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13.1 Ritratto Gaspar Cassadò
Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu

Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu (born September 30 or October 5, 1897 – died December 24, 1966) was a famous Spanish cellist and composer. He lived in the early 1900s and was known for his amazing musical talent.

Biography

Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu was born in Barcelona, Spain. His father, Joaquim Cassadó, was a church musician. Gaspar started learning the cello when he was just seven years old.

When he was nine, Gaspar played in a concert. A very famous cellist named Pablo Casals was in the audience. Casals was so impressed that he immediately offered to teach Gaspar. The city of Barcelona even gave Gaspar a special scholarship. This helped him move to Paris to study music with Casals.

In 1914, World War I began. Sadly, Gaspar's brother Agustí died from an illness during this time. Gaspar then returned to Barcelona. He started performing concerts with the main orchestras in Spain.

From 1918, he also played in France and Italy. This was thanks to his friendship with another musician, Alfredo Casella. In 1920, he went on a concert tour in Argentina. Starting in 1922, Gaspar began to share his own music. He wrote pieces for cello, concertos, and even chamber music. He also changed existing songs to be played on the cello.

In 1923, Gaspar met Giulietta Gordigiani, a singer and pianist. They became very close and lived together in Florence for over 30 years. Gaspar and Giulietta formed a cello and piano duo. They traveled all over Europe, performing together for more than ten years. They were very successful and praised by audiences and critics. Giulietta helped Gaspar a lot with his career.

In 1940, Gaspar toured the United States. He spent the years of World War II living with Giulietta in a village called Striano. After the war, his career faced a difficult time. His former teacher, Pablo Casals, wrote a letter that made it hard for Gaspar to perform in some countries.

Cassadó also served as a judge in international music competitions. From 1946, he taught at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. In 1958, he became a professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany. That same year, he helped start the "Course of Spanish Music in Compostela" in Santiago de Compostela.

He also wrote some famous musical hoaxes. One well-known example is the "Toccata" that he said was by Girolamo Frescobaldi, but it was actually his own work.

The personal papers of Gaspar's father are kept in the Biblioteca de Catalunya. Gaspar's own papers, along with those of his wife, the pianist Chieko Hara [jp], are stored at the Tamagawa University Museum of Education.

Gaspar Cassadó was good friends with the famous pianist Alicia de Larrocha. They often performed together as a cello-piano duo from 1956 to 1958. He also taught many classes at Academia Marshall in Barcelona. Today, the Professor of Cello chair at Academia Marshall is named after Gaspar Cassadó.


Compositions

Gaspar Cassadó wrote many original musical pieces. He also created many "transcriptions," which are pieces of music rewritten for a different instrument.

Original Works

These are some of the pieces Gaspar Cassadó wrote himself.

Concertos

  • Cello Concerto in D minor (1926)
    • This piece shows influences from Spanish and Eastern folk music. It also has elements of Impressionism, a style of music that creates a certain mood or atmosphere. Cassadó studied with the famous composer Maurice Ravel, and you can hear Ravel's influence in parts of this concerto.

Solo Cello Works

  • Suite for Cello Solo
    • This suite was written in the mid-1920s, a very productive time for Cassadó. It has three dance movements: a Preludio-Fantasia (like a Zarabanda dance), a Sardana, and an Intermezzo e Danza Finale (like a Jota dance). The second movement features a sardana, which is a traditional dance from Catalonia, Spain.
  • Fugue in the Style of Handel

Solo Guitar Works

  • Canción de Leonardo
  • Catalanesca
  • Dos Cantos Populares Finlandeses (Two Finnish Folk Songs)
  • Leyenda Catalana
  • Préambulo y Sardana
  • Sardana Chigiana

Works for Cello and Piano

  • Allegretto Grazioso "After Schubert"
  • Archares 1954
  • Danse du diable vert (Dance of the Green Devil) for violin or cello 1926
  • La Pendule, la Fileuse et le Galant 1925
  • Lamento de Boabdil 1931
  • Minuetto "After Paderewski"
  • Morgenlied 1957
  • Partita 1935
  • Pastorale "After Couperin"
  • Rapsodia del Sur
  • Requiebros 1934
  • Serenade 1925
  • Sonata in A minor 1925
  • Sonata nello stile antico spagnuolo (Sonata in an "Old Spanish Style") 1925
  • Toccata "After Frescobaldi" 1925

Chamber Works

  • Piano Trio in C major 1926/1929
  • String Quartet No. 1 in F minor 1929
  • String Quartet No. 2 in G major 1930
  • String Quartet No. 3 in C minor 1933

Transcriptions

Cassadó was also very skilled at taking music written by other composers and arranging it for different instruments, especially the cello.

Concerto Transcriptions

  • Cello Concerto in F major, based on Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Concerto No. 3 in A major
  • Cello Concerto in D major, based on Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 3 in E flat major
  • Cello Concerto in A minor, based on Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata
  • Cello Concerto in E major, based on Tchaikovsky's Piano Pieces, Op. 72 (1940)
    • Cassadó used nine of Tchaikovsky's piano pieces to create this concerto. It was one of Cassadó's favorite pieces to play.
  • Cello Concerto in D major, based on Weber's Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major
  • Cello Concerto in E minor, based on Vivaldi's Cello Sonata No. 5
  • Guitar Concerto in E major, based on Boccherini's Concerto No. 2 in D major
    • Cassadó completely rewrote this concerto for his friend, the guitarist Andrés Segovia.

Transcriptions for Solo Cello

Transcriptions for Cello and Piano

Images for kids

  • Gaspar Cassado, from first of 3 Southern Africa Tours. Dedicated to Hans Adler

    Gaspar Cassadó during one of his tours in Southern Africa.

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Gaspar Cassadó para niños

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