DESCRIPTION
: The Jewish VIOLINIST and PAINTER of POLISH DESCENT ( Lodz ) ZYGMUND SCHRETER , Being a friend of PABLO CASALS , Has accompanied the FIRST rehearsals and performances at the PRADES FESTIVAL in 1951 and created an ARTISTIC CYCLE of 50 sketches and drawings. The Israeli-Jewish publisher "EKED" has picked 12 drawings and published in 1964 an ART PORTFOLIO which is dedicated to CASALS and the FIRST PRADES festival. EXTREMELY RARE. The 12 reproductions are printed on separate extremely heavy cardboard plates. Explanatory Hebrew text. EACH of the DRAWINGS is
printed on a separate large leaf . Original Illustrated cardboard PORTFOLIO / FILE . TEXT and headings in Hebrew. 12 large loose sheets + A few text pp . Around 14 x 10"
. Very good condition . Pre owned. Perfectly clean. Inner practicaly unused . The FILE is slightly worn. ( Please look at scan for actual
AS IS images ) . Book will be sent protected inside a protective packaging .
AUTHENTICITY : This is an ORIGINAL vintage 1964 portfolio /book
. NOT a reproduction or a reprint . It comes with life long
GUARANTEE for its AUTHENTICITY and ORIGINALITY.
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: Paypal & All credit cards.
SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 29 . Will be sent inside a rigid protective packaging . Will be sent around 5-10 days after payment .
Zygmunt Schreter
Zygmunt Schreter (Szreter) (1886-1977), painter born in Lodz, Poland (then part of the Russian Empire), the son of Max Schretera, manufacturer of textiles, and his wife Rose. Schreter studied in Berlin, Germany, at the workshop of Louis Corinth at the free academy of Levine Funke.
The first contact Zygmunt Schreter had with the graphics was at his father's factory, where he drew textile patterns. In addition, he was musically gifted and was trained by his mother to play the violin. At the the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he stayed with his father who had been interned in Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic). In Berlin Schreter was a violinist with the Berlin Philarmonic Orchestra and with the orchestra of Max-Reinhart's theater.
After WW1 he remained in Berlin, where he was associated with the environment of the Russian and Jewish emigration. In 1927 he first exhibited his works in Lodz, another exhibition took place in 1932 and 1933. In 1932 where his work was exhibited for the first time in Paris at the Salon des Tuileries. In 1934 he moved to Paris permanently, quickly became involved in the artistic life of the French capital. He painted portraits of people with their environment, and views of the French countryside, into which he traveled frequently. He participated in many exhibitions, including Autumn salons.
His work was heavily influenced by Cézanne. Schreter visited Poland for last time in 1937 when he attended the opening of an exhibition of his work. He survived World War II by hiding in Paris. Although already in the mid 1930s he was introduced to the public as a French artist, he was awarded French citizenship only in 1960. In many publications Zygmunt Schreter is considered to be a French painter. ***** Zygmund SCHRETER (born Zygmund Szreter)
LODZ (POLAND) 1886 – PARIS 1977
The Schreter family had been living in Poland for a while and moved away from the traditional and religious aspects of Judaism. Zygmund Schreter’s father Max Szreter, a textile manufacturer, asked his son to produce drawings on the fabrics that he produced. This was his first contact with art. His mother taught him music and he became a violinist. He studied at a Russian high school in Lodz where his paintings were noticed. He spent time with a circle of young art lovers, including Polish poet Julian Tuwim, musician and conductor Kletzki, and composer Tansman.
In 1914, Schreter left for Karslbad, Germany, and surprised by World War I, was held as a Russian civil prisoner. The Schreter family knew German and used it more often than Yiddish. In 1923, Zygmund Schreter studied with Martin Brandenburg and Lovis Corinth at Levine Funke’s free academy in Berlin, where he got to know many artists whom he met again later in Montparnasse. During these years, Schreter earned his living by playing the violin and performed with the Philharmonic Orchestra in Berlin and at the Max Reinhart Theater. At the same time, he exhibited his watercolors in Lodz in 1927.
