Johannes Brahms, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky Performer: Vladimir Horowitz, Pablo Casals, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Shura Cherkassky Conductor: Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Ludwig, Richard Kraus CD: $13.99 Label: Doremi Records Catalog: 7936 Release Date: 09/14/2010 Number of Discs: 1 Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven Performer: Julius Katchen, Pablo Casals Conductor: Eugen Jochum Label: Music & Arts Catalog: 1223 Release Date: 08/11/2009 Number of Discs: 8 Composer: Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Claude Debussy, Antonï¿½n Dvor

ï¿½k ...

Performer: Szymon Goldberg, Artur Balsam, Zara Nelsova, Victor Babin ... Conductor: Szymon Goldberg, Gerhard Samuel, Eduard Van Beinum, Dimitri Mitropoulos ... Recommendation Label: Philips Catalog: 420077 Release Date: 01/30/2009 Number of Discs: 1 Composer: Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven Performer: Pablo Casals, Sandor Vï¿½gh, Sandor Zï¿½ldy, Georges Janzer ...

ArkivCD $16.99 Label: Cbs Masterworks Portrait Catalog: 52535 Release Date: 10/22/2008 Number of Discs: 1 Composer: Johannes Brahms Performer: Joseph Szigeti, Myra Hess, Pablo Casals Conductor: Eugene Ormandy Label: Philips Catalog: 420855 Release Date: 09/16/2008 Number of Discs: 1 Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven Performer: Pablo Casals, Sandor Vï¿½gh, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Karl Engel Recommendation Label: Sony Catalog: 728187 Release Date: 04/29/2008 Number of Discs: 2 Composer: Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Max Bruch ... Performer: Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Paul Tortelier, Alexander Schneider ... Conductor: Eugene Ormandy, Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern, Leonard Bernstein ... Orchestra/Ensemble: Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Franz Liszt Academy Chamber Orchestra ...

CD: $15.99 Label: Emi Great Recordings Of The Century Catalog: 64057 Release Date: 12/26/2007 Number of Discs: 3 Composer: Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Joseph Haydn, Robert Schumann ... Performer: Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot Conductor: Alfred Cortot Label: Music & Arts Programs Of America Catalog: 1187 Release Date: 09/05/2006 Number of Discs: 12 Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms ... Performer: Pablo Casals, Yehudi Menuhin, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Christian Ferras ... Conductor: Pablo Casals Orchestra/Ensemble: Prades Festival Orchestra, London Collegium Musicum, Sï¿½ndor Vï¿½gh Chamber Orchestra ...

Recommendation Label: Emi Great Artists Of The Century Catalog: 62953 Release Date: 01/25/2005 Number of Discs: 1 Composer: Antonï¿½n Dvorï¿½k, Sir Edward Elgar, Max Bruch Performer: Pablo Casals Conductor: George Szell, Sir Adrian Boult, Landon Ronald Orchestra/Ensemble: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra Recommendation Label: Urania Records Catalog: 917 Release Date: 04/27/2004 Number of Discs: 1 Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven Performer: Pablo Casals, Paul Baumgartner, Rudolf Serkin CD: $13.99 Label: Opus Kura Catalog: 2041/42 Release Date: 10/28/2003 Number of Discs: 2 Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach Label: Emi Great Recordings Of The Century Catalog: 62617 Release Date: 10/07/2003 Number of Discs: 2 Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach Label:

 Deutsche Grammophon Catalog: 000020902 Release Date: 05/13/2003 Number of Discs: 2 Composer: Olivier Messiaen, Gabriel Faurï¿½, Scott Joplin, Manuel de Falla ...

Performer: Maurice Gendron, Jean Franï¿½aix, Bruno Canino, Lynn Harrell ... Conductor: Constantine Orbelian, Nicholas Cleobury, Riccardo Chailly, Willem van Otterloo ... Orchestra/Ensemble: Moscow Chamber Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra ... CD: $14.99 Label: Vai Audio Catalog: 1025 Release Date: 01/09/1996 Number of Discs: 2 Composer: Fernando J. Obradors, Manuel de Falla, Joaquin Nin, Enrique Granados ... Performer: Victoria de los Angeles, Paul Berl, Pablo Casals Orchestra/Ensemble: Orchestra Two men, one cello, a century apart | Hub Two men, one cello, a century apart Johns Hopkins faculty member re-creates Pablo Casals' 1915 concert at Peabody Image caption: Playing the 1733 instrument owned by Pablo Casals, Peabody faculty member Amit Peled will reprise the recital that the celebrated Spanish cellist performed at the Conservatory on Feb. 12, 1915.

