Pau Casals Museum: Concerts from the project “The Sound of Pau Casals”

junio 19, 2025

 



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Lluís Claret (cellist) – Àlex Ramírez (piano) - Anna Mora (historical context)

Iagoba Fanlo (cellist) -Inja Stanović (piano)

The concert on the 24nd - / - The programme for the concert on the 24nd Duo Cassadò: Damián Martínez (cellist) and Marta Moll (piano)

The project ‘The Sound of Pau Casals’ 


Concerts in the Music Room of the Pau Casals Museu


The wonderful Music Room at the Pau Casals Museum in Sant Salvador (El Vendrell – Tarragona – Catalonia – Spain) was the stage for three music recitals on 22, 23, and 24 May, as part of the project “The Sound of Pau Casals”

The project is led by the Complutense University of Madrid, the Scientific Institute of Musical Sciences with the collaboration of the Pau Casals Foundation.

Financial support has been provided by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the State Research Agency (with co-financing from the European Union).

The concerts have been a high-level intellectual and emotional experience thanks to the research and the performers.

At each concert, we had the pleasure of hearing brief explanations from the cellists about their personal connection to Pau Casals and his work. All of them expressed their deep admiration and respect for the Maestro, both for his musical contributions and for his human values.

Each programme offered us the opportunity to learn about the evolution of Pau Casals’ music between 1893 and 1917, both as a composer and in his choice of works to perform.


The concert on the 22nd 

Núria Ballester, director of the Pau Casals Museum, opened the event and introduced Miguel Ángel Ríos, representative of the Scientific Institute of Music Sciences. He apologised on behalf Ana Llorens, the project director, for not being able to attend the event, although she would have liked to.

Miguel Ángel Ríos highlighted the quantity, quality and magnificent preservation of Pau Casals' archive of documents. In fact, he stated that it was one of the most outstanding in the world. All the documentation and recordings that comprise it are deposited in the National Archive of Catalonia.

Recordings by Pau Casals that were not previously included in the archive have been added to this collection on a deposit basis and have been acquired as part of the project.

Ríos highlighted the work of the National Archive of Catalonia for the excellent conservation, management and preservation of the material it contains.

He also highlighted that Pau Casals was one of the pioneers in recording his performances on disc. These recordings were intended to facilitate the study of his sound. For Ríos, Casals' sound was revolutionary because it changed the way the cello was played and, with it, the sound of the instrument.  The main purpose of the project was to understand that sound by studying the recordings and reading and analysing the correspondence (which is enormous in volume) and other documents in the archive.

Ana Llorens has reconstructed the concerts that Pau Casals gave throughout his life, consulting letters, press clippings, concert programmes, etc.

Anna Mora (co-author of the book “Dear Maestro: Correspondence (1893 – 1973)”) gave a lecture divided between the pieces of the concert. She placed each piece in the historical context and the Maestro's life.


The programme for the concert on the 22nd 


All the pieces were compositions by Pau Casals for cello and piano.

(Each title includes a link to YouTube with a recording by Lluís Claret of the same work but recorded several years ago).

Pastoral (1893) 

Rêverie (1896)

Full d’àlbum (1897)

Romanza (1899)

Poème (1917)

Lluís Claret explained to us that 51 years ago he had played in that same hall for the museum's opening.

Claret knew Pau Casals very well because Casals was a close friend of his father's, and he was also his godfather, Claret visited his home in Prada many times, and because Enric Casals, Pau Casals' brother, was Lluís Claret's teacher, even though he was a violinist.  (Claret has repeatedly claimed throughout his career that Enric Casals deserves greater recognition for his musical qualities because Pau Casals' shadow has prevented him from being given the place he truly deserves).

Claret also shared memories of his childhood, watching and listening to Pau Casals play at his home in Prada. The way he described it made those of us in the music room feel as if we were seeing those scenes ourselves.

Claret also announced that he, together with pianist Àlex Ramírez, will be making a new recording of the pieces that made up the concert.  In my opinion, that will be a delight for classical music lovers.

Àlex Ramírez is a pianist born in Barcelona. His main teachers were Margarita Serrat and Josep Colom. He also took classes from Alicia de Larrocha and Bernard Greenhouse, among others. He is a founding member of the Trio Da Vinci. As a soloist, he has performed with the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès, among others.

