Bach suites discovered by Pau Casals. There are historic interpretations of the year 1936 of great value. Thank you very much for posting. In any case I noticed an influence of mid war era color that is not existing in nowadays interpretations.
As a string player listening to Casals work here i feel so grateful that he expresses such passion in his performance. It is tremendously inspiring to hear the emotional power of this music.
As a child of the late-Romantic period, Casals had little interest in Baroque articulation, favoring long groups of slurred notes over the détaché bowings that Bach would have expected (as we know from the four surviving manuscript copies from Bach's day). Nonetheless, Casals' voice-leading is as clear as could be, his tempi are perfectly judged, and his agogical sense is sublime. And that tone...! It's anything but pretty; but it's marvelously focused and deeply expressive, and profoundly beautiful. When I was a beginning cellist back in 1960, my uncle made me a gift of Casals' recordings of the Suites; I grew up on them, and I still think they're awesome.
David Steven Tabbat you nailed it! When you have the time to read (and I have the time to write) I'll tell you about what happened to my friend, Gwen Watson, in a master class with Casals. *Incredible!!!*
Outside of the fact that this is Mono, and also that it lacks the ambient "sweetening" that current technology makes possible, this recording from the '30's sounds astonishingly good. Casals knows this piece like the back of his hand, and it shows, in the way he negotiates the multiple stops where necessary, on an instrument that is not really designed to play chords. Bach, of course, could not have cared less what an instrument was designed to do... He cared about getting his musical architecture into the air, and Casals is up to the task. I'm always intrigued by Baroque composers using, as an organizing principle, the dance suites of the style period that preceded theirs, the music of the Renaissance: The title of each one of these movements is the name of a dance rhythm from a generation earlier. Once again, we're given a glimpse at the clockwork precision of the Universe, set to music.
Por esos años, una vez más, mi viejo amigo Georges Alazraki contribuyó al ensanchamiento de mis conocimientos musicales. Esta vez, haciéndome apreciar las suites de Bach por Pau Casals en un refugio en las alturas del Chazelet, frente al pico nevado de La Meije, durante una escapada invernal al calor de una estufa en la que calentábamos vino con higos secos y canela, para encandilar la friura. La visión turbadora de aquellas montañas marcaría para siempre la audición de Casals. Desde entonces, cada vez que escucho esta versión siento el vapor de aquel tinto que nos reconfortaba tras un día de esquí y una fuerza singular que me habita proveniente tanto de tan prodigiosa cumbre como del aura que de estas suites emana. Hay algo en ellas de inconfundible que ninguna otra grabación comporta, puede que sea ese soplo que todo descubrimiento genera y que los demás no alcanzan por no haber sentido el asombro que una resurgencia comporta. Asistir a tamaña resurrección es algo que impregna al ser y confiere la agudeza y la chispa de todo primer “encuentro”. En este caso acrecentado por la genialidad del interprete. Desde entonces vuelvo a estas suites de Bach como se vuelve al manantial inagotable que, pese a la seca ambiente, está ahí esperando al caminante que sediento recorre los caminos de arenisca. Paul Hindemith anota que fue su tesón de artesano lo que le hizo grande, despreocupado de teorizar su arte pero empeñado en proseguir hasta el final un impulso creativo “feroz”. Pau Casals rinde cuenta de aquel tesón por la meticulosa ejecución y de ese impulso por la intensa expresividad que le habita .
Listen to the different voices, although the music might seem to us to be monolinea.l. These voices, like human utterances, exist in varying tonalities, varying frequencies, some high, some low. Even when Bach was sweeping across the entire scale as in the Preludium here, his essential polyphonic nature could not help asserting itself. All this is interesting but of little consequence when placed next to the deep spritual power that could mesmerize the mind and heal the heart.
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Bach suites discovered by Pau Casals. There are historic interpretations of the year 1936 of great value. Thank you very much for posting.
In any case I noticed an influence of mid war era color that is not existing in nowadays interpretations.
As a string player listening to Casals work here i feel so grateful that he expresses such passion in his performance. It is tremendously inspiring to hear the emotional power of this music.
As a child of the late-Romantic period, Casals had little interest in Baroque articulation, favoring long groups of slurred notes over the détaché bowings that Bach would have expected (as we know from the four surviving manuscript copies from Bach's day). Nonetheless, Casals' voice-leading is as clear as could be, his tempi are perfectly judged, and his agogical sense is sublime. And that tone...! It's anything but pretty; but it's marvelously focused and deeply expressive, and profoundly beautiful. When I was a beginning cellist back in 1960, my uncle made me a gift of Casals' recordings of the Suites; I grew up on them, and I still think they're awesome.
David Steven Tabbat you nailed it! When you have the time to read (and I have the time to write) I'll tell you about what happened to my friend, Gwen Watson, in a master class with Casals. *Incredible!!!*
Outside of the fact that this is Mono, and also that it lacks the ambient "sweetening" that current technology makes possible, this recording from the '30's sounds astonishingly good.
Casals knows this piece like the back of his hand, and it shows, in the way he negotiates the multiple stops where necessary, on an instrument that is not really designed to play chords.
Bach, of course, could not have cared less what an instrument was designed to do...
He cared about getting his musical architecture into the air, and Casals is up to the task.
I'm always intrigued by Baroque composers using, as an organizing principle, the dance suites of the style period that preceded theirs, the music of the Renaissance:
The title of each one of these movements is the name of a dance rhythm from a generation earlier.
Once again, we're given a glimpse at the clockwork precision of the Universe, set to music.
Por esos años, una vez más, mi viejo amigo Georges Alazraki contribuyó al ensanchamiento de mis conocimientos musicales. Esta vez, haciéndome apreciar las suites de Bach por Pau Casals en un refugio en las alturas del Chazelet, frente al pico nevado de La Meije, durante una escapada invernal al calor de una estufa en la que calentábamos vino con higos secos y canela, para encandilar la friura. La visión turbadora de aquellas montañas marcaría para siempre la audición de Casals. Desde entonces, cada vez que escucho esta versión siento el vapor de aquel tinto que nos reconfortaba tras un día de esquí y una fuerza singular que me habita proveniente tanto de tan prodigiosa cumbre como del aura que de estas suites emana. Hay algo en ellas de inconfundible que ninguna otra grabación comporta, puede que sea ese soplo que todo descubrimiento genera y que los demás no alcanzan por no haber sentido el asombro que una resurgencia comporta. Asistir a tamaña resurrección es algo que impregna al ser y confiere la agudeza y la chispa de todo primer “encuentro”. En este caso acrecentado por la genialidad del interprete. Desde entonces vuelvo a estas suites de Bach como se vuelve al manantial inagotable que, pese a la seca ambiente, está ahí esperando al caminante que sediento recorre los caminos de arenisca. Paul Hindemith anota que fue su tesón de artesano lo que le hizo grande, despreocupado de teorizar su arte pero empeñado en proseguir hasta el final un impulso creativo “feroz”. Pau Casals rinde cuenta de aquel tesón por la meticulosa ejecución y de ese impulso por la intensa expresividad que le habita .
추억 그리고 기억, 모두의 삶.
Thank you for posting.
its sou beutiful
Listen to the different voices, although the music might seem to us to be monolinea.l. These voices, like human utterances, exist in varying tonalities, varying frequencies, some high, some low. Even when Bach was sweeping across the entire scale as in the Preludium here, his essential polyphonic nature could not help asserting itself. All this is interesting but of little consequence when placed next to the deep spritual power that could mesmerize the mind and heal the heart.
You should try getting on the shard lad
Pau Casals