Gaspar cassado biography of abraham lincoln

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As Hara and Cassadó left no apparent heir, his works remain in a limbo in terms of further access or the possibility of publications of his out-of-print works or unpublished work.

Over the past twenty years, however, Cassadó has been rediscovered by musicians and researchers, including Gabrielle Kaufman, a cellist and scholar in Barcelona, whose book Gaspar Cassadó came out in 2018 and includes the first complete listing of his more than fifty compositions.

Diran Alexanian (1881-1954), another student of Casals, contacted his maestro and received a scathing letter that Alexanian shared with the paper.

In 1958, he joined the faculty of the Cologne Hochschule für Musik. A few years later, by the mediation of renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who remained a faithful friend to both maestro and disciple, they reconciled and remained in good friendship. Eve Barsham, his accompanist, had discovered the manuscripts in the archives of the Duke of Hamilton in Scotland.

He left behind a legacy of compositions, including three string quartets, the "Catalan Rhapsody" for symphony orchestra (1928), works for guitar, a cello trio, a cello concerto (1926), a suite for solo cello (mid-1920s), and numerous pieces for cello, both solo and with piano.

Transcriptions and Impact

Cassadó also made significant contributions through his transcriptions of works by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Boccherini, Schubert, Chopin, and others.

In fact, he may have been Casal's youngest pupil, when he studied with him in Paris in 1910. In this book, Gabrielle Kaufman provides the first full-length scholarly work dedicated to Cassadó, containing the results of seven years of research into his life and legacy, after following the cellist's steps through Spain, France, Italy and Japan. Cassadó’s recognition amid musicians, by contrast, is almost apolitical, even though his own career, too, was deeply impacted by the war—most notably in March 1949, when the New York Times published a letter by Casals himself in which he suggested Cassadó had been less than critical of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Francoist Spain.

The real story is more complicated.

Casals promptly offered to mentor the young prodigy. She is currently engaged in a research impact grant from Durham University seeking to create a cultural and musical context from which Cassadó’s work can be discovered and studied in collaborations with professional musicians from the U.S., the UK and Europe.