Suite for solo cello (1926)

Preludio–Fantasia

Sardana (Danza)

Intermezzo e danza finale

Solo-cello inspiration comparable in any way to that of J.S. Bach seems to have bypassed the 19th century and to have re-emerged only in the 20th – with suites by composers like Hindemith, Kodály, Ysaÿe, and Britten. On the same level of accomplishment, and more eventful than some, is the suite Gaspar Cassadó wrote, presumably for himself to play, in 1926. A pupil of Casals, he was thoroughly steeped in the Bach suites, as his own music confirms. While this background sets his Suite in a historical perspective, however, it does not inhibit the Spaniard or, more precisely, the Catalan in him.

The first movement, headed Preludio-Fantasia, is a wide-ranging improvisation based for the most part on an expressive melody anticipated in the declamatory opening bars and introduced, after a short pause, in its definitive form in high profile on the A-string. Although variants occur in all registers of the instrument, perhaps its most surprising appearance is at the top of a nimble flight into harmonics high above the cello’s normal range. The Sardana is a Catalan inspiration making a vigorous feature of a folk dance closely identified with the region and twice including a quieter episode ingeniously equipped with its own ostinato accompaniment. The last movement, Intermezzo e danza finale, is orientated more to Andalusia in that it combines soulful evocations of cante jondo, punctuated by guitar-like pizzicato, with progressively livelier and more colourfully scored allusions to some such dance as the seguidilla.