Casals for the Casals-Obsessed

from the Amazon.com Web page for the recording being discussed

At the end of last year, I used the term “gold standard” to refer to the Sony Music Entertainment release of The Complete RCA Collection of recordings made by conductor Arturo Toscanini. The same may be said of the EMI Classics release of The Complete Published EMI Recordings: 1926–1955 presenting performances by cellist Pablo Casals. Sadly, this latter collection seems to have gone out of print, meaning that the only options available from Amazon.com are likely to be above the pay grade of most readers. In that context it is worth observing that Biddulph Recordings has released a shorter Vintage Collection Casals anthology that overlaps the EMI collection only for two concerto performances and Max Bruch’s Opus 47 “Kol Nidrei.”

There are nine CDs in the EMI collection, while the Biddulph offering has only five. The earliest of the overlaps is the recording of “Kol Nidrei,” made at the Abbey Road studios in London on November 27, 1936 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Landon Ronald. Two days later they all returned to Abbey Road to record Friedrich Grützmacher’s nineteenth-century arrangement of Luigi Boccherini’s B-flat major (ninth) cello concerto. Unless I am mistaken, Casals prepared his own cadenzas, overriding those written out by Grützmacher; but Casals’ rhetoric was as rooted in the nineteenth century as was Grützmacher’s. The remaining overlap is of Edward Elgar’s Opus 85 cello concerto in E minor, recorded on October 14, 1945, again at Abbey Road. For this recording Adrian Boult conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in his capacity of Director of Music for the BBC.

Almost all of the remaining Biddulph recordings involve remastered 78 RPM “singles.” Most of these selections originally fit on one side of the disc, with a few exceptions that require both sides. These fill the first four of the CDs, accounting for 78 tracks. That is a generous offering; and, since the accompanying booklet is limited to only sixteen pages, it is understandable that precise (or even adequate) content descriptions are not provided. To be fair, the original sources may have been just as negligent; and, particularly in the earliest recordings made by Columbia in 1915, the objective may have been to appeal to the “entertainment factor,” which may also have benefitted Casals’ fiscal situation.

Mind you, there is no reason to believe that Casals did not take these recording sessions seriously. Even in the earliest recordings it is easy to appreciate why so many were so impressed by his technique. Consequently, if the sound of the cello tends to overwhelm the accompaniment, whether from a piano or a full orchestra, it is understandable that the records were being produced to allow more people to have an opportunity to listen to Casals, regardless of what any other performers (including the conductor?) might be doing. (One can probably say the same about the recording legacy of tenor Enrico Caruso, who recorded for the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1904 and 1920.)

My own reaction tends to follow in the footsteps of the famous witticism by Charles Farrar Browne (better known as Artemus Ward):

I have never heard any of your lectures, but from what I can learn I should say that for people who like the kind of lectures you deliver, they are just the kind of lectures such people like.

I have no desire to undermine the pleasure that many will find in listening to all of those Casals singles, if they are the kind of people that like them! However, my own satisfaction will still reside in the lengthier undertakings (including all of the solo cello suites of Johann Sebastian Bach) found in the EMI anthology.