This is the first of two CDs devoted to the complete encores and transcriptions that the great cellist Pablo Casals recorded for Victor and HMV between 1925 and 1930. We don’t readily associate this lofty musician with the so-called “popular” fare record companies required their classical artists to record in the early shellac days–yet Casals did more than his share. Granted, he wasn’t a charmer like Kreisler or McCormack, and it often seems as if the surface elegance Casals brings to Saint-Saëns’ The Swan, Fauré’s Aprés un rêve, the Godard Berceuse, Rubinstein’s Melody in F, or Wagner’s Song to the Evening Star and Prize Song is hard won. Still, you never sense that Casals condescends to the material.
His intelligent musicianship and intense dynamism really come to the fore in Bruch’s Kol Nidre (the lone extended composition here). The electrical engineering gives a much more vivid sonic picture of Casals’ big, visceral timbre than his earlier, acoustic version of this work reveals. And despite the piano accompaniment, Casals’ firmer rhythm and intonation strikes me as superior to his remake with orchestra from the 1930s. If you’ve held onto RCA’s out-of-print Casals encores CD, replace it with Naxos’ altogether superior transfers, courtesy of Mark Obert-Thorn at his best. [6/30/2003]