He has participated in numerous concerts and festivals, such as the Santander International Festival, the Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona) and the Quincena Musical Donostiarra, as well as in theatres in Denmark and France.

Àlex Ramírez is a professor at the Liceu Conservatory and since 2016 has been invited to collaborate in the summer academy and the Bergen Festival in the Netherlands




The concert on the 23nd 

Iagoba Fanlo (cellist) -Inja Stanović (piano)

Both had participated in the presentation of the project at Complutense University last February. You'll find more information about them in the chapter on project committees, a few paragraphs later.


Iagoba Fanlo moved us with his performance and also with his explanations about his childhood experiences with his father, also a cellist, when they listened together to Pau Casals’ records, which were treated with care and almost reverence; and how important this whole experience and his admiration for Pau Casals was in his decision to become a cellist himself.

He performed Bach's Suite No. 3 with his eyes closed the entire time, focused and truly devoted to the music, which we could see reflected on his face. After the concert, some of us attendees were talking among ourselves, and we commented on the emotion we had felt during the concert. It should be noted that we all knew each other, we had seen each other before because we are loyal followers of the classical music concerts organised in Vendrell.

Inja Stanović is a Croatian pianist, who performed the pieces in the concert in a delightful manner


The programme for the concert on the 23nd 

The programme was the same as that performed by Pau Casals and the pianist Blai Net on 26 November 1917 at the Philharmonic Society of Madrid. 

The links lead to YouTube videos with a recording of the work performed by Pau Casals.





A programme featuring the three Bs: Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms, three composers much loved by Casals. And as Iagoba Fanlo told us, ‘the Maestro had very good taste’.
Fanlo expresses his admiration for Casals in his cello playing, as well as in his words, which the Pau Casals Foundation wrote in one of its Instagram stories:

‘Pau Casals' inspiration on a musical and personal level is a benchmark that is difficult to find in the history of humanity... Being here, in his home, the house he had to give up [for coherence] with his ideas, is frankly very touching.’


The concert on the 24nd 

The last concert was given by the Duo Cassadò: Damián Martínez (cellist) and Marta Moll (piano).

We can define Damián Martínez's style of performance in two words: ‘sensitivity’ and ‘delicacy’. And the concert on the 24th confirmed this once again, and in this case we can add the difficulty, technical demands and emotional charge of the music.

Bach’s Suite No 2, played from memory almost entirely with his eyes closed, and indeed the entire concert, gave us an almost religious feeling, even more so because we were in the music room created by Casals, a place where he played on numerous occasions with his friends.

Damián Martínez, as a performer, has given numerous concerts and tours, including performances with Natalia Gutman and Mischa Maisky. He holds degrees from the Guildhall School of Music in London, the Indiana University School of Music (USA) and the Musikhochshule Stuttgard (Germany).

Marta Moll has won numerous awards and has participated in many concerts. She is the creator, scriptwriter, and host of the television program ‘Path of Music' (Caminos de Música) on RTVE's La2 channel (Spain).

The programme for the concert on the 24nd 

The programme was a reconstruction of a concert given by Casals in 1910. 

The links lead to YouTube videos with a recording of the work performed by Pau Casals.


As Damián Martínez said, Emmanuel Moór was a Hungarian composer and friend of Casals, so Moór composed works for Casals, and Casals loved to play these works in his concerts.

As an encore, they performed ‘Málaga’ from Isaac Albeniz’s Suite Iberia.

It would be wonderful to repeat the experience of these concerts.


The three days offered us an intense immersion in the sound of Pau Casals. The music performed and the spoken interventions showed the profound mark left by the Maestro as a musician, but also as a person deeply committed to peace and human rights. Each of the cellists expressed this with their instruments and their words.



The project ‘The Sound of Pau Casals’


The project ‘The Sound of Pau Casals’ was presented on 5 February at the Complutense University of Madrid.

This project is a pioneering work that seeks to uncover the secrets of ‘Pau Casals' sound’.

The investigation began on 9 September 2022 and will end on 31 August 2025. It has the financial support of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. The grant amounts to €43,076.

The basis of the work is that they consider Pau Casals as the father of the modern cello and one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century.

The research is being conducted by the Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences (ICCMU), and is directed by Ana Llorens, who is a professor and cellist.

