From Festívola to the Prelude El Pessebre: An approach to Pau Casals’ musical catalogue through his sardanas

Authors: Albert Fontelles-Ramonet and Anna Costal i Fornells

Format: digital
Number of pages: 200
Language: catalan
ISBN: 978-84-09-70617-4
Year of edition: 2025

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Abstract

Pau Casals was an internationally renowned performer and conductor. Although composition was not a priority throughout his artistic career, he also cultivated this facet. In recent years, the Pau Casals Foundation, committed to the preservation and dissemination of his legacy, has promoted a project to edit and publish the complete works of his oeuvre.

The research project presented for the 2023 Pau Casals Chair research grant proposes a critical catalogue of his compositional oeuvre. This study delves into the location of manuscripts and editions, historically and artistically situates the creative process, and explores the performances and recordings that have marked the historical trajectory of each title. The object of study has been the set of six sardanas by Pau Casals: Festívola, Sardana for Cello Orchestra, Sardana del Pelegrí, Sant Martí del Canigó, Sardana en Do, and the prelude to El Pessebre. The hypothesis is that this small corpus could serve as a model for a complete critical catalogue due to its symbolic dimension and international impact. The research has been developed around three main objectives: to analyze the reception and impact of the six sardanas, to promote their access to performers and researchers, and to disseminate their artistic value to a wide audience.

The results have confirmed the magnitude of the work required to produce a complete critical catalogue of Casals’ oeuvre, given the volume of documentation preserved, the dispersion of sources and the international scope of his repertoire. They have also revealed details of the artistic collaboration between Enric Casals and his brother Pau, have located the premiere of some sardanas in Catalonia during the immediate post-war period, have given visibility to practically unpublished works, and have underlined the importance of the recordings directed by Pau Casals himself as study material for