Gaspar Cassadó  · Cellist and composer

Biography

Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu (Barcelona, 30 September 1897 – Madrid, 24 December 1966) was one of the great cellists of the twentieth century, as well as a prolific composer and transcriber. Pau Casals’s favourite pupil, his life unfolded between Barcelona, Paris, Florence, Siena and Cologne, at the heart of European musical life.

Childhood and training (1897–1914)

1897 · Birth. Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu was born on 30 September 1897 in Barcelona, into a deeply musical family. His father, Joaquim Cassadó i Valls (1867–1926), was a respected organist and composer and the dominant influence of his childhood. His mother, Joaquima Moreu, came from a family of artistic sensibility.

1900–1907 · First studies. Gaspar began his musical education with his father at the local church, where he learned the fundamentals of music theory and sang in the choir. He rounded out his training with cello lessons from the local musician Dionisio March.

1907–1909 · To Paris. At the age of ten, Joaquim Cassadó obtained a grant from the Barcelona City Council to move to Paris with his two sons, Gaspar (cello) and Agustí (violin), to study with Pau Casals and Jacques Thibaud respectively.

Legend has it that Casals, at the height of his career, was not interested in teaching; but on hearing the young Gaspar play, he changed his mind and took him on. Cassadó would always refer to Casals as his “spiritual father.” In Paris he also received the direct influence of Maurice Ravel and Manuel de Falla, with whom he studied composition, and mixed with the circle of Spanish musicians —Granados, Albéniz, Mompou— and the pianist Ricard Viñes, a close friend of Ravel.

During these Paris years, Gaspar, his father Joaquim and his brother Agustí perform together as the Cassadó Trio.

“Expressive balance, absence of unnecessary portamentos, perfection when changing position, a rich palette of dynamics, timbre relations, a diverse vibrato, relaxation and freedom in the bow both in forte and in piano playing, gave him exceptional power and flexibility.” — Gaspar Cassadó, on Pau Casals’s teaching

Youth and first performances (1914–1921)

1914–1915 · Return to Barcelona. The outbreak of the First World War forced the family back to Barcelona, where Gaspar was already an accomplished performer.

1916 · Meeting Arthur Rubinstein. In March 1916 he plays in Barcelona alongside the young Polish pianist Arthur Rubinstein. The encounter proves decisive: Rubinstein will open the doors of the musical circles of Berlin.

1921 · First premiere with orchestra. He performs his father’s Concierto Español for cello and orchestra —dedicated to him (1917)— at the first Symphonic Cycle of Iberian Composers, with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. Joaquim Cassadó had already dedicated his Plus Ultra (1907) to his son as a child: the cello was present in the father’s work from the very start.

The 1920s: Florence and international recognition

Giulietta von Mendelssohn-Gordigiani. Through Rubinstein, Cassadó met in Berlin the pianist and aristocrat Giulietta von Mendelssohn-Gordigiani (1878–1957), related to the family of Felix Mendelssohn. Twenty years his senior, she became his patron, regular partner and great platonic love, and the dedicatee of several of his works —the Sonata in A minor and the Quatre Pièces Espagnoles. Cassadó made Florence his main residence for decades.

Count Guido Chigi Saracini. Another decisive encounter was with Count Guido Chigi Saracini (1880–1965), owner of the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini in Siena, home to a great collection of medieval art, thousands of musical documents and string instruments. Cassadó and the Count developed a relationship “like father and son.” In 1932 the Count founded the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, of which Cassadó would be a founding professor alongside Alfred Cortot and Pau Casals.

1923–1925 · First publications. Cassadó begins to publish his works and transcriptions:

The “forgeries” of 1925. Among those pieces, Cassadó published several of his own works with Universal Edition, passing them off as transcriptions of other composers: the Allegretto Grazioso (attributed to Schubert) and the Toccata (attributed to Frescobaldi) are the best known of these pastiches. The ploy —common in earlier ages, but daring for the rigid musical world of the twentieth century— took decades to be uncovered.

1926 · Key works. He publishes his Suite for solo cello, a tribute to three regions of Spain; his Danse du Diable Vert; and composes his Cello Concerto dedicated to Pau Casals, premiered that same year in Barcelona with Cassadó as soloist and Casals conducting.

1927 · His recording career begins. He makes his first known recordings —Granados’s Andaluza, Rubinstein’s Melody, Mendelssohn’s Lied ohne Worte, Paderewski’s Minuet— with Giulietta von Mendelssohn-Gordigiani at the piano.

