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 in his life.[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 *** Pablo Casals
Spanish musician
Alternate titles: Pau Casals
By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica • Last Updated: Sep 15, 2022 • Edit History
Pablo Casals, 1965.
Pablo Casals
See all media
Born: December 29, 1876 Spain
Died: October 22, 1973 (aged 96) Puerto Rico
Awards And Honors: Grammy Award
Pablo Casals, Catalan Pau Casals, (born December 29, 1876, Vendrell, Spain—died October 22, 1973, Río Piedras, Puerto Rico), Spanish-born cellist and conductor, known for his virtuosic technique, skilled interpretation, and consummate musicianship.
Casals made his debut in Barcelona in 1891 after early training in composition, cello, and piano. After further study in Madrid and Brussels he returned to Barcelona in 1896 as principal cellist at the Gran Teatro del Liceo. By this time he had established his innovative technique; by making his left-hand positions more flexible and using a freer bowing technique, he created an individual style marked by seeming effortlessness and a singing tone. Casals toured internationally between 1898 and 1917 and formed a celebrated trio with Alfred Cortot (piano) and Jacques Thibaud (violin). Having won an international reputation as a cellist, Casals helped found in 1919 the École Normale de Musique in Paris and also established and conducted the Orquestra Pau Casals in Barcelona.
Close-up of an old sitar against a colorful background. (music, India)
BRITANNICA QUIZ
(A Music) Man’s Best Friend
For what instrument did Frederic Chopin principally compose? What instrument did Pablo Casals play? Test your knowledge of plucked strings and pushed keys in this study of musicians and their instruments.
An outspoken opponent of Fascism, he was forced to move in 1936 to Prades in Catalan France. He refused to return to Spain after the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and announced his retirement from public performance in 1946 to protest worldwide recognition of the Franco regime in Spain; in 1950, however, he returned to recording and conducting, choosing spoken over silent protest. In 1956 he moved to Puerto Rico, from which place he continued his personal musical crusade for peace until his death.
Casals was a romantic who eschewed the drier, literal interpretations of modernism. His love for the works of J.S. Bach formed the core of his sensibilities. He revitalized appreciation of Bach’s cello music, especially with his masterful rendition of the six unaccompanied suites for cello. ***** Pablo Casals (Cello, Conductor)
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 Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, 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. **** Rudolf Serkin (28 March 1903 – 8 May 1991) was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Beethoven interpreters of the 20th century.[1]
Contents
1 Early life, childhood debut, and education
2 Career
2.1 Emigration to the United States
3 Personal life
4 Awards and recognition
5 References
6 External links
Early life, childhood debut, and education
Serkin was born in then Eger, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Czech Republic), to a Russian Jewish family. His father, Mordko Serkin, "had been a Russian basso, and taught him to read music before he could read words."[2]
Hailed as a child prodigy,[3] he was sent to Vienna at the age of 9, where he studied piano with Richard Robert and, later, composition with Joseph Marx, making his public debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at 12. From 1918 to 1920 he studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg and participated actively in Schoenberg's Society for the Private Performance of Music.
Career
Serkin began a regular concert career in 1920, living in Berlin with the German violinist Adolf Busch and his family, which included a then-3-year-old daughter Irene, whom Serkin would marry 15 years later.
In 1921, at age 17, he made his Berlin debut performing in Busch's ensemble as the keyboard soloist in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. At the end of the concert, Busch told Serkin to play an encore to the enthusiastic audience. Serkin later reported that he asked Busch, "What shall I play?" and Busch "as a joke" told him to play the Goldberg Variations "and I took him seriously. When I finished there were only four people left: Adolf Busch, Artur Schnabel, Alfred Einstein and me."[2]
In the 1920s and early 1930s, Serkin performed throughout Europe both as soloist and with Busch and the Busch Quartet. With the rise of Hitler in Germany in 1933, Serkin and the Busches (who were not Jewish but who vehemently opposed the Nazi regime) left Berlin for Basel, Switzerland.