In 1929, he participated in an exhibition organized in Berlin by the famous German artist Käthe Kollwitz. Schreter arrived in France in 1934. He first settled in Cannes and then moved to Paris with the help of the sculptor Sébastien Tamari. He settled at 36 avenue de Châtillon, behind Montparnasse, where the sculptor Germaine Richier was also living. Schreter spent the years of Occupation in his studio, surrounded by neighbors who protected him, including the Wladislaw family who owned the restaurant Wadja in rue Campagne-Premiere. Schreter was supported by a collector from Buenos Aires who regularly bought his paintings. Some of these paintings were signed Szreter or Zreter. After the war, he traveled a lot to Spain, Finland, Israel, Switzerland, and the United States. When the artist died in 1977, his heirs organized an exhibition at the National Museum in Lodz. **** Stories of Jewish Artists of the School of Paris 1905-1939
FRENCH-ENGLISH
Capitale des arts, le Paris des années 1905-1939 attire les artistes du monde entier. De cette période de foisonnement, un terme est resté, celui d'Ecole de Paris, qui recouvre une grande diversité d'expression artistique. Dans ce brassage dont Montparnasse est le creuset, un groupe se distingue : celui des artistes juifs venus de Russie, de Pologne et d'Europe centrale. Si leurs styles sont variés, un destin commun les rassemble : ils fuient l'antisémitisme de leur pays d'origine. Certains ont connu la célébrité dès les années 1920, tels Soutine, Lipchitz ou Chagall. D'autres n'ont pas eu le temps ou la chance d'y accéder. Près de la moitié a péri dans les camps de concentration nazis.
From 1905 to 1939, Paris attracted artists from all over the globe as the capital of the art world. This period of artistic proliferation became known as the School of Paris, and includes a great diversity of artistic expression. Within the teeming art world centred on Montparnasse, one group set itself apart: Jewish artists from Russia, Poland, and Central Europe. Although their styles were diverse, they shared the common fate of fleeing anti-Semitic persecutions in their home countries. Some became famous in the 1920s, such as Soutine, Lipchitz, and Chagall, while others did not have the time or the luck to gain renown. Nearly half of these artists died in Nazi concentration camps. ***** Zygmund Schreter1, né à Łódź (Empire russe) en 1896 et mort à Paris en 1977, est un peintre français d'origine polonaise2.
Biographie
Établie depuis longtemps en Pologne, la famille Szreter s'est éloignée des aspects traditionnels et religieux du judaïsme. Le père, Max Szreter, fabricant de textile, demande à son fils de réaliser des dessins sur les tissus de sa production. Tel est son premier contact avec les arts plastiques. Sa mère lui enseigne la musique et Szreter devient violoniste. Szreter étudie dans un lycée russe de Łódź et se fait remarquer par ses peintures. Il fréquente un cercle de jeunes amateurs en art, dont le poète polonais Julian Tuwim, le musicien et chef d'orchestre Kletzki et le compositeur Tanzman.
En 1914, Szreter part en Allemagne, à Carlsbad et, surpris par la Première Guerre mondiale, il se retrouve prisonnier civil russe. Les Szreter connaissent bien la langue allemande et l'utilisent plus souvent que le yiddish. En 1923, Zygmund Szreter étudie avec Martin Brandenburg et Lovis Corinth dans l'académie libre de Levine Funke à Berlin où il fait la connaissance de plusieurs artistes qu’il retrouvera à Montparnasse. Durant ces années, Szreter vit surtout de son violon et joue avec l'orchestre philharmonique de Berlin ou au théâtre Max-Reinhart. Parallèlement, il expose des aquarelles à Łódź en 1927. À Berlin en 1929, il participe à une exposition organisée par la célèbre artiste graphique Käthe Kollwitz.
Szreter arrive en France en 1934, s'installe à Cannes dans un premier temps puis, aidé par le sculpteur S. Tamari, il rejoint Paris. ****** Pau Casals i Defilló[1][2] (Catalan: [ˈpaw kəˈzalz i ðəfiˈʎo]; 29 December 1876 – 22 October 1973), usually known in English by his Castilian Spanish name Pablo Casals,[3][4][5][6] was a Spanish and Puerto Rican cellist, composer, and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century and one of the greatest cellists of all time. He made many recordings throughout his career of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, including some as conductor, but he is perhaps best remembered for the recordings of the Bach Cello Suites he made from 1936 to 1939. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy (though the ceremony was presided over by Lyndon B. Johnson).
