~
Pablo Casals ~ A Living Portrait
Francisco Franco - 1930
Pablo Casals commemorative postage stamp - 1976
Trained as a photographer, he specialized in travel photography for years, shooting for Holiday and Town and Country magazine. He also served as director of photography for the film version of 1963 Lord of the Flies.
Hollyman Thomas Benton was born in Denver in 1919. He graduated from Central Missouri State University in 1940 and became one of the students to obtain a Master’s degree in Photojournalism from the University of Missouri. From there, he joined the Chicago Acme Newspictures Bureau, and later became staff photographer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
In World War II Hollyman served in the Air Force and stationed at the Pentagon working in the intelligence picture.
Tom Hollyman died on November 14, 2009, in Austin, Texas, after a struggle against COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). He was 89 years old.
Side 2:
Part 2
B1 Casals Conducting
B2 On Bach
B3 On Liberty
B4 On War And The Hope For Peace
Credits:
Engineer, Script By, Edited By – H. L. Kirk*
Liner Notes – H.L.K.*
Musical Assistance [Special Assistance By] – Ruth Chapman
Narrator [Commentary] – Isaac Stern
Photography By – Tom Hollyman
Producer, Sleeve Notes – Thomas Frost
Notes:
Label variation, grey background with black and white letters.
Although there is a person telling the story of Mr. Casals, and speaking by Mr. Casals himself, there are several music pieces through-out both sides of this LP, including several short, cello solo playing, some with complete orchestra backing, some while teaching students on "how to" play both the cello, and in an orchestra arrangement.
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Matrix / Runout (Side A): XXLP115767-3D
Matrix / Runout (Side B): XXLP115768-3D
Label Code (Side A): XLP 115767
Label Code (Side B): XLP 115768
Styrous® ~ Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Pablo Casals ~ A Living Portrait
Today is the birthday of Catalan musician, Pau Casals i Defilló, who was born on December 29, 1876, in El Vendrell, Cataluña, Spain. He is better known to the world as Pablo Casals.
In 2010 I enjoyed doing a photo shoot in the tiny village where he was born, El Vendrell (link below). Although I've known of Casals almost all my life, at the time I did not realize he was born there; to me, it was just a beautiful village I wanted to photograph.
date & photographer unknown
Pablo Casals is best remembered for his recordings of the Bach Cello Suites he made from 1936 to 1939. He was filmed in the Sant Miquel de Cuixà abbey in Spain in 1954 as he performed Bach's Suite No. 1 in G Major.
Pablo Casals - 1954
photo by Yousuf Karsh
The works are suites for unaccompanied cello by Johann Sebastian Bach.
They are some of the most frequently performed and recognizable solo
compositions ever written for cello. Bach most likely composed them
during the period 1717–23, when he served as Kapellmeister in Köthen. The title given on the cover of the Anna Magdalena Bach manuscript was Suites à Violoncello Solo senza Basso (Suites for cello solo without bass).
Pablo Casals, Barcelona - 1915
photographer unknown
In 1966, he made a recording, Pablo Casals ~ A Living Portrait, for the Columbia Masterworks series. Although
there is a person telling the story of Mr. Casals, and speaking by Mr.
Casals himself, there are several music pieces through-out both sides of
this LP, including several short, cello solo playing, some with
complete orchestra backing, some while teaching students on "how to"
play both the cello, and in an orchestra arrangement.
Included are rehearsals for a performance that he conducted. It is interesting to hear him demonstrate how he wants the music to be performed; he was very precise about this. He talks about the performance of the work in the time of Bach. He talks about the instruments of the Baroque era and the improvisation. The liner notes were written by classical music producer, Thomas Frost.
He speaks of his early years in Spain and how his music career got its start and the journeys he traveled to become the fantastic cellist he was. But he doesn't limit himself to only music. In his late teenage years, already a prodigy, he underwent a spiritual crisis and came close to suicide. He speaks of the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, how it affected his life and the cruel suppression by the Francisco Franco Fashist regime that followed. He self-exiled from Spain and settled in Puerto Rico.
photographer unknown
In 1914, Casals married the American socialite and singer Susan Metcalfe; they were separated in 1928, but did not divorce until 1957.
In 1955 Casals married his second wife, long-time associate and cellist, Francesca Vidal de Capdevila, who died that same year.