The ICCMU is a centre dedicated to scientific research and the preservation of Hispanic musical heritage. It is a centre affiliated with the Complutense University of Madrid.

The project has also benefited from the collaboration of the Pau Casals Foundation.

One of the objectives of the research is to present the key elements of the research on stage, with cellists and chamber musicians, and to attempt to recreate the sound of Pau Casals.

To understand the characteristics of Pau Casals' sound, researchers studied nearly a hundred recordings. They used digitisation and sound analysis techniques, as well as comparing different editions and remastering, as they believed that technology could influence human perception of sound.

With all this information, it is possible to assess Pau Casals' musical thinking and sound aesthetics. The final and equally important objective is to promote the creation of a community for the study of musical performance and to promote it as a scientific discipline in Spain.

Finally, on 6 and 7 February, a series of sessions were held at the Faculty of Geography and History of the Complutense University of Madrid, featuring recitals and lectures, as well as a combination of both, with the participation of renowned specialists.

The topics covered in the sessions and the musicians and researchers who participated

Casals at Marlboro

Dr. Bernard Meillat. (Pau Casals Foundations)

Pianist and Doctor of Musicology. His doctoral thesis was entitled ‘Debussy and the Symbolist Poets’. He also has a background in Humanities (French Literature and Ancient Languages). He is an advisor to the Pau Casals Foundation. He was a member of the music department for the film about Pau Casals, ‘Pablo, the Power of Silence’ (2017). Member of the Scientific Committee for these conferences.

Pau in Paris

Laura Granero

Pianist, fortepianist, harpsichordist, and researcher. She is currently working on her PhD at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, focusing on historical piano rolls and the connections between Clara Schumann's former students. She is pursuing her scholarship with a grant for excellence awarded by the La Caixa Foundation. She studied piano with Claudio Martínez-Mehner and harpsichord with Pilar Montoya and Jorge García and later studied fortepiano and harpsichord at the Schola Cantorum Basilensis. She is co-director of the project ‘La Nouvelle Athènes, Centre des pianos romantiques’. This entity offers classes and concerts as part of its objectives. She has performed in concert at the Santander International Festival, the San Sebastián Music Fortnight, and the Juan March Foundation, among others. She has also given lectures at the University of Sydney, the Hochschule der Künste Bern, and the conservatories of Paris and Lyon, as well as at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid.

Dr. Aldo Mata

Cellist. He studied at the Reina Sofía School and received master classes from Rostropovich and Greenhouse, among others. Doctor of Music. His doctoral thesis was on Mozart's Prussian Quartets. He is a professor at the Manuel Castillo Conservatory in Seville and a teacher at the Katarina Gurska Higher Music Centre in Madrid (CSKG). He has won several competitions, such as the Fulbright, Popper, and the permanent national competition of Juventudes Musicales. He has participated in festivals in Brazil, Japan, the United States, and elsewhere.

Pau Casals and Catalan and Spanish composers in exile

Dr. Eva Moreda Rodríguez. (University of Glasgow)

Professor of Musicology at the University of Glasgow. She received her doctorate from Royal Holloway College, University of London. Her studies focus on the political and cultural history of Spanish music in the 20th century in exile and under the Franco regime. Among the books she has published is Music and Exile in Francoist Spain. She has also written an essay on the recording of Bacarisse's concerts by the Trío Arbós. She has been a member of the Organising Committee of the Spanish Art Song and Zarzuela Festival in London since 2014. Member of the Scientific Committee of these conferences.

The Belgian network of Pablo Casals

Jan Dewilde

Musicologist from the University of Leuven. Librarian at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp (Belgium) since 2004. Since 1998, he has been the coordinator of the Study Centre for Flemish Music (Belgium). He is an expert in Flemish music. He is a research assistant at the Centrum voor Teksteditie en Bronnenstudie of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature (Belgium) and at the Orpheus Institute (Belgium).

As if he were not the same person: Schenker on Casals as cellist, conductor, and businessman

Dr. Shanti Nachtergaele

He graduated from Shenandoah Conservatory and earned a master's degree in early music from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He received his doctorate from McGill University. His doctoral thesis focused on the socio-material history of the double bass (c. 1760–1890). He plays the double bass and the violone (an instrument that could be described as a Baroque double bass).

