Casals: The Bow and the Baton

COMPOSERS: Casal
LABELS: Pearl
WORKS: Complete 1929-30 HMV Singles; Complete 1928 LSO Recordings
CATALOGUE NO: GEMM CD 9128 AAD mono

Pearl’s well-transferred anthology highlights two major aspects of Pablo Casals’s musicianship (a third, as composer, is displayed in other collections), where heart-rending morceaux sit comfortably next to characterful orchestral performances with the LSO. That was in 1928-30, some twenty years before the formation of the Hollywood String Quartet and a recording of Walton’s Quartet that moved the composer himself to write: ‘I hope no one ever records my Quartet again, because you captured so exactly what I wanted…’