Contents
1 Biography
1.1 Childhood and early years
1.2 Youth and studies
1.3 International career
1.3.1 Prades Festivals
1.3.2 Puerto Rico
1.4 Later years
1.5 Death
2 Legacy
3 Partial discography
4 References
5 Further reading
6 Press articles
7 External links
Biography
Childhood and early years
Casals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain. His father, Carles Casals i Ribes (1852–1908), was a parish organist and choirmaster. He gave Casals instruction in piano, songwriting, violin, and organ. He was also a very strict disciplinarian. When Casals was small his father would pull the piano out from the wall and have him and his brother, Artur, stand behind it and name the notes and the scales that his father was playing. At the age of four, Casals could play the violin, piano and flute; at the age of six he played the violin well enough to perform a solo in public. His first encounter with a cello-like instrument was from witnessing a local travelling Catalan musician, who played a cello-strung broom handle. Upon request, his father built him a crude cello, using a gourd as a sound-box. When Casals was eleven, he first heard the real cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to dedicate himself to the instrument.[citation needed]
His mother, Pilar Defilló de Casals, was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, to parents who were Catalan immigrants in Puerto Rico.[7][8] In 1888, she took her son to Barcelona, where he was enrolled in the Escola Municipal de Música.[9] There he studied cello, theory, and piano. In 1890, when he was 13, he found in a second-hand sheet- music store in Barcelona a tattered copy of Bach's six cello suites. He spent the next 13 years practicing them every day before he would perform them in public for the first time.[10] Casals would later make his own version of the six suites.[11] He made prodigious progress as a cellist; on 23 February 1891 he gave a solo recital in Barcelona at the age of fourteen. He graduated from the Escola with honours five years later.
Youth and studies
A young Pau Casals, by Ramon Casas
In 1893, Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz heard him playing in a trio in a café and gave him a letter of introduction to the Count Guillermo Morphy, the private secretary to María Cristina, the Queen Regent of Spain. Casals was asked to play at informal concerts in the palace, and was granted a royal stipend to study composition at the Madrid Royal Conservatory in Madrid with Víctor Mirecki. He also played in the newly organised Quartet Society.
In 1895, he traveled to Paris, where, having lost his stipend, he earned a living by playing second cello in the theatre orchestra of the Folies Marigny. In 1896, he returned to Spain and received an appointment to the faculty of the Escola Municipal de Música in Barcelona. He was also appointed principal cellist in the orchestra of Barcelona's opera house, the Liceu. In 1897 he appeared as soloist with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, and was awarded the Order of Carlos III from the Queen.[citation needed]
International career
In 1899, Casals played at The Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria at Osborne House, her summer residence, accompanied by Ernest Walker. On 12 November, and 17 December 1899, he appeared as a soloist at Lamoureux Concerts in Paris, to great public and critical acclaim. He toured Spain and the Netherlands with the pianist Harold Bauer from 1900 to 1901; in 1901/02 he made his first tour of the United States; and in 1903 toured South America.
On 15 January 1904, Casals was invited to play at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt. On 9 March of that year he made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York, playing Richard Strauss's Don Quixote under the baton of the composer. In 1906, he became associated with the talented young Portuguese cellist Guilhermina Suggia,[12] who studied with him and began to appear in concerts as Mme. P. Casals-Suggia, although they were not legally married. Their relationship ended in 1912.
The New York Times of 9 April 1911 announced that Casals would perform at the London Musical Festival to be held at the Queen's Hall on the second day of the Festival (23 May). The piece chosen was Haydn's Cello Concerto in D and Casals would later join Fritz Kreisler for Brahms's Double Concerto for Violin and Cello.[5]
In 1914, Casals married the American socialite and singer Susan Metcalfe; they were separated in 1928, but did not divorce until 1957.