Image credit: MARSHALL CLARKE By Bret McCabe / Published Jan-Feb 2015 Amit Peled looks around as if he can't believe his ears. The Peabody Institute cellist is sitting in the Bank of America lounge on the second floor of the Mount Vernon campus's Leakin Hall for a photo shoot, and the photographer has asked him to play. He draws his bow across the cello's strings and bathes the sunny lounge in rich, gorgeous music. Almost immediately Peled looks up and remarks on how great the room sounds. He turns to a student sitting nearby and asks, "Do we ever have concerts in here?" The lounge would likely not be big enough to accommodate the audience interested in Peled's Feb. 12 performance, which is part of the Sylvia Adalman Chamber Series. On that day Peled performs the same solo cello recital that celebrated Spanish cellist Pablo Casals performed at Peabody a century earlier. In the Feb.

7, 1915, edition of The Sun, critic John Oldmixon Lambdin wrote that "an event of the greatest magnitude will take place at the Peabody Conservatory when Pablo Casals, who is called 'the world's greatest cellist,' will be heard in recital." And Peled will perform on the cello that Casals played 100 years ago. The cello, made by noted Venetian luthier Matteo Goffriller in 1733, was acquired by Casals in 1913 and became the instrument he turned to for the rest of his life. Casals died in 1973 at the age of 96, and the cello came under the care of his widow, Marta Casals, a cellist and formidable musical force herself. In 1956 the couple co-founded the Casals Festival, an annual event in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where Casals had eventually settled after exiling himself from Franco's Spain in 1938. They also helped start up the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music.

Marta eventually remarried, and she would go on to serve as artistic director of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and as president of the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Throughout, she watched over Casals' cello, which she occasionally lent to cellists and which will eventually be donated to the Casals Foundation in Barcelona. In 2012, Peled had the opportunity to meet the musician's widow at her Washington apartment. "When I first met Ms. Casals, the intention was not to get the cello," Peled says between takes with the photographer. "It was just to get to know her. I came to her apartment and played for her. She said, 'Usually I shut my ears off when I hear a young cellist, but I didn't do that when you played.'" Also see: What it means to play Pablo Casals' cello (NPR) When standing, the dashingly handsome and casually charismatic 40-year-old Peled cuts a towering, lean figure. As he unpacked the cello before this photo shoot, it looked diminutive in his hands. When he sits to play, however, they complement each other like tango partners.

Continuing his story, Peled says, "Then she said, 'Let's have a glass of wine,' so we did." She remarked, he says, about his being a big guy and Casals' cello being small, but then suggested that if Peled had the time in the near future, he could come by her New York apartment and play it. Peled laughs, remembering the thought that raced through his head: What do you mean if I have the time? About two months later, he met her in New York and played Casals' 1733 Matteo Goffriller. Peled says it took some getting used to, but once he did, "it was amazing. And I thought that was it—I had this amazing opportunity to play this cello." The photographer asks Peled to resume playing, and he again fills the room with lovely music, speaking quietly as the flash goes off. "You've got to understand, I grew up the furthest you can imagine from classical music, in a small community in Israel in the mountains," he says. "And when I started playing cello, the first thing I got when I was 10 was a tape of Casals playing on this cello.

So from that moment to actually playing on this cello was quite a journey. So when a few weeks later [Ms. Casals] wrote me an email saying she decided to lend me the cello, I mean … ." His voice trails off, and his eyes trace a circle around the room, suggesting he doesn't quite have the words to describe the honor. He played Casals' cello for a few months before he realized it needed some work done on it to restore it to its full, rich character. Over the years the bridge and the neck that secured the strings had sunk, and some general restoration needed to be made to its woodwork. Peled says he only recently received the cello back from a shop in New York, where the restoration work took about a year to complete. He stops for a moment to point out two places where the varnish is faded away on the back of the cello, one low and one higher up. Peled says that's where Casals' knee and chest rubbed against the instrument when he played, a reminder of just how much time musicians spend with their instruments: Their bodies leave marks on each other. So what made this cello so special to Casals?

