Saturday Evening Concert

Welcome to the Weekend and your somewhat delayed  Saturday Evening Concert.  I have really enjoyed our focus this week on the Grand Masters of the Cello and this evening's historically significant concert will tie the week together uniting the past Masters with a new generation of up and coming Grand Masters of the Cello.  We began the week with the legendary Pablo Casals and tonight Casals spirit and his Cello will join us for a very special presentation.  

When Amit Peled was a boy of 10 living on a kibbutz in Israel, he heard his first recording of a Cello.  He had recently taken up the Cello to impress a girl and had been given a cassette tape.  He put the tape in the boom box and for the first time heard the wonder of Casals.  Now a 40-year-old cellist, Mr. Peled is practicing and performing on the very instrument that dazzled him in late 1983—an unlikely circumstance that has made him believe in destiny.  That cello, which Mr. Casals played more than any other, recently had its first thorough restoration in decades at the urging of Mr. Peled and the widow of Pablo Casals, Marta Casals Istomin.

Last November Mr Peled, who is currently the principle Cello instructor at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, embarked on a 19 date tour with Casals Cello.  For Amit, the tour offered audiences the chance to hear his playing as well as the rejuvenated sound of the Casals cello, which he calls “Pablo.” But it is also an opportunity to burnish the legacy of Mr. Casals, who was admired as much for his verve as his virtuosity.

“The whole thing about Casals is how to make a [musical] phrase alive,” says Amit, who  doesn’t try to imitate Mr. Casals but rather tap into the essence of his style: “It’s spontaneous, it’s sincere, it’s honest, it’s taking risks.”  Casals inspired Amit to take some risks. At 22, Amit left Yale University, where he had a full scholarship to a three-year music program, after just one year.  He left to move to Cape Cod and study under Casals’s pupil Bernard Greenhouse. Amit, who eventually got his bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston, spent three years learning from Mr. Greenhouse. He fondly recalls days spent practicing, walking on the beach and sipping afternoon Manhattans with his octogenarian teacher as Casals LPs spun on the record player.  He never imagined that he would one day be responsible for his hero’s famous instrument.

In 1915 Pablo Casals performed a concert at the Peabody Founders Day concert playing his 1873 Gofriller Cello.  In February of 2015 at the Peabody Founders Day Amit recreated the program Pablo Casals played at Peabody on the day of its 100th anniversary, performing on Casals' own 1733 Goffriller cello (February 12, 2015).  That is the concert I have for you this evening .  

The play list is as follows:

Opening remarks by Fred Bronstein, dean of the Peabody Institute, and Ronald Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University. 0:00

Sonata in G minor – George Frideric Handel 4:55

Suite No. 3 in C Major – Johann Sebastian Bach 14:04

Variations in E-flat Major – Ludwig van Beethoven 34:36

Remarks by Amit Peled 45:27

Élégie – Gabriel Fauré 49:43

Sicilienne – Gabriel Fauré 56:19

Papillon – Gabriel Fauré 1:00:06

Aria from Pastorale in F Major – J. S. Bach 1:03:25

Allegro Appasionato – Camille Saint-Saëns 1:07:18

Q&A 1:12:07

Encore: Prayer from Jewish Life – Ernest Bloch 1:19:55 

I believe you will thoroughly enjoy this evening of amazing Music from a beautiful Cello made by the next generation of Grand Masters of the Cello, Amit Peled.  Over on my tumblr, Grand Masters in the making Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic of 2Cellos are in concert at the 2014 Exit Festival.  A couple weeks back I featured an all Classical concert from 2Cellos, tonight they show off their 'Pop' props with an all Electric Cello performance that will definitely rock your socks.  

For your visual appreciation there is this exquisite edition of Naked or Nearly So down below and the 'Sleeping Beauty' Hottie of the Day! on my tumblr.  Thanks for hanging in until I arrived, see you again on Monday for another week of Music, Men & More!  Until next time always, Enjoy!

**  The Wall Street Journal and the Peabody Institute both contributed to this post