Although Casals made his first recordings in 1915 (a series for Columbia), he would not release another recording until 1926 (on the Victor label).[6]
Back in Paris, Casals organized a trio with the pianist Alfred Cortot and the violinist Jacques Thibaud; they played concerts and made recordings until 1937. Casals also became interested in conducting, and in 1919 he organized, in Barcelona, the Pau Casals Orchestra and led its first concert on 13 October 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 not to return to Spain until democracy was restored. Casals performed at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on 19 October 1938, possibly his last performance in Spain during his exile.[13]
Presidential Medal of Freedom
In the last weeks of 1936, he stayed in Prades,[14] a small village in France near the Spanish border, where Casals would settle in 1939,[15] in Pyrénées-Orientales, a historically Catalan region. Between 1939 and 1942 he made sporadic appearances as a cellist in the unoccupied zone of southern France and in Switzerland. He was mocked by the Francoist press, which wrote articles deriding him as "a donkey", and was fined one million pesetas for his political views.[16] So fierce was his opposition to Francoist Spain that he refused to appear in countries that recognized the Spanish government. He made a notable exception when he took part in a concert of chamber music in the White House on 13 November 1961, at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy, whom he admired. On 6 December 1963, Casals was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Throughout most of his professional career, he played on a cello that was labeled and attributed to "Carlo Tononi ... 1733" but after he had been playing it for 50 years it was discovered to have been created by the Venetian luthier Matteo Goffriller around 1700. Casals acquired it in 1913.[17] He also played another cello by Goffriller dated 1710, and a Tononi from 1730.
Prades Festivals
In 1950, he resumed his career as conductor and cellist at the Prades Festival in Conflent, organized in commemoration of the bicentenary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach; Casals agreed to participate on condition that all proceeds were to go to a refugee hospital in nearby Perpignan.[6]
Puerto Rico
Casals traveled extensively to Puerto Rico in 1955, inaugurating the annual Casals Festival the next year. In 1955, Casals married as his second wife long-time associate Francesca Vidal de Capdevila, who died that same year. In 1957, at age 80, Casals married 20-year-old Marta Montañez y Martinez.[18] He is said to have dismissed concerns that marriage to someone 60 years his junior might be hazardous by saying, "I look at it this way: if she dies, she dies."[19][20] Pau and Marta made their permanent residence in the town of Ceiba, and lived in a house called "El Pessebre" (The Manger).[21] He made an impact in the Puerto Rican music scene by founding the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra in 1958, and the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico in 1959.
Later years
Casals appeared in the 1958 documentary film Windjammer. In the 1960s, Casals gave many master classes throughout the world in places such as Gstaad, Zermatt, Tuscany, Berkeley, and Marlboro. Several of these master classes were televised.
On 13 November 1961, he performed in the East Room at the White House by invitation of President Kennedy at a dinner given in honor of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Muñoz Marín. This performance was recorded and released as an album.
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 was performed for the first time in Acapulco, Mexico, on 17 December 1960. He also presented it to the United Nations during their anniversary in 1963. He was initiated as an honorary member of the Epsilon Iota chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity at Florida State University in 1963.[22] He was later awarded the fraternity's Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award in 1973.
One of his last compositions was the "Hymn of the United Nations".[23] He conducted its first performance in a special concert at the United Nations on 24 October 1971, two months before his 95th birthday. On that day, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, awarded Casals the U.N. Peace Medal in recognition of his stance for peace, justice and freedom.[24] Casals accepted the medal and made his famous "I Am a Catalan" speech,[25] where he stated that Catalonia had the first democratic parliament, long before England did.
In 1973, invited by his friend Isaac Stern, Casals arrived at Jerusalem to conduct the youth orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. The Jerusalem Music Center in Mishkenot Sha'ananim was inaugurated by Casals shortly before his death. [26] The concert he conducted with the youth orchestra at the Jerusalem Khan Theater was the last concert he conducted.[27]
Casals' memoirs were taken down by Albert E. Kahn, and published as Joys and Sorrows: Pablo Casals, His Own Story (1970).
Death
Casals died in 1973 at Auxilio Mutuo Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the age of 96, from complications of a heart attack he had had three weeks earlier.[3][28] He did not live to see the end of the Francoist State, which occurred two years later, but he was posthumously honoured by the Spanish government under King Juan Carlos I which in 1976 issued a commemorative postage stamp depicting Casals, in honour of the centenary of his birth.[29] In 1979 his remains were interred in his hometown of El Vendrell, Catalonia. In 1989, Casals was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[30]
Legacy
Centenary statue, by Josep Viladomat [es], Montserrat
Pablo Casals Museum, in San Juan, Puerto Rico
In 1959, American writer Max Eastman wrote of Casals:
He is by common consent the greatest cellist that ever lived. Fritz Kreisler went farther and described him as "the greatest man who ever drew a bow."[31]
The southern part of the highway C-32 in Catalonia, Spain, is named Autopista de Pau Casals.