Edward Klorman

Violist. He has given concerts at venues such as the Berkshire Bach Society. He specialises in tonal music and the relationship between musical analysis, interpretation, and historical musicology. Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Mead Witter School of Music. He has also taught at the Juilliard School in Manhattan (New York). His books include Bach's Cello Suites and Mozart's Music of Friends. Social Interplay in the Chamber Works.

From Barcelona to Madrid: New reflections on Pablo Casals' stay in the capital (1893-1895)

Dr. Miguel Ángel Ríos Muñoz. (Complutense Institut of Musical Sciences)

He holds a degree in musicology of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid (graduation award and honours for ‘Casimiro Espino (1845 - 1898): melodies for orchestra, a song without words’). He also holds a master's degree in Spanish Music and Spanish and Latin American Music from the Complutense University of Madrid. He has a PhD in musicology also from the Complutense University of Madrid. His doctoral thesis is entitled ‘El Teatro Felipe (1885 - 1891): Dramatic and musical practices of the theatre by the hour’. He participated in the concerts held at the Pau Casals Museum from 22 to 24 May. He has published numerous articles and book chapters. He has participated in several conferences. Member of the Organising Committee of these conferences.

"Le maître et le centimaître" - Pau Casals and Rudolf von Tobel in Switzerland

Helga Váradi

He studied harpsichord at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna; he has also studied at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Hochschule für Alte Musik. He won the Gianni Bergarmo Prize for his harpsichord performance (2014). He has carried out various research projects, one of which focused on Rudolf von Tobel and Pau Casals, based on von Tobel's archives preserved in Bern. One of his books is ‘La Maître et le centimaître. Rudolf von Tobel the devoted student in service to the Maestro Pablo Casals’ (Rudolf von Tobel was a student of Casals and remained loyal and admiring of the Maestro throughout his life). Since 2022, Váradi has been Head of Events and Special Projects at the Lucerne Theatre and a member of the Rudolf von Tobel Foundation (Graffenried, Bern). She is deeply committed to cultural exchange in Europe.

The origins of the 1950 Prades Festival

Andrea Bravo Serrano. (Complutense University of Madrid)

Cellist. Musicologist. She has participated in research for the project ‘The Sound of Pau Casals’. She has focused particularly on the humanistic and musical career of Pau Casals and on the Prada Festival that bears his name.

Casals' Beethoven and Enbodied Responses

Dr. Inja Stanović. (University of Surrey)

Pianist and musicologist. Specialist in early music recordings. Her research focuses on historically informed performance practice and the study of wax cylinders and early gramophone records. She participated in the concert at the Museu Pau Casals on 23 May. Member of the Scientific Committee for these conferences.

From Casals to Morell: Comparison of Goltermann's Cantinella between the begining and the middle of the 20th century

Nieves María Pelejero Ibáñez

Graduated in History and Music Sciences from the University of La Rioja (2016). Advanced Cello degree from the Joaquín Rodrigo Conservatory of Music (2017). Master's degree in Cultural Project Management and Entrepreneurship from UNIR (2023).

Pau Casals' recording of Bach's cello suites: micro-scale shaping in the sarabandes

Dr. Ana Llorens. (Complutense University of Madrid)

PhD in music from the University of Cambridge. Professor of Music Theory and Analysis at the Complutense University of Madrid. Specialist in large-volume analysis. Member of the board of directors of the Spanish Society of Musicology. Principal investigator of the project "The Sound of Pau Casals." Member of the Scientific Committee for these conferences.

Evolution of stereophonic sound in Pau Casals' recording

Dr. Marco Antonio Juan de Dios Cuartas.  (Complutense University of Madrid)

PhD in Musicology. He holds a degree in History and Music Sciences from the University of Oviedo and a first-class honors degree in Recording Arts from Middlesex University, London. He is a member of the Spanish Society of Musicology (SEdeM), and of the Society of Ethnomusicology, and a member of the Society for Music Production Research (SMPR). He is currently an engineer in the Spanish section of the Audio Engineering Society (AES). He participates in conferences at the Complutense University of Madrid and is a member of the Scientific Committee for these conferences.