1928 · US debut. His Rapsodia Catalana (1926) is premiered in New York by the New York Philharmonic under Willem Mengelberg.

1929 · First large-scale recording. He records Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Concerto, in his own concertante version for cello and orchestra, with the Hallé Orchestra under Hamilton Harty.

Requiebros and Pau Casals. His most celebrated piece, the Requiebros, is dedicated to Pau Casals; it was Casals himself who made its first recording, in 1929, three years before the score was published (Schott, 1932). Casals also organised the premiere of his Cello Concerto with his orchestra: two gestures that show how master and pupil spread the younger man’s music.

The 1930s: artistic peak

Cassadó himself divided his career into two periods: a first one, until well into the 1930s, of intense activity as a composer and transcriber; and a second, from the middle of the decade on, devoted almost entirely to performance. He made the decision around 1932, during a trip to Vienna, feeling that his gifts as a performer outweighed those as a composer. He never gave up composing altogether, but from then on his output drops sharply.

1930–1932 · New works and the Chigiana Academy. In 1930 he publishes his concertante version of the Arpeggione. In 1931 he records Bruch’s Kol Nidrei with Clarence Raybould. From the founding of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana (1932) he teaches a popular cello class, drawing figures such as Yehudi Menuhin, André Navarra and his own master Pau Casals.

1933–1935 · Recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic. He makes landmark recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic under Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt: Haydn’s Cello Concerto in D major and Dvořák’s Concerto in B minor. These recordings establish him as one of the three great cellists of the day, alongside Emanuel Feuermann and Gregor Piatigorsky.

1936 · First US tour. On 26 March he appears with the New York Philharmonic under John Barbirolli, performing Haydn’s Concerto. On this tour he is the first known soloist to use metal strings in concert, seeking greater projection.

1936–1939 · Spanish Civil War. Living in Fascist Italy, Cassadó keeps out of politics and takes no public side —a decision that will cause him problems later.

1938 · A project with Frederic Mompou. Cassadó invites his friend Frederic Mompou to write a set of variations together on Chopin’s Prelude op. 28 no. 7. The collaboration never comes off and each writes his own work: Mompou’s becomes the well-known Variations sur un thème de Chopin (1957); Cassadó’s, the Sette Variazioni sopra un tema di Chopin for cello and piano (1943), remained unpublished.

1939 · Recordings with orchestra. He records Brahms’s Double Concerto with the violinist Albert Spalding and the New York Philharmonic under John Barbirolli.

The 1940s: war and accusations

1940–1945 · Second World War. Cassadó remains in Florence. In 1940 he takes part in the tribute to Willem Mengelberg in Amsterdam, recording Pfitzner’s Cello Concerto and a new version of the Arpeggione. In 1944, after the liberation of Florence, he plays in concerts for peace alongside the anti-fascist Luigi Dallapiccola.

1946 · Dallapiccola premiere. Cassadó commissions and premieres in Milan Dallapiccola’s Ciaccona, Intermezzo e Adagio for solo cello, a serial work that becomes a pillar of the modern repertoire.

1947 · Key recordings. He records his Requiebros and his Danse du Diable Vert with the pianist Gerald Moore. He also records Bruch’s Kol Nidrei and Lalo’s Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.

1949 · The Alexanian controversy. During his second US tour, the New York Times publishes a letter by Diran Alexanian accusing Cassadó of Fascist collaboration, with the backing of Pau Casals. Cassadó is devastated: “The saddest thing of all is that the most important element against me is my own master,” he confesses to Pierre Fournier. The scandal costs him much of the tour and a Columbia contract; he will not return to the United States until 1959. That same year he premieres Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto Galante with the Spanish National Orchestra.

The 1950s: reconciliation, tours and Cologne

1950–1955 · World tours. Cassadó broadens his horizons with tours of Asia, Africa and South America. In 1951 he records Brahms’s Sonata in E minor (op. 38) with Otto Schulhof. In 1953 he premieres Ernesto Halffter’s Fantaisie Espagnole in Madrid. That same year, serving on a jury at the Paris Conservatoire, he meets the Japanese pianist Chieko Hara. In 1955 he reports giving 90 concerts in a year and owning a collection of 16 cellos.

1956–1957 · Reconciliation with Casals. At Yehudi Menuhin’s urging, Casals and Cassadó are reconciled: Casals invites him to his Barcelona competition, and Cassadó invites Casals to the Chigiana. In 1957 Giulietta von Mendelssohn-Gordigiani, his companion for over three decades, dies. That same year he records the Six Suites for solo cello by J. S. Bach, his only recording of these works.