Francesca Vidal de Capdevila
date & photographer unknown
In 1957, he married Marta Montañez y Martinez; he was 80 years old and she was 20 at the time. When asked if marrying a girl 60 years his junior might be hazardous, he replied, "I look at it this way: if she dies, she dies." The two settled in Ceiba, Puerto Rico. He speaks of her in loving tones, saying, "With Martita I have had the best years of my life". She is still aliver today.
photographer unknown
He discusses the politics of the time. It was a time of turmoil in the United States with demonstration against the war. Which one? Who cares? We are always at war with someone and he was just against any war, period! He talks about Vietnam (the war at the time) but still raged on into the seventies (link below).
He tells about performing for President John F. Kennedy, who awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, and for the United Nations to promote peace. He talks of the weapons being developed and the nuclear danger that threatens the world. He said his weapon was the cello.
Pablo Casals ~ A Living Portrait
vinyl LP back cover details
detail photos of album cover by Styrous®
Pablo Casals died in 1973 at Auxilio Mutuo Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the age of 96, from complications of a heart attack he had three weeks earlier.
He did not live to see the end of the Franco Fashist State, which occurred
two years later, but he was posthumously honored by the Spanish
government under King Juan Carlos I which in 1976 issued a commemorative postage stamp depicting Casals, in honour of the centenary of his birth.
In 1979 his remains were interred in his hometown of El Vendrell, Cataluña. In 1989, he was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
The album cover photographer and filmmaker Tom Hollyman, was president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers.
Pablo Casals ~ A Living Portrait
vinyl LP front cover detail
front cover photo by Tom Hollyman
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®
Trained as a photographer, he specialized in travel photography for years, shooting for Holiday and Town and Country magazine. He also served as director of photography for the film version of 1963 Lord of the Flies.
Hollyman Thomas Benton was born in Denver in 1919. He graduated from Central Missouri State University in 1940 and became one of the students to obtain a Master’s degree in Photojournalism from the University of Missouri. From there, he joined the Chicago Acme Newspictures Bureau, and later became staff photographer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
In World War II Hollyman served in the Air Force and stationed at the Pentagon working in the intelligence picture.
Tom Hollyman died on November 14, 2009, in Austin, Texas, after a struggle against COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). He was 89 years old.
Tracklist:
Side 1:
Side 1:
Part 1
A1 On His Youth And Education
A2 Casals Teaching
A1 On His Youth And Education
A2 Casals Teaching
Side 2:
Part 2
B1 Casals Conducting
B2 On Bach
B3 On Liberty
B4 On War And The Hope For Peace
Credits:
Engineer, Script By, Edited By – H. L. Kirk*
Liner Notes – H.L.K.*
Musical Assistance [Special Assistance By] – Ruth Chapman
Narrator [Commentary] – Isaac Stern
Photography By – Tom Hollyman
Producer, Sleeve Notes – Thomas Frost
Notes:
Label variation, grey background with black and white letters.
Although there is a person telling the story of Mr. Casals, and speaking by Mr. Casals himself, there are several music pieces through-out both sides of this LP, including several short, cello solo playing, some with complete orchestra backing, some while teaching students on "how to" play both the cello, and in an orchestra arrangement.
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Matrix / Runout (Side A): XXLP115767-3D
Matrix / Runout (Side B): XXLP115768-3D
Label Code (Side A): XLP 115767
Label Code (Side B): XLP 115768
Casals* – Casals: A Living Portrait
Label: Columbia Masterworks – PC 1
Format: Vinyl, LP, Mono
Country: US
Released: 1966
Genre: Non-Music
Style: Interview, Monolog
Label: Columbia Masterworks – PC 1
Format: Vinyl, LP, Mono
Country: US
Released: 1966
Genre: Non-Music
Style: Interview, Monolog
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
Brain Pickings ~ Casals: Working with love prolongs your life
Viewfinder ~ Tom Hollyman Dies at 89
YouTube links:
J S Bach ~ The 6 cello suites Pablo Casals, 1936 (complete) (2 hrs., 10 mins.)
Pablo Casals ~ A Living Portrait (Part 1) (20 mins., 15 secs.)
Pablo Casals ~ A Living Portrait (Part 2) (23 mins.)
"The man who works and
is never bored is never old."
~ Pablo Casals
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