Gaspar Cassado (cello) (L) – Jascha Horenstein (C) – Vladimir Vogel (R)
Back over to Switzerland this weekend for another performance from the archives of Swiss Radio.
This week, it’s a performance of the cello concerto by the Swiss/Russian composer Vladimir Vogel and performed in this radio recording by Gaspar Cassado, cello and Jascha Horenstein leading the Radio Orchestra of Beromunster on November 26, 1956.
Wladimir Rudolfowitsch Vogel (17 February [O.S. 29 February] 1896 – 19 June 1984) was a Swiss composer of German and Russian descent.
Born in Moscow, Vogel first studied composition in Moscow with Alexander Scriabin, then between 1918 and 1924 with Heinz Tiessen and Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin, where he subsequently taught (1930–33) at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory. He was close to the expressionist circle around Herwarth Walden and was active in the music section of the November Group of Max Butting and Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt.
In 1933, he left Germany as he was branded a “degenerate artist” and hunted by the Nazi regime due to his Jewish heritage and his involvement with the avantgardist Neue Musik scene. He first turned to twelve-tone technique with his Violin Concerto in 1937. From 1939 he lived in Switzerland, at first in Ascona and from 1964 in Zürich. Although Vogel was not permitted to work in Switzerland prior to his naturalisation in 1954, he taught composition privately and was active in various musical organizations, such as the ISCM. He also attended Hermann Scherchen’s ‘Sessions d’études musicales et dramatiques’ and organized the International Twelve-Tone Music pre-conference in Osilina in 1949. During this time, he was financially dependent on his wife Aline Valangin and other benefactors. His students include Erik Bergman, Tauno Marttinen, Maurice Karkoff, Rodolfo Holzmann, Robert Suter, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Andree Aeschlimann Rochat, Rolf Liebermann and Hermann Meier.
Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu (30 September[1] or 5 October 1897[2] – 24 December 1966) was a Spanish cellist and composer of the early 20th century.
Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu was born in Barcelona to a church musician father, Joaquim Cassadó, and began taking cello lessons at age seven. When he was nine, he played in a recital where Pablo Casals was in the audience; Casals immediately offered to teach him. The city of Barcelona awarded him a scholarship so that he could study with Casals in Paris.
In 1914 World War I broke out and his brother Agustí died a victim of an epidemic. Gaspar returned to Barcelona and began to offer concerts with the main orchestras of Spain. From 1918 he also performed in France and Italy, thanks to his friendship with Alfredo Casella. In 1920 he toured Argentina. From 1922 he began to make known his own compositions, both pieces for cello and concerts, chamber music, oratorios and a sardana. He also made transcriptions for cello.
In 1923 and thanks to the friendship with Francesco von Mendelssohn he met the singer and pianist Giulietta Gordigiani, with whom he lived for more than three decades, settling in Florence. Gaspar and Giulietta created a cello and piano duo with which they toured the European stages for more than a decade, achieving great success. Giulietta Gordigiani, widow of Robert von Mendelssohn, offered him fundamental support for the development and promotion of his career, as well as an excellent piano collaboration. Great virtuosos, they reaped for years the praise of the public and the admiration of the critics. In 1940 he toured the United States and spent the years of World War II in the village of Striano with Giulietta.
His career suffered a very significant and irreparable decline in the postwar period, due mainly to a famous letter Casals published in The New York Times accusing him of collaboration with the fascist regimes and asking that Cassadó not be allowed to play in the allied countries. Cassadó disputed Casals’ allegations, and scholars have questioned Casals’ motivation. Cassadó and Casals eventually reconciled with the help of Yehudi Menuhin.
Cassadó combined his solo career with his participation as a jury in international competitions. From 1946 he was professor at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, and from 1958 at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. That same year he co-founded the “Course of Spanish Music in Compostela” in Santiago de Compostela.
He was also the author of several notable musical hoaxes, notably the “Toccata” that he attributed to Girolamo Frescobaldi.
The personal papers of Cassadó’s father are preserved in the Biblioteca de Catalunya. Gaspar’s own papers, along with those of his wife, the pianist Chieko Hara [jp], are preserved at the Tamagawa University Museum of Education.
On the invitation of his friend Alicia de Larrocha, with whom he had a cello-piano duo (touring extensively with him from 1956–58), Cassadó played concerts and led frequent classes at Academia Marshall in Barcelona. The Professor of Cello chair at Academia Marshall is named after Cassadó and has been held since 2018 by Jacob Shaw.
Jascha Horenstein is particularly remembered as a champion of modern music and as a Mahler conductor, although his repertory as shown by his discography was quite wide. In 1929 he conducted the premiere of three movements of Alban Berg‘s Lyric Suite in an arrangement for string orchestra. In 1950, he conducted the first Paris performance of Berg’s Wozzeck.
Horenstein conducted the works of Bruckner and Mahler throughout his career, and he also displayed ongoing interest in Carl Nielsen, whom he knew personally, at a time when these composers were unfashionable. For example, his 1952 Vox recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 was the first studio recording, and the second commercial record, of that work. Several years later, he recorded the original version of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9. He made studio recordings of several of Mahler’s symphonies at various points in his career, including Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3 with the London Symphony Orchestra. A number of radio archives hold broadcast airchecks of many of the other Mahler symphonies, as well as Das Lied von der Erde. In recent years, several of Horenstein’s concert performances have been reissued on the BBC Legends label, including his celebrated 1959 Royal Albert Hall performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and his 1972 performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at Free Trade Hall, Manchester.
Horenstein also recorded Robert Simpson‘s Third Symphony and music by Paul Hindemith and Richard Strauss during the last few years of his life. His opera recordings included Nielsen’s Saul og David. His final operatic, and British, engagement was his March 1973 performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden of Richard Wagner‘s Parsifal.
It was during a performance of Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony in Minneapolis in 1971 that Horenstein suffered a heart attack and was caught in mid-air by the leader of the orchestra. Though warned by his doctors to reduce his workload, he continued to conduct. At the time of his death, he was planning to conduct Mahler’s Fifth, Sixth and Seventh. His wife Rose died in 1981.
Many grateful thanks to Wikipedia for helping out with the bio information.
Now press Play and enjoy.