Beethoven / Brahms: Cello Sonatas

Regular: £17.49

Sale: £17.49
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Cat No: 8110949-50

Release Date: 11 January 2001

Label: Naxos - Historical / Naxos Historical

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 2

Barcode: 636943194928

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BEETHOVEN / BRAHMS

Description
Although the Catalan cellist Pau, or Pablo, Casals became best known for reviving the six solo Suites by Bach, he might well have been born to play Beethoven, so well was his temperament suited to the composer’s music. The extreme contrasts, the heightened drama, the explosive rhythms, the inner tensions, the brooding depths, all found their counterparts in Casals’ colossal personality, and had Beethoven known Casals, he would undoubtedly have written more slow movements for the cello. Sadly, the cellists of his time were not particularly good at sustaining a proper legato tone, so Beethoven contented himself with just one true Adagio movement in all his five cello sonatas. For Casals, on the other hand, a singing legato was essential. His uniquely soulful legato was just one of the weapons with which he attacked the rather complacent cello playing establishment of his youth and changed our conception of the instrument for ever. Casals was born on 29th December 1876 in Vendrell, a little town where his father was organist and choirmaster. ‘I owe nearly all my talent at music to the influence of my father,’ he wrote. ‘As soon as I could walk he took me to all the services at the church, so that the Gregorian chant, the chorales and the organ voluntaries became part of myself and of my daily life.’ Carlos Casals taught Pau to sing, play the piano and organ and even compose; at six the boy had mastered the violin well enough to play a solo in public. Fascinated by a broom handle strung like a cello, used by an itinerant Catalan musician, he described it to his father, who built him a little cello using a gourd for a sound-box. ‘On this home-made contrivance I learnt to play the many songs my father composed, and the popular songs which reached the village from the outside world.’ At the age of eleven he heard a real cello, which confirmed it was the instrument for him. His father bought him a small one and gave him lessons; and soon he began studying at the Municipal School of Music in Barcelona. Cello playing had not greatly advanced since the days of Luigi Boccherini. The invention of the spike or end-pin had freed the body of the instrument from being gripped between the knees, so that it resonated more freely; but some players were still operating in the old way, without a spike. Worst of all, the bowing arm was restricted. ‘We were taught to play with a stiff arm and obliged to keep a book under the armpit,’ recalled Casals. While playing in a café trio to pay for his keep, he was heard by the composer Albéniz. Soon he had an ensemble of seven at a grander café, and it was while he and his father were looking for music for this band to play that he found an edition of the Bach solo Suites. He met Sarasate and with the help of Albéniz moved to Madrid, found a patron and became Queen Maria Cristina’s favourite musician, studying at the Conservatory with Tomas Bre
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