What separates one cello's sound from another? "Nobody really knows," Peled says. "It's a group of reasons—age of the wood, the varnish, the craftsmanship. But what makes this one different? It sounds like a human, this cello, sort of like an old man talking. It sounds like someone is actually talking to you, which I think is the quality Casals liked about it." Asked if he likes it, Peled shoots his interviewer a what-do-you-think? glance. The photographer then requests Peled to look in a certain direction while he plays for a few shots. He does so, closing his eyes and concentrating. This interview and photo session were catching Peled before he and the cello were to leave for tours of Russia and the Midwest, where he would perform sections, but not the entirety, of Casals' 1915 recital, which will debut at Peabody. Peled found out about that century-ago concert from undergraduate Javier Martin Iglesias, a cello student from Spain who was doing research for a paper when a librarian told him about Casals' Peabody performances.

Peled says the idea of reprising the concert came to him immediately after Martin Iglesias told him about it. It's a golden opportunity to acknowledge how Casals, his music, and his cello continue to inspire young musicians today. And on Feb. 28, 2016, Peled will perform Casals' 1915 Peabody recital at the Kennedy Center with a new solo cello piece commissioned for this cello, a way to keep its journey going into the next century. But who is the composer? Has he heard the piece yet? How long does he get to borrow the cello? So many questions are racing through the brain that they get thrown at Peled in quick succession. He opens his eyes, smiles, and shakes his head quickly, whispering, "Let's wait until the end of the piece." And for the next few minutes, everybody in the room falls silent, listening to the cello speak. On Feb. 12, Amit Peled re-creates the recital given by Pablo Casals at Peabody on the same date in 1915; 8 p.m., Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall.

Tickets are $15, general admission, $10 senior citizens, $5 students; 410-234-4800. Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall, Peabody. Tononi Cello Played By Casals Goes For $240,000 Tononi Cello Played By Casals Goes For $240,000 AP , Associated Press Apr. 27, 1991 12:40 AM ET LONDON (AP) _ An 18th-century Italian cello once owned by Spanish cellist and composer Pablo Casals has been bought for $240,000 on behalf of a young European musician who intends to play it, Christie's auctioneers said. The bidder and musician were not identified. The cello is known as the Ex-Pablo Casals and was made in Venice in 1730 by Carlo Tononi, who came from a famous family of instrument makers in Bologna. The price was an auction record for a cello by Tononi, who made many violins and violas but few cellos.

Before the auction, none of Tononi's cellos had been on the market for almost 30 years. Casals, who died in 1973, owned the cello between 1910 and 1920. The cello world auction record is $1.2 million in 1988 for a Stradivarius known as the Cholmondeley, from the name of a previous owner. © The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . How I came to play Pablo Casals’s Goffriller cello - אופוס How I came to play Pablo Casals’s Goffriller cello 17.09.2014 A portrait of Young Pablo Casals by Spanish painter Ramon Casas מאת Prof. Amit Peled View this article in Hebrew . While having breakfast at the hotel on a typically sunny and humid NY July morning, I had no idea how this cello day would unfold. A well-in-advance planned appointment with the legendary Mrs.

Marta Casals Istomin had been expanded joyfully and magically by my good friend, cellist and concert entrepreneur Neale Perl, into a cellofest – a Strad at 10:00am, Pablo Casals's Goffriller for lunch and Jim Wolfensohn's Guarnerius for dinner... The 1698 Magg Stradivarius was waiting for me as I entered the spacious show room at Christophe Landon Violins. Of course with Neale around I was treated to the king's chair with respect and anticipation. First bow stroke and the 314 year old 'wild horse' woke up. People around me blurred into one foggy image, as I got hold of my horse and went for the ride of my life! A piercing golden sound of a real magnetic Strad filled the room and it was unfortunate to wake up realizing that having that wooden box with me would cost 6.5m! Feeling warmed up and on musical cloud nine, Neale and I proceeded with our cello day to meet Mrs. Marta Casals Istomin and the historic cello of her late husband, and our cello God, Pablo Casals.