1958 · Japan, Cologne and Rostropovich. In May 1958 he makes his first visit to Japan, invited by Chieko Hara to the Osaka International Festival: he gives nine concerts, including a private performance for the Emperor and Empress. There he strikes up a friendship with the young Soviet cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

“I grew up hearing the name of the famous Gaspar Cassadó from the time I could barely speak. I studied his recordings as a student… My dream was to meet him, and finding him in Japan made me so happy. I am proud to be a friend of the finest artist of his time.” — Mstislav Rostropovich

That year he is appointed professor of cello at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, a post he combines with Siena. Among his pupils: Marçal Cervera, Pedro Corostola, Laurence Lesser, Enrique Correa, Pablo Loerkens and Benjamin Zander. With Andrés Segovia and Alicia de Larrocha he founds the International Chamber Music Courses of Santiago de Compostela.

1959 · Marriage to Chieko Hara. After declaring his love during the Japanese tour, he marries Chieko Hara on 26 April 1959 in Siena, with Count Chigi as witness. They form the “Duo Cassadó.”

Last years (1960–1966)

1960–1962 · Final recordings. He records Lalo’s Concerto and Fauré’s Élégie with the Bamberg Symphony under Jonel Perlea, and his last recordings with Chieko Hara —new versions of Requiebros, Intermezzo and other transcriptions. From that partnership comes Gaspar Cassadó Plays Encores (Tokyo, 1962), reissued on CD by Denon in 1997 for his centenary, with pieces such as Saint-Saëns’s The Swan and Granados’s Danza andaluza, alongside Tchaikovsky, Ravel and Schumann.

Florence, the Stradivarius and the collection. Cassadó and Hara lived at the top of a 13th-century tower near the Ponte Vecchio, overlooking the Arno. He owned a notable art collection —including manuscripts of Bach cantatas— and an eccentric hat collection that he lent to opera and theatre costumers. Of his collection of eighteen cellos, his favourite was a 1709 Stradivarius that had belonged to Boccherini, given to him by the composer Juan Quintero (1903–1980), who had bought it damaged at auction. He also kept a Guarneri, which was lighter.

1963 · Nin-Culmell premiere. He premieres Joaquín Nin-Culmell’s Concierto según Anselm Viola, a transcription for cello and orchestra.

1965 · Nin-Culmell Suite premiere. He premieres Joaquín Nin-Culmell’s Suite for solo cello at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. In November 1965 his great patron and friend Count Chigi Saracini dies; the news, together with a gruelling concert tour of the Soviet Union at 25 degrees below zero, worsens his heart condition. In the summer of 1966, at the Menuhin Festival in Switzerland, he chooses to take his Guarneri instead of the Stradivarius: being lighter, it strained his heart less.

1966 · The flood and his death. On 4 November 1966, a catastrophic flood of the Arno swamps the basement of his building in Florence, where he kept part of his art collection and instruments. Three days later, trapped without food or water, they are rescued from the top of the tower by one of Cassadó’s students, Albert. Barely a week later he travels to Germany to play with the Düsseldorf orchestra (10 and 11 November). After a recording session in London he is hospitalised; he was due to perform with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, but a heart attack prevents it. He decides to travel to Spain in search of the sun and, right after reaching his hotel in Madrid, suffers an acute heart attack and dies on 24 December 1966 at 2:30 in the afternoon, the eve of Hara’s 51st birthday. A church in Madrid held a mass that same day; his remains reach Barcelona at three in the morning on 25 December, and he is buried in the family grave. In the spring of 1969, Rostropovich and Hara played together in Florence in his memory, with Cassadó’s Sonata nello stile antico spagnuolo on the programme. In 1977 Chieko Hara returns to Japan with most of his belongings, today held at the Museum of Education of Tamagawa University (Tokyo).

“I live like a bohemian, in constant contradiction with myself.” — Gaspar Cassadó, 1956

“We artists are like butterflies. When you die, it’s over.” — Gaspar Cassadó, 1963

Teaching

Cassadó was a very active and demanding teacher. He taught at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena (from its founding in 1932), at the Musikhochschule in Cologne (from 1958) and at the International Courses of Santiago de Compostela, of which he was a co-founder. His teaching focused on musicality more than technique: he cared about the musical line and held that the body’s movements should be spontaneous and natural. Not every student could keep up with him. His pupil Marçal Cervera was also his assistant in Cologne during the last six years of his life.