The International Pau Casals Cello Competition is held in Kronberg and Frankfurt am Main, Germany, under the auspices of the Kronberg Academy once every four years, starting in 2000, to discover and further the careers of the future cello elite, and is supported by the Pau Casals Foundation, under the patronage of his widow, Marta Casals Istomin. One of the prizes is the use of one of the Gofriller cellos owned by Casals. The first top prize was awarded in 2000 to Claudio Bohórquez.
Australian radio broadcaster Phillip Adams often fondly recalls Casals' 80th birthday press conference where, after complaining at length about the troubles of the world, he paused to conclude with the observation: "The situation is hopeless. We must take the next step".[32][33][34]
American comedian George Carlin, in his interview for the Archive of American Television, refers to Casals when discussing the restless nature of an artist's persona. As Carlin states, when Casals (then aged 93) was asked why he continued to practice the cello three hours a day, Casals replied, "'I'm beginning to notice some improvement ...' [A]nd that's the thing that's in me. I notice myself getting better at this," Carlin continued.
In Puerto Rico, the Casals Festival is still celebrated annually. There is also a museum dedicated to the life of Casals located in Old San Juan. On 3 October 2009, Sala Sinfónica Pau Casals, a symphony hall named in Casals' honour, opened in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The $34 million building, designed by Rodolfo Fernandez, is the latest addition to the Centro de Bellas Artes complex. It is the new home of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra.
Prades, France, is home to another Pablo Casals Museum located inside the public library. Many of the artist's memorabilia and precious documents are there: photos, concert outfits, authentic letters, original scores of the Pessebre, interview soundtracks, films, paintings, a cello, and his first piano.[35]
In Tokyo, the Casals Hall opened in 1987 as a venue for chamber music.[36] Pau Casals Elementary School in Chicago is named in his honor.[37] I.S. 181 in the Bronx is also named after Casals.[38]
Casals' motet O vos omnes, composed in 1932, is frequently performed today.
In Pablo Larraín's 2016 film Jackie, Casals is played by Roland Pidoux.
In 2019, Casal's album Bach Six Cello Suites was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[39]
Partial discography
Pau Casals bust, Wolfenbüttel, Germany
External audio
audio icon You may hear Pablo Casals performing Antonín Dvorak's "Cello Concerto" with George Szell conducting the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1937 Here
1926–1928: Casals, Jacques Thibaud and Alfred Cortot – the first trios of Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn, the Beethoven Archduke, Haydn's G major and Beethoven's Kakadu Variations (recorded in London)
1929, Brahms: Double Concerto with Thibaud and Cortot conducting Casals' own orchestra.
1929: Dvorak and Brahms Concerti
1929: Beethoven: Fourth Symphony (Recorded in Barcelona)
1930: Beethoven: Cello Sonata Op. 69, with Otto Schulhof [de]
1936–1939: Bach: Cello Suites
1936: Beethoven: Cello Sonata Op. 102 No. 1; and Brahms: Cello Sonata Op. 99, both with Mieczysław Horszowski.
1936: Boccherini: Cello Concerto in B-flat; and Bruch: Kol Nidrei – London Symphony conducted by Landon Ronald.
1937: Dvořák: Cello Concerto – Czech Philharmonic conducted by George Szell.
1939: Beethoven: Cello Sonatas Nos. 1, 2, and 5, with Mieczysław Horszowski.
1945: Elgar and Haydn Cello Concertos – BBC Symphony conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.
1950: The first of the Prades Festival recordings on Columbia, including:
Bach: Sonatas for Viola da Gamba, BWV 1027–1029, with Paul Baumgartner
Schumann: Fünf Stücke im Volkston, with Leopold Mannes
Schumann: Cello Concerto, with Casals conducting from the cello.
1951: At the Perpignan Festival, including:
Beethoven: Cello Sonata Op. 5 No. 2, and three sets of Variations, with Rudolf Serkin
Beethoven: Trios, Op. 1 No. 2, Op. 70 No. 2, Op. 97, and the Clarinet Op. 11 transcription; also
Schubert: Trio No. 1, D.898, all with Alexander Schneider and Eugene Istomin.