In 1933, Serkin made his first United States appearance at the Coolidge Festival in Washington, D.C., where he performed with Adolf Busch. In 1936, he launched his solo concert career in the US with the New York Philharmonic under Arturo Toscanini. His performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto was critically well received; Olin Downes of the New York Times wrote, "We have seldom heard a pianist's performance which so admirably combined the most penetrating analysis with artistic enthusiasm and warm feeling. Similarly, the technical performance was clean and precise, but also beautiful and of a poetic coloring."[4] In 1937, Serkin played his first New York City recital at Carnegie Hall, again to critical acclaim: Downes wrote, "What Mr. Serkin did was to display a colossal art, which he devoted to the most idealistic purposes."[5]
Emigration to the United States
Shortly after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Serkins and Busches immigrated to the United States, where Serkin taught several generations of pianists at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. From 1968 to 1976 he served as the Institute's director. He lived with his growing family, first in New York, then in Philadelphia, as well as on a dairy farm in rural Guilford, Vermont. In 1951, Serkin and Adolf Busch founded the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro, Vermont, with the goal of stimulating interest in and performance of chamber music in the United States. He made numerous recordings from the 1940s into the 1980s, including one at RCA Victor of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in 1944, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Toscanini. Most of his recordings were made for Columbia Masterworks, although in the 1980s he also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon and Telarc. Serkin admired the music of Max Reger, which he discovered while working with Adolf Busch. In 1959, he became the first pianist in the United States to record Reger's Piano Concerto, Op. 114, with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
External audio
audio icon You may listen to Rudolf Serkin with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bruno Walter performing Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat (Emperor) Op. 73 in 1941 here on archive.org
Serkin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and in March 1972 celebrated his 100th appearance with the New York Philharmonic by playing Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1. The orchestra and board of directors also named Serkin an honorary member of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society, a distinction also conferred on Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, and Paul Hindemith. In 1986, he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a guest artist with the orchestra. He is regarded as one of the primary interpreters of the music of Beethoven in the 20th century.
Revered as a musician's musician, a father figure to a legion of younger players who came to the Marlboro School and Festival, and a pianist of enormous musical integrity, he toured all over the world and continued his solo career and recording activities until illness prevented further work in 1989.
Personal life
Serkin married Irene Busch, the daughter of German violinist Adolf Busch, in 1935.
He and Irene were the parents of seven children (one of whom died in infancy),[6] including pianist Peter Serkin and cellist Judith Serkin.[7] They had 15 grandchildren, including the composer David Ludwig and the bassoonist Natalya Rose Vrbsky.
Serkin died of cancer on 8 May 1991, aged 88, at home on his Guilford, Vermont farm. His widow Irene Busch Serkin died in 1998.
Awards and recognition
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1960)[8]
Presidential Medal of Freedom (1963)
Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (1978)
Kennedy Center Honors (1981)
Member, American Philosophical Society (1983)[9]
Grammy Award for Best Chamber-Music Performance – Mstislav Rostropovich and Rudolf Serkin for Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38; and Cello Sonata No. 2 in F, Op. 99 (1984)
National Medal of Arts (1988) ***** Rudolf Serkin Biography by Blair Johnston
Rudolf Serkin emerged from the environment of post-World War I Austria to become one of the most profound and challenging pianists of the century. Childhood studies in Vienna with Richard Robert (piano), and Joseph Marx and Arnold Schoenberg for composition, led to a 1915 debut performance with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the age of 12. After 1920, Serkin was associated with noted violinist Adolf Busch, both as a duo-sonata partner, and with the Busch Chamber Orchestra (and, from 1935, as Busch's son-in-law). An American debut in 1936 with the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini led to Serkin's decision to relocate to the U.S. in 1939. Invited to join the piano faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, he quickly rose to become head of the piano department, and, from 1968, president of the Institute. He devoted his summers to cultivating several generations of young musicians at the Marlboro Festival in Vermont.