The idea of seeing that instrument up close was hard for me to grasp. How can I, a simple man, son of farmers from a tiny kibbutz in Israel, hold now the instrument that helped Casals redefine cello history? This cello made the journey with the Maestro from Spain into world fame. All the major recordings of Casals were created with this instrument, and so many musicians have grown up, and have been musically shaped listening to that sound. Simply no words! Pablo Casals I was shaking when the door was opened and Marta handed the case to me. Should I open it myself? What if it breaks when I touch it? The cello was calmly asleep when I took it over, as if an old man was peacefully enjoying a deep rest. Moreover, I couldn't resist the strong smell of Casals's famous pipe emerging from the cello as I settled down to play the first notes. My dream had come true, I was playing the most famous instrument in the world right here, right now and all I could think about was my mother being so far away in Israel, not able to see, hear and appreciate it with me.

Imagining her eyes and warm touch, I dove into the Dvorak concerto and woke up playing the last notes of Bloch's Prayer hearing Marta's approval "now that was something!" I realized that with this cello, not like the wild horse from earlier that morning, I had to find a way not to disturb the instrument's own voice, to allow its natural tone to blossom. The cello started suggesting to me different ways and colors to use and I was amazed by the palette of possibilities. This was like stepping into a museum, where one observes beauty by acknowledging it and not so much by creating it. A magical voice is planted into that magnificent Goffriller and I am so blessed to have had a personal conversation with it. Israeli cellist Prof. Amit Peled By now my day had risen to a heavenly state, and after a quick bite to eat Neale and I proceeded to visit Mr. James Wolfensohn, former Head of the World Bank and an amateur cellist. I had heard many great things about Mr. Wolfensohn, but never expected to connect with him and his cello in such a deep way.

A Stradivarius and a Goffriller could have been enough spirit for a lifetime, but now I was standing in Jim's beautiful living room and here she was - the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life... a magnificent big and reddish-like Guarnerius cello in mint condition standing next to the couch ready to be touched, ready to create magic, ready to change my life. Jim, with his warm eyes and humble look had placed himself on the edge of his seat and I went straight to work. If a wild horse and an old man had taken me to heaven before, this time a beautiful woman made me want to stay there forever. The sound of that Guarnerius was so round, rich and velvety as if I was swimming in chocolate or smelling Aphrodite. Please do not wake up... Bach suites, Brahms sonatas, Dvorak, Schumann, Haydn, Elgar concerto - I found my voice, and neither Jim nor Neale had shown any sign for me to stop. Suddenly, just when the famous ascending scale from the Elgar concerto ended, a voice: "You know Amit, Jackie found this cello for me".

He continued: "I was her first student". I stopped, wanting to hear more. Jim continued with the whole touching story of how he and Jacqueline Du Pre met and how he became such a good friend and prominent supporter of the arts all around the globe. We continued, over a cup of coffee, to discuss the world's politics, Middle-East peace process, etc., and I was amazed and humbled by this great human being who treated me since the first second as a real friend. What a lesson for life! When I went back to the hotel and was greeted by my beloved wife and adorable kids I simply said that I had had a day in heaven and would never forget it for the rest of my life. A couple of weeks later, while on tour in Germany, I got an email from Mrs. Casals Istomin announcing that she would lend me the Casals cello. Weirdly as if getting a sign from above, that same day an email arrived from Mr. Wolfensohn offering me his Guarnerius! Was I still dreaming? Wasn't that day in NY enough? Why those two on the same day? Well, why complain...? Dreams can become true and our life is reenergized by them.

I have always fantasized on just seeing the Casals cello and here I am able to play it along with a magnificent Guarnerius. Dancing with the Strad that morning in NY, conversing with the old man and making love with Aphrodite have been the highlight of my cello career. However, meeting the people behind those monuments has taught me a lesson of generosity and human kindness that will stay with me forever. I feel honored and privileged to play the Casals cello these coming years, and secretly hope of having the Guarnerius as a mistress... Prof. Amit Peled plays Pablo Casals' Gofriller Cello: נושאים The Pablo – Strings Magazine Pablo Casals’ 1733 Goffriller cello is the crown jewel of cellos By Martin Steinberg The contrasts are quite startling. Pablo Casals died in 1973, Amit Peled was born that year. Casals was a diminutive 5-feet-4, Peled is a towering 6-feet-5. Casals was bald, Peled has a lion’s mane of long black hair.