1952: At Prades, including:
Brahms: Trio Op. 8, with Isaac Stern and Myra Hess
Brahms: Trio Op. 87, with Joseph Szigeti and Myra Hess
Schumann: Trio Op. 63, and Schubert: Trio No. 2, D.929, both with Alexander Schneider and Mieczysław Horszowski
Schubert: C major Quintet, with Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Milton Katims, and Paul Tortelier
Brahms: Sextet No. 1, again with Stern, Schneider, and Katims, plus Milton Thomas and Madeline Foley
1953: At Prades, including:
Beethoven: Cello Sonatas Nos. 1, 3, 4, and 5, with Rudolf Serkin
Beethoven: Trios Op. 1 No. 1, and Op. 70 No. 1, with Joseph Fuchs and Eugene Istomin
Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Festival orchestra
1954: At Prades (all live performances), including:
Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 5, and Op. 66 Variations, with Mieczysław Horszowski
Beethoven: Trios Op. 70 No. 1, and Op. 121a, with Szymon Goldberg and Rudolf Serkin
1955: At Prades (all live performances), including:
Brahms: Trios Nos. 1–3, with Yehudi Menuhin and Eugene Istomin
Brahms: Clarinet Trio Op. 114, with clarinetist David Oppenheim and Eugene Istomin
Beethoven: Trio Op. 70 No. 2, with Szymon Goldberg and Rudolf Serkin
1956: At Prades (all live performances), including:
Bach: Sonata BWV 1027 for Viola da Gamba, with Mieczysław Horszowski
Schumann: Trio No. 2, with Yehudi Menuhin and Mieczysław Horszowski
Schumann: Trio No. 3, with Sándor Végh and Rudolf Serkin
1958: At Beethoven-Haus in Bonn (all live performances), including:
Beethoven: Sonata Op. 5 No. 1, with Wilhelm Kempff
Beethoven: Sonatas Op. 5 No. 2, Op. 102 No. 2, and the Horn Op. 17 transcription, with Mieczysław Horszowski
Beethoven: Trios Op. 1 No. 3, and Op. 97, with Sándor Végh and Mieczysław Horszowski
Beethoven: Trio Op. 70 No. 1, with Sándor Végh and Karl Engel
1959: At Prades (all live performances), including:
Haydn: "Farewell" Symphony (No. 45) and Mozart "Linz" Symphony (No. 36)
Beethoven: Trio Op. 1 No. 3, with Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin
Schubert: String Quintet, with the Budapest String Quartet
1960: At the Festival Casals in Puerto Rico
Dvořák: Concerto in B Minor for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 104, with Alexander Schneider conducting (live recording released by Everest Records)
1961: Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 with Alexander Schneider and Mieczysław Horszowski (Recorded live 13 November 1961 at the White House)
1963: Beethoven: Eighth Symphony
1963: Mendelssohn: Fourth Symphony, at Marlboro
1964–65: Bach: Brandenburg Concerti, at Marlboro
1966: Bach: Orchestral Suites, at Marlboro
1969: Beethoven: First, Second, Fourth, Sixth ("Pastorale"), and Seventh Symphonies
1974: El Pessebre (The Manger) oratorio ***** THE HISTORY OF THE FESTIVAL
Singularly, the Festival Pablo Casals, originates from the unexpected encounter of a very strong artistic need and the passionate, committed fortitude of an exceptional humanistic artist.
Faithful to the spirit of its creator, the festival offers the opportunity to discover less known contemporary and classical repertoires as well as major master-works of chamber music and welcomes every year world-known soloists. One of the most ancient existing festivals, it is also one of the most innovative ones in the search for new repertoires and new talents. The Festival Pablo Casals is also a cultural and social catalyst in the Conflent valley. It organises workshops with the pupils in order to make them discover chamber music in collaboration with the valley music school and primary schools.
BIRTH OF THE FESTIVAL
Alexander Schneider’s project aimed to release Pau Casals from his oath in order to celebrate the bicentenary of Bach’s death, the Master’s favourite composer. On the occasion, thought as a one-shot, the greatest European and American interpreters accepted to travel and to give up their fees. The benefits were reversed to Perpignan’s hospital, where numerous Spanish exiles were still treated. Despite the doubts and the reluctances, due to various critical comments, Casals understood that he could not reject such a proposal. Organising a festival, constituting an orchestra, making rehearsals was a dangerous undertaking and Casals perfectly knew the inherent risks. At that moment, the small city of Prades had no decent hotel infrastructures – only thirty hotel rooms available – nor easy road connections with Perpignan. It was mandatory to raise funds, to organise the travels and the reception of the musicians, to advertise, and mostly, to find a place where to organise twelve concerts in three weeks. Alexander Schneider set-up an American Committee to finance the festival while on the spot, many volunteers gathered around Casals who finally came out of his torpor and got a new lease of life. Casals, 73, was giving more of himself that anyone else. During the fifty days of preparation, he directed all the rehearsals with a mixture of paternalism, enthusiasm and serenity, and commented : « Bach is not a rigid mechanic man, as people often believe. He is a sensitive man who indefatigably is drawing from folklore. We must play with his sensitivity ». On June 2, 1950, at 21h 30, there were no seat left in the church of Prades for the inauguration of the Festival and the organisers had to struggle to close the doors.
