I solicit comment - helpful, if possible - upon the following
exchange, which began with a query from a musically sophisticated
Missouri psychiatrist:
-----Original Message-----
From: Classical Music List [mailto:CLASSM-L@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU]On Behalf
Of Scott Morrison
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 2:30 PM
To: CLASSM-L@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: A timely footnote on Pau Casals: Heifetz vs. Kreisler
Another Isaac Stern/Casals/Prades story: I heard this one from Stern
perhaps twenty years ago at the time that he was touring with the first
performances of George Rochberg's violin concerto (why does no one play it
now?).
I'd commented to him about the recording made in Prades by him, Casals,
that sainted cellist Madeline Foley, and others, of Brahms's Op. 88
quintet. You know, the one that has that vaulting cello theme in the
opening bars, a theme which is often covered by the rapid repeated chords
played by the other four players. In this recording the cello stands out
clearly, as it ideally should. Stern told me that a technician had a new
microphone, smaller than most in those days, and he convinced Casals to put
the mike INSIDE the cello, arranged in such a way that Casals could play
without any interference. No damn wonder the cello sounds like it's in your
living room and fourteen feet tall!
Paule, do you know anything about this story?
* Scott, I trust you to repeat what you heard from Isaac, but I can't
help doubting it - for several reasons.
To begin with, I can't imagine Casals - or any other string
player with the kind of almost amatory attachment to an instrument
Casals had to his Gofriller cello - permitting ANY technician to
open it up for the purpose of installing a microphone; string
players tend to bleed from the eyes when they even have to
contemplate letting even the most accomplished *luthier* (the
French term in universal usage) do such things, for therapeutic
purposes.
To continue: man & boy, I've come into contact with innumerable
kinds & sizes of mikes, but never one small enough to slip through a
stringed instrument's F-holes. It also would make no sense whatever
to let a mini-mike simply dangle inside there, unfixed in one way or
another.
The only thing I can even imagine having happened: Casals let
him attach a CONTACT mike to the cello's exterior back . . . but I
attended quite a number of recording sessions during the festivals
of 1950, '53, & '55, & Casals NEVER had any trouble whatever
making himself heard.
All in all, I wind up with the conclusion that Isaac either
wittingly or unwittingly took the germ of a good story & made
it a bit better.
Tell you what, Scott - I'll BC: this to two people
well placed to make some informed comment: Eugene Istomin, the
pianist who starting with the inaugural 1950 festival (where we
met) not only became an annual festival star but also, in a manner
of speaking, Casals' adopted son, and to Mrs. Istomin, a.k.a.
Marta Casals Istomin, Pau Casals' widow. I hope they'll chime
in here with whatever they might have to contribute. I also
CC: this to Prof. George Moore in Los Angeles, currently deep
in research on another aspect of Casals' life.
pm
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