One thing unites these two cellists from opposite ends of the Mediterranean: a 1733 Goffriller. Peled, a virtuoso performer who was born on an Israeli kibbutz and studied with Bernard Greenhouse, one of Casals’ most famous students, is the latest cellist to be granted use of the magnificent instrument Casals acquired in 1913 for a reported 18,000 francs. The instrument recently underwent a year-long refurbishment. Casals called it “my best friend.” Peled calls it his “Pablo.” Because of its illustrious pedigree, you can call it the crown jewel of cellos. “The 1733 Goffriller cello is a great work in and of itself, but its long association with Casals adds a dimension of historical provenance that places the instrument in a higher cultural context,” says Kerry Keane, head of musical instruments at Christie’s auction house. “It was Casals’ conduit for his artistic expression.” Is it priceless? “I think it would be safe to say that it would cause great excitement should it ever be sold,” Keane says.

Peled doesn’t own the instrument—it’s on loan from Marta Casals Istomin, who at age 20 married the 80-year-old maestro, her teacher, in 1957. Through an arrangement with a benefactor, Peled already had been using—and still uses—a 1689 cello made by Andrea Guarneri. “I love that cello. It’s a great cello. It became my voice,” Peled says. “I’m really attached to it, but it’s very interesting to [also] have the Goffriller.” “I feel very lucky,” he continues. “The Guarneri is like Pavarotti, gorgeous coloring and voice. This cello [the Pablo] has a tenor quality to it, but the sound quality is more robust. It’s a person—it’s just able to shout, it’s able to sing.” Because the Guarneri is small, Peled says, concertgoers would often comment about how he dwarfs the instrument. “I got sick of it, that people made this comment all the time,” he says.

“It was never about the sound, it was about the size of the cello.” Upon a recommendation from mutual friend Neale Perl, Peled played for Casals Istomin in a private session at her Washington DC apartment more than two years ago. “He thought maybe she would know somebody with a big cello, somebody who could help me to have a big Montagnana or would fit my size,” Peled says. “And, of course, I said, I would love to.” The 45-minute playing session turned into an informal lesson. “She started giving me comments,” Peled recalls. “She wanted to hear more and more, and pieces that I didn’t prepare. So I played and played. It was wonderful. She says, ‘You’re such an amazing musician.’ And, then, she says, ‘Let’s have a glass of wine. And we did, and then she says, ‘If you wanted to come and try it, you could.’” The tryout on “it” was at an apartment in New York. “I was scared and nervous because of her [Casals Istomin] and because of the cello,” Peled says. “You open the case and you see this cello.

You don’t just see the cello. You see the history of the cello in the 20th century in front of your eyes. I opened the case and I started hearing the Bach Suites or the Dvorak or the trio recordings, all these stories and the ‘Song of the Birds’ [Casals’ signature piece from his native Catalonia] and the connection to Greenhouse, who was my teacher, studying with him. It all blew up in my face just seeing the cello. And then, I could smell the smell of his pipe. You could really smell it, so the presence of him was really evident there.” Peled impressed Casals Istomin enough that she decided to entrust the Goffriller to him. “He really understood or felt the way this instrument works,” she says. After passing the test, Peled joined the ranks of such cellists as the late David Soyer, Timothy Eddy, and Matt Haimovitz, who have had the privilege of using it.

“It’s something that I decided to do because the cello needs to be played, and I felt this was a way in which the maestro would love to have it happen that this instrument would be kept alive by a younger generation of cellists,“ the 78-year-old Casals Istomin says. “I just choose a person that I think deserves to do it, that it will help in a particular phase of his career, so that they’ll have to have an understanding of the instrument, an understanding of music-making by Casals.” Like the Guarneri, the Goffriller isn’t that big. Peled uses the longest endpin he could find—18 inches. He also changed how he holds the cello, adopting Casals’ position of resting it on his left knee instead of having both knees straddle the lower bouts. That intensifies the cello’s resonance, he says. “It goes into your guts, you feel it inside of you,” Peled says, referring not only to the performer, but the concertgoer. “This has something you can’t touch.” But the Pablo does touch the audience.