“He spoke very little, but played a great deal. When he said something, it was very direct.” — Marçal Cervera

Technical experiments with the cello

Cassadó was a constant innovator in search of a more powerful, projected sound: he was the first soloist to use metal strings in concert (1920s), fitted an adjustable nut to adapt to the climate without touching the bridge, replaced the tailpiece with a sprung metal support —so that each string was held with less pressure— and added a cork riser to the bow for extra leverage; he also used a high bridge with little wood. For the sweat of his hands he would even stick a black cloth to the fingerboard or dust it with talc. These experiments were often criticised for their metallic sound, though the pianist Gerald Moore defended his search for tone.

The three “C’s” of Spanish cello

Together with Pau Casals and Juan Antonio Ruiz-Casaux (1889–1962), Cassadó makes up the trio of great Spanish cellists of the first half of the twentieth century known as “the three C’s.” With Casals, his teacher; with Casaux —a Cádiz native settled in Madrid— a close friendship despite almost opposite approaches to the instrument: Casaux, traditional and meticulous about technique; Cassadó, devoted to the musical line and to natural gesture. They had met as students in Paris, and whenever Cassadó passed through Madrid to play with the Orquesta Nacional they would meet again amid laughter, though they never actually performed together. Cassadó called Casaux his “older brother” and Marçal Cervera his “younger brother.”

Warm and affectionate, outgoing and elegant, Cassadó spoke several languages —Catalan, Spanish, French, English and German— and those who knew him remembered him as far “more human” and spontaneous than the methodical Casals: of a romantic temperament, he could change his view of a piece from one day to the next.

On stage: charisma and repertoire

Contemporaries agreed on his magnetism. Andrés Segovia spoke of his “aesthetic nobility” and Lluís Claret of the “elegance” of his recordings; his friend Alberto Passigli summed it up with an anecdote: “Someone told Cassadó — you don’t even have to play; just go on stage with your cello.” Aware of living in his teacher’s shadow, one day, tired of being called “the new Casals,” he burst out: “No em faré Casals!” (“I will not turn myself into Casals!”).

His repertoire knew no borders: “he played all kinds of music; he disparaged no repertoire,” Cervera recalled. Alongside the standard sonatas —Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Hindemith, Locatelli, Mendelssohn, Strauss, Vivaldi— he programmed rarely heard pieces and new music. He was a tireless promoter of contemporary composers, especially Spanish ones: works were dedicated to him by Tomás Buxó Pujades, Francesc Pujol, Joaquín Turina, Ernesto Halffter, Joaquín Rodrigo, Joaquín Nin-Culmell and —in Italy— Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Alfredo Casella and Luigi Dallapiccola, among others. Montsalvatge joked that “there was no Spanish composer who did not write a cello concerto for Cassadó.”

Chieko Hara (1914–2001)

Cassadó’s musical and life companion. Chieko Hara was born on 25 December 1914 in Kobe (Japan), into a well-off, cultured family. At the age of seven she studied piano with the Spaniard Petillo Villaverde, who passed on the French method and a love of Debussy, Ravel and the Spanish composers.

In 1928 she travelled to Paris; she studied with Henri Gil-Marchex and, from 1930, at the Paris Conservatoire with Lazare Lévy. In June 1932 she won the Premier Prix, the first Japanese pianist to do so. She debuted in Tokyo in 1933 and later trained with Alfred Cortot; in 1937 she took part in the 3rd Chopin Competition in Warsaw.

She returned to Japan in 1940 —where she had two children from an unhappy first marriage— and came back to Paris in 1953, to great success. That same year she met Gaspar Cassadó as a Conservatoire juror. They married on 26 April 1959 in Siena and formed the Duo Cassadó for eight years, touring Europe and the United States; Hara memorised the entire repertoire to achieve a true ensemble.

“After three years, I finally feel that I breathe with him and can sing freely.” — Chieko Hara, on her work with Cassadó

After Cassadó’s death she founded the Gaspar Cassadó International Cello Competition (1969). In 1987 she received Japan’s Order of the Precious Crown. In 1990 she returned to Japan, where she died on 9 December 2001, aged 87. Her recordings have been remastered by Denon, and her role as a pioneer of Japanese classical music in Europe is increasingly recognised.

See also his notable premieres, his full discography and the sources and bibliography.