The Pau Casals Fund, a fund to be explored

Dr. Isaura Solé Boladeras

She holds a degree in Art History from the University of Barcelona (UB). She also holds a Master in Libraries and Heritage Collections from the UB. She also holds a Master in Analysis and Evaluation of Works of Art from the University of Lleida. She holds a PhD in Information and Communication from the UB, with the thesis: "Ex fumo dare lucem. The configuration of the graphic industry in Barcelona during the second half of the 19th century (1845–1900)." She is a documentalist at the Pau Casals Foundation, where she manages the documentary collections held at the National Archive of Catalonia and the collections of the Pau Casals Museum.

Casals and the concept of music as living heritage

Dr. Tiago de Oliveira Pinto

Musician, anthropologist, and curator. He holds a PhD in musicology from the Free University of Berlin (1990). He is a professor at the UNESCO Chair in Transcultural Music Studies at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar, Germany. Since 2024, he has represented the Krongert Academy in its programs and projects on musical heritage. This institution is guided by the humanistic ideas of Pau Casals. He was a visiting professor at Harvard University, Kent State University (Ohio), and Fort Hare University (South Africa), among others.

Music as propaganda: The reception of Pablo Casals in Japan and the Sinophone World during the Cold War

Dr. Min-Erth Wang

A PhD holder from the University of Oxford, his research focuses on East Asian responses to Western art music during the 20th century. His thesis examines the reception of this same Western music in Japan, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong; and the study of the reception of the music and thought of Pau Casals.

Latvian cultural reception of Pau Casals (1912 - 1977)

Dr. Zane Prëdele

She holds a bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree in musicology from the Jāzeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music (Latvia). Her doctoral thesis was "Jāzeps Vitols, His Dynamics in Cultural Memory: Canons and Archives." Since 2009, She has been an archivist at the aforementioned School of Music. In 2015, She joined the Centre for Scientific Research, also at the same music school, as a researcher, and later directed the centre from 2017 to 2019. She is currently a visiting professor at the same school.

Presentation of the edition of Enric Casals' suite for cello

Dr. Iagoba Fanlo. (Alfonso X El Sabio University)

He holds a PhD in Arts and Humanities from the Rey Juan Carlos University. As a cellist, he is a Golden Melómeno Award winner and was chosen to perform the Elgar Concerto under Yehudi Menuhin with the Royal Academy in London. In 2009, the Pau Casals Foundation asked him to perform an unpublished cello work by Pau Casals, together with the Casals Quartet. He is a cello tutor for the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO). He is the president of the Luigi Boccherini Association.

Other members of the Scientific Committee without presentation of communications at the conference

Dr. José Luis Besada. (Complutense University of Madrid)

Doctoral thesis on cognition and the methodology of analysis of contemporary musical composition (extraordinary award). He holds a degree in Music from the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid (RCSMM). He holds a degree in Mathematical Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid. He also holds a Master of Arts and an extraordinary doctorate award from the Université Paris 8 des Créations. Among many other degrees, he was an associate professor at the Sorbonne in 2016. He is the author of numerous works, including the monograph "Metamodels in Compositional Practices: The Case of Alberto Posadas' Liturgia Fractal". His articles include "Organized Sound Tempo" and "Perspectives of New Music". Between 2020 and 2023, he was a member of the Societé Française d'Analyse Musicale. A founding member of the Society for Musical Analysis and Theory (SATMUS), created in 2020, he is currently secretary and director of the entity's journal Súmula. Between 2020 and 2023, he was editor of the art section of the Journal of Mathematics and Music. He has been a contributor to Radio Clásica since 2017. His research interests include: History and analysis of Western art music since 1970; Cognition of the creative act in contemporary musical practices; and Cognitive and mathematical aspects of music theory. He belongs to various research groups and participates in several projects. One of the projects he has participated in is DeepMusic: Digitizing the Musical Heritage Ecosystem. Spain: TED 2021-131738B-100 (2022-2024); IPs: Álvaro Torrente and Judith Ortega.

Dr. Adam Beham (Maynooth Univesity)

Musicologist. Specializing in 20th-century Western music, he has studied different forms of performance from a critical and empirical perspective. He is working on a project on Irish popular music and liberalism during the late 20th century, linking musicology, social history, and gender.

 


Other members of the Organizing Committee:

Dr. María Álvarez Villamil (Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences)

Since 2020, she has been part of the R&D Project Manager team at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Carlota Martínez Escamilla (Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences)

Member of the research group "Spanish Music of the 19th and 20th Centuries."

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