“Almost every place I play with it, there’s always a personal story from somebody who heard Casals play the cello, from somebody who knew somebody who knew Casals,” Peled says. He gives two recent examples. After a performance this summer in Montana, a woman told him she’s the great-granddaughter of a pianist who played with Casals. She then showed him a photo of her great-grandfather and Casals. And in Loveland, Colorado, a man produced pictures that his father—an Army photographer based in Puerto Rico—had taken of Casals there. The use of the cello was supposed to be for about two years, but within three months, Peled noticed a problem with the fingerboard—it was unusually low—and Casals Istomin decided it was time to take it to a shop for what she now calls a “thorough revision.” The surgery was performed by New York luthier Julie Reed-Yeboah. “The idea was to stabilize it because Amit had been playing it, and it was losing power,” Reed-Yeboah says.

“It was not able to withstand the pressures that were put on it, just from normal playing, the back was stressed out because the neck was coming down.” The challenge, she says, was to make sure the “sound that everybody knows” from the numerous Casals recordings would not be damaged. The work was completed in September. “Amit says it sounded much better . . . stronger and clearer,” Reed-Yeboah says. “When Marta heard it, she said, she recognized its voice, which was a big relief.” “Thank God it worked!” Casals Istomin says. “She did a wonderful job, and the cello is in great health, and hopefully it will be played for many years to come.” While the Goffriller was out of commission, Peled missed an opportunity to play it during the centenary year of Casals’ acquisition of the instrument. Peled, who is on the faculty of Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Institute, has planned a recital on the Pablo on February 12 at the Baltimore school, exactly 100 years after Casals played there.

He will perform the same program: Handel’s Sonata in G minor; the third Bach Cello Suite in C; Beethoven’s seven variations on a theme from Mozart’s Magic Flute; Faure’s “Elegie,” “Papillion,” and “Sicilienne;” a Bach aria arranged by Casals; and Saint-Saens’ “Allegro Appassionato.” “Recitals were huge entertainment back then. People would go after work and would be entertained by those [shorter] pieces,” Peled says. “Today, it has become this heavy thing, like three big sonatas. It’s tiring, even for a musician, and I see the reaction of the public. One big sonata and a lot of the aperitifs and desserts—and people love it.” But Casals would also perform the Dvorak Concerto with piano, Peled notes. “Why not? It’s a beautiful piece and you can hear it from close-by rather than in a big hall where you can’t hear the cello,” he says. “Composers, when they wrote these pieces, they had this in mind that you could play them also in a salon with piano.

I feel that maybe one reason to have this cello is to try to go back to what these great masters did, to try to do the same programs.” Peled doesn’t know when he’ll have to give back the Pablo. But, he says, he has concert bookings with the cello for the next two years, including in July in El Vendrell, where Casals’ body was returned and buried 34 years after he exiled himself from Franco’s fascist Spain. He also wants to record the Casals homestead recital on the Pablo. “I’m hoping that it will be a journey that will hopefully not end soon,” he says. Amit Peled playing the Casals Goffriller Riding ‘The Pablo’ Amit Peled has likened Casals’ cello to “a wild horse ready to run.” The restored Goffriller bears a misleading label that reads “Carlo Bergonzi 1733 Cremona.” The top is made of four pieces of pine with irregular grain at the center. The back is constructed of two pieces of maple with flames of large and irregular widths.

The instrument measures 75.10 cm (length) by 37.70 cm and 44.40 cm (widths) and has been reduced in size except for the f-holes and the maple scroll. Peled uses two bows made by Benoit Rolland and David Samuels; both are heavy (more than 90 grams). He uses Evah Pirazzi strings. — Marta’s Music Marta Montáñez Martínez was a 15-year-old cello student when she met the great Pablo Casals. Within five years, she became his student and, at age 20, his wife. They were married until his death 16 years later at age 96. She later married the great pianist Eugene Istomin, who died in 2003. Her music career has been as a cello teacher and music administrator, including a stint as president of the Manhattan School of Music. But she avoided a career as a cello performer. Why? “Well listen, when you have a cellist like Pablo Casals next to you, what would you do?” she asks rhetorically. “It’s not only that, because he was always very encouraging.

but it is the fact that he had a fantastic life. He was involved in so many things. He did so many different aspects of his life . . . that I felt that my real duty was to help him because his work was more important than mine.”

Question: What instrument was Pablo Casals associated with
Answer: Cello