Celebrating Pablo Casals
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
This evening we celebrate the 1876 birthday of the great Catalan cellist who introduced Bach’s solo cello suites to a world where they were virtually unknownPablo Casals.
Fiercely anti-fascist, Casals never played in Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, or Franco’s Spain. He was so against Franco that he withdrew from public performance in 1945, explaining that he would never again play in any country that continued to recognize the Franco regime. He ended his silence only for the Bach bicentenary of 1950, so it is fitting that we hear Casals play the Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G early in the evening.
After we return from our “Live from Lincoln Center” special, featuring James Galway, we’ll return to Pablo Casals, as he is joined joined by pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski as they play Johannes Brahms’s Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 in F. Our last hour’s feature work is “The American Seasons” by Mark O’Connor. Yes, you get all four seasons, starting with Spring and ending with Winter. O’Connor himself is the violin soloist, while Scott Yoo conducts the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra.
Fiercely anti-fascist, Casals never played in Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, or Franco’s Spain. He was so against Franco that he withdrew from public performance in 1945, explaining that he would never again play in any country that continued to recognize the Franco regime. He ended his silence only for the Bach bicentenary of 1950, so it is fitting that we hear Casals play the Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G early in the evening.
After we return from our “Live from Lincoln Center” special, featuring James Galway, we’ll return to Pablo Casals, as he is joined joined by pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski as they play Johannes Brahms’s Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 in F. Our last hour’s feature work is “The American Seasons” by Mark O’Connor. Yes, you get all four seasons, starting with Spring and ending with Winter. O’Connor himself is the violin soloist, while Scott Yoo conducts the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra.