His Lordship Pinson, bishop of Saint Flour, pronounced the welcoming speech. The crowd was standing in silence. People were holding their breathe, Pau Casals entered, greeted the public, and opened the concert with a musical must, Bach’s Suite for solo cello in G major.
By creating the Bach Festival, Casals wanted to recover the spirit of the Cortot-Thibaut-Casals trio which brought chamber music back to life. To devote a whole festival to Bach was a risky venture. The following editions honoured Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schubert, Vivaldi , and then « modern » composers as Ravel and Debussy in the 80s and « contemporary » composers like Penderecki or Gerschwin in the 2000s.
THE FESTIVAL PABLO CASALS
Prades is linked to Casals as Bayreuth to Wagner, Salzburg to Mozart and Beethoven to Vienna. Slowly, the Bach Festival became the Festival Pablo Casals. However, behind the prestige and a significant radiation crowned by the presence of French president Vincent Auriol and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, both the organisation and the finances of the festival experienced great difficulties. To play with Casals was priceless. We know Alexander Schneider’s words : « We are forty human beings, who all their life long, wanted to express themselves as great directors and great soloists do, and finally we get the opportunity to do so ». Enric Casals took the general leadership from 1955 to 1966, year of Pau Casals’ last festival. He directed El pessebre in the abbey Saint Michel de Cuxa before settling definitively in Porto Rico. The date is highly symbolic : at the same time Casals’ 90th birthday and the 900th anniversary of the Peace of God, a series of conciles, which took place as early as 1066 in the Roussillon plain, in Toulouges. This 1966 edition was also the scene of another event : two busses with workers of Barcelona on bord were allowed to cross the border. The reunification with Casals was very moving.
AFTER CASALS
There were no festival in 1967. Pau Casals renounced for health reasons. Like in 1957, when Pau casals suffered an heart attack in the middle of a rehearsal for the Porto Rico’s festival. The years following a blank year often experience a kind of remobilisation in order to respect the Master’s will i.e. « to continue Prades ». A member of the festival’s organisation since 1952, the painter François Branger became the artistic director and exercised his functions until 1980.In 1973 Casals did not survive a second hard attack. Famous people are supposed to have their grave everywhere on earth. However, the soul of the greatest cellist of all times, Pau Casals, is looming above Prades, a small northern-Catalan city situated at the foot of the Canigou Mount, one of the capitals of chamber music. At the beginning of the 80s, the oboist Michel Lethiec became artistic director in turn, helped in the first years of his mandate by Leonard Rose. His mission was to consolidate and perpetuate a festival devoted to chamber music and its transmission. So did he through 35 brilliant editions. In 2020 the violinist and director Pierre Bleuse took up the torch, ready to celebrate chamber music and to explore new horizons. **** THE HISTORY OF THE FESTIVAL PABLO CASALS
Pablo Casals decided to withstand Franco and the Spanish fascist regime. He definitely stopped playing and refused all kinds of distinctions awarded by the Allies after the defeat of Nazi Germany, considering that his people was still suffering under the yoke of the dictator. Obeying his conscience, he started a new period of exile in Prades, a blessed, isolated and above all Catalan village.
Various messengers came to Prades in order to make the Master change his decision. He would invariably answer : « it is not a matter of money, it is just a matter of morality ». The violinist Alexander Schneider finally tried his luck and spent three days in Prades with Pau Casals, offering him astronomical sums. New refusal. Schneider submitted him a proposal from the pianist Mieczyslaw Horzowksi: « you can’t condemn your art to silence. Since you don’t want to leave Prades we shall come there, a group of musicians, in order to celebrate the bicentenary of Bach’s death ». The festival was born in 1950… **** ebay5953 / 207