Search - Schubert, Casals :: Quintet in C Major

CASALS: Another performance level!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 08/26/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In Schubert' s life, the year 1828seems to have been a frantic race against time. Indeed the Viennese composer appears to want express everything that his premonition of his fear of his approaching death may have imposed upon him. Under such pressure, in such haste, certain aesthetics inhibitions disappeared, transforming even more than ever the genial artist into an innovator of indubitable originality, although he never left the pathway he had chosen to follow in the field of the Lied.

The following statement may be shocking and even exaggerate for some readers, but I think Casals was the most excel and complete musician of the Century XX. It's impressive how his powerful inspiration and noblesse can transcend far beyond the same recording. You feel his craftsmanship in the sublime atmosphere he creates every time you listen any of his recordings.

First at all I `d like to state -in a very personal opinion- this is simply, the greatest chamber work ever composed for this association .

This performance - Prades59 - gathers finally to the great and famous ensemble Budapest Sting Quartet with the colossus Pablo Casals, playing one of the most superb versions ever made about this work.

The result was extraordinary. The lyricism and the serene majestic evolved in this recording can be only found every time Casals played. He possessed a kind of special magnetic rapture to commit the level of his musicians partners.

Beethoven's Variations for cello and piano Op. 66 in F Major on the Theme "Ein Mädchen" by Mozart are simply unique. I don't know about other recording that even gets close.

I posses besides another four recordings widely recommended: The First was recorded on July 1 1952 with Isaac Stern & Alexander Schneider violins, Miltom Katims, alto/viola, Casals and Paul Tortellier, cellos in Prades: the second is from Prades too, July 7 1953 with Jacob Krachmalnick & Orrea Pernel violins; Karen Tuttle viola and Madeleine Foley and Casals, cellos; (by far the least orthodox approach of all) the Third one is this one and the fourth (the most pyramidal of all those) Prades too July 7 1961, with Sandor Vegh & Sandor Zöldy, violins; Georges Janzer, viola; and Pablo Casals & Paul Szabo violoncellos.

My personal advising is: try to get all what you can about those treasured recordings that belongs to the artistic patrimony's mankind.



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