Many observers have remarked that Serkin was not a natural pianist. Indeed, he seemed rather to play by force of will alone, and the strength of his musicianship lies more in the deep insight that he brought to the music of the composers he holds dearest -- traditional Austrian and German masters -- than in virtuosic pianism. In the sonatas of Beethoven, Serkin finds particular inspiration. His Beethoven interpretations do not necessarily please the listener in terms of superficial "beauty," but rather convey the unique mixture of logic, violence, and spiritual transcendence that he feels is the essence of Beethoven's work. In the Brahms concerti, Serkin's vision is nothing short of titanic. On off-nights, however, Serkin's lofty, cerebral brand of pianism sometimes failed him, and the austere, "square" approach to phrasing that makes his playing so immediately recognizable sometimes sounded unnecessarily harsh.
Rudolf Serkin's discography is impressive, spanning most of the general repertory from Bach to the early/mid-twentieth century, and including such relative novelties as the F minor Concerto of Max Reger, a composer Serkin had an abiding affinity for. His work at the Curtis Institute, and, during the summers, at the Marlboro Festival, has made him one of the most influential American teachers of the post-World War II era. Serkin's son Peter is also a pianist of considerable renown. ***** Rudolf Serkin (pianist; born March 28, 1903, Eger, Boh ia; died May 8, 1991)With his overwhelming talent and dazzle, Rudolf Serkin has amazed audiences the world over during his long career. His gentle technique has earned him profound respect, and critical acclaim. Serkin was born in Eger, Boh ia, to Mordko and Augusta Serkin, Russian Jews who had fled the pogroms. He could play the piano and read music by the time he was four years old. Alfred Gruenfeld, the celebrated Viennese pianist, heard young Serkin play and suggested to his parents that they send him to study piano in Vienna under Professor Richard Robert. Serkin studied piano with Robert and composition with Joseph Marx and Arnold Schoenberg. Although practicing was difficult in a one-room apartment with his seven brothers and sisters, young Serkin ignored the chaos around him and learned to play so well that he made his debut as guest artist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra when he was only 12. He was invited to tour the continent, but declined in order to continue studying piano. He began his concert career when he turned 17, performing solo and in chamber orchestras. He also played a series of sonatas for piano and violin with Adolf Busch. Over the next few years, Serkin toured the capitals of Europe, impressing audiences everywhere with his intense and dignified style. Music critic Hubert F. Peyser wrote, in 1931, "Mr. Serkin is not a sensational pianist, though he can storm the clouds and summon the mellowest of thunder and dazzle with the best of th in the sheer resplendence ofemechanics." In 1935, Serkin made his first United States appearance at the Coolidge Festival in Washington, DC, playing with Adolf Busch. The very next year, he launched his solo concert career with the New York Philharmonic under Arturo Toscanini. The critics raved, describing him as "an artist of unusual and impressive talents in possession of a crystalline technique, plenty of power, delicacy, and tone pure and full" and "a masterly musician. ..a scholar of profound art without pedantry, with the loftiest conceptions of beauty, whose every thought and otion is for the glory of his art." Serkin married Irene Busch, daughter of his violin partner, in 1936. Two years later, he played a series of Beethoven and Schubert violin sonatas with his father-in-law in New York. During this time, in 1937, Serkin played his first New York recital at Carnegie Hall. After the performance, the critic, Olin Downes, wrote that Serkin is a "curious figure on the platform because of his slightness and the fact that he is not tall, the nervous intensity of his walk to the piano, and his fantastical intentness on the work at hand. He played significantly, always with magnificent control and with a sovereign sense of form." Becoming an American citizen in 1939, Serkin made his home in Philadelphia, where he soon became head of the piano department of the Curtis Institute of Music. He taught piano there until 1968, when he became the Institute's director. He also continued to make annual tours of the U.S., usually selecting a handful of Beethoven and Schubert pieces to perform. Serkin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, and, in March 1972, he celebrated his 100th appearance with the New York Philharmonic by playing Brahms's D Minor Piano Concerto. The orchestra also named Serkin an honorary member of the Philharmonic's Symphony Society of New York, an elite musical society that includes Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, and Paul Hind ith. In 1986, he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a guest artist with the orchestra. In 1987, Serkin's health forced him to retire from touring. He recorded Beethoven's Appasionata sonata in 1987 at his studio in Vermont, and he continued to teach at the Curtis Institute until his health began to decline. Serkin died of cancer at his home in Guilford, Vermont in 1991.[47] ebay 5900 folder206