Mid March, 2018

We went to the final concert of the 2018 Pablo Casals festival the other night. It was a wonderful performance in a beautiful venue. We had talked about going several times but never got around to it. A friend enticed us to go, and even bought our tickets. We’re glad she did.

Pablo Casals was born in in 1876 in Catalonia, Spain, to a Spanish father and a Puerto Rican mother of Catalonian descent.  His father, an organist and choir master, provided his early musical education. At the age of four, Casals could play the violin, piano and flute; at six he played a violin solo in public. He first saw a primitive cello-type instrument when a traveling musician played in his town. Casals saw his first real cello at age eleven and decided then to dedicate himself to the instrument.

Casals’ talents were noticed, and at age 12 he entered the Escola Municipal de Musica in Barcelona, where he studied cello, piano, and theory. He graduated with honors at age 17. In 1893, the Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz heard him playing in a trio in a cafe and introduced him to Maria Cristiana, the Queen Regent.  She provided him a stipend to study composition at the Royal College in Madrid, as well as to play in informal concerts at the palace.

Casals moved to Paris where he made a living playing second cello at the Folies Marigny, but returned to Spain after a year and played as principal cellist at the opera in Barcelona. His international career began after he performed as a soloist with the Madrid symphony, with performances at the Crystal Palace in London and for President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington.

Casals was a passionate supporter of the Spanish Republican government and went into exile after they were defeated and vowed to stay in exile until democracy was restored. Not only that, he refused to play in any country whose government supported Franco’s totalitarian regime. He did make one exception – he played at the White House for President Kennedy, whom he admired.

Casals moved to Puerto Rico, and became prominent in the musical culture here. He started the Casals festival in 1955, helped organize the Puerto Rico National Symphony in 1958, and, in 1959, helped start the Conservatory of Music in Puerto Rico. In 1956, at age 80, he took as his third wife Marta Montanez y Martinez, then 20 years old. He remained musically active during his later years. He was once asked why he, at age 93, still played his instrument three hours each day. He replied: “I’m beginning to notice some improvement.” Casals died in San Juan in 1973, at age 96. Franco was still in power so he was buried here, but six years later, with Franco gone, his remains were moved to his childhood home of El Vendrell, in Catalonia.

So we were at the 63rd Casals Festival. It is a multiday event, with performances at different venues around the city. The performance we attended was at the Centro de Bellas Artes, which is to San Juan what Lincoln Center is to New York City. The CBA, as it is known, consists of a central plaza surrounded by three large performance venues. As patrons arrive, they are greeted by bronze representations of the Muses, representing the activities in the center.

The Muses, of course, originate in Greek mythology. One version has them as the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. There were seven of them, each with a symbol of their artistic endeavors: Calliope (poetry, writing tablet), Clio (history, scroll), Euterpe (lyric poetry, flute), Thalia (comedy, comic mask), Melpomene (tragedy, tragic mask), Terpsichore (dance, lyre), Erato (love poetry, lyre), Polyhmynia (sacred poetry, veil) and Urania (astronomy, compass). As the image below suggests, the statues here take some liberties with the traditional representations.

We heard the orchestra in in one work, Sinfonia No. 4 by Roberto Sierra, and the orchestra and San Juan Philharmonic Chorale in Mozart’s Requiem. Sierra is a contemporary Puerto Rican composer, currently on the faculty at Cornell. His piece was enjoyable – tonal, full of interesting rhythms, sometimes lively, at times sad. I’m glad I heard it but I’m not sure I will rush out and buy the CD.

The Requiem was wonderful. The chorus was well prepared, the four soloists were good (especially Joel Prieto, the tenor) and the orchestra was excellent. Combine that with an attentive audience in a wonderful venue and you had a most enjoyable evening.

I enjoy going to concerts like this though I must admit I sometimes become a bit wistful when  I hear a pianist. Everyone else in my family – wife, son, daughter – plays. I started piano lessons when I was in the first or second grade at the Kemble Street School in Utica. I did pretty well – I could see I was picking things up faster than most of my class mates.

But we did not have a piano at home. My mother had played as a child and probably wanted one, but we were in a small house and my parents were dealing with a growing family and aging parents. My parents, at a parent – teacher conference, learned of my nascent pianistic skills, and in the best traditions of parents everywhere decided to support my studies. My mother went out and found a small, used pump organ, small enough to fit in our house.

So I practiced on the pump organ. At the next conference, my parents learned that, while I was making good progress, I kept bouncing up and down on the piano bench, somewhat to the detriment of my emerging artistry.

My father was quick to recognize the issue and worked out a solution, in his very best Rube Goldberg fashion. He found an old vacuum cleaner, hung it from the cellar ceiling, and ran a tube from the vacuum cleaner’s exhaust through the floor and into the organ. Problem solved! When I wanted to practice, I went down in the cellar and plugged the vacuum cleaner in, and went upstairs and practiced.

There were two problems, one minor, and one major. The minor one: I could hear the whine of the vacuum cleaner, which did nothing for my ear training. The major one: the vacuum cleaner did not produce very much air. Only the notes above middle C sounded when I pressed the keys. As I’m sure you know, the notes above middle C are usually in the domain of the right hand; the notes below belong to the left. I got pretty good with the right hand, but the left, since I could not hear the notes, remained a mystery.

So when I watch a pianist I often wonder what would have happened if we had had a piano at home. Or a more powerful vacuum cleaner. Perhaps I’d have been a soloist at the Casals Festival.

It is funny the way things work out.

Oh, and we’re going to the CBA again this week, this time to see a touring company production of Les Miserables. Should be fun.

 

Notes and Sources: See Wikipedia entries for Pablo Casals and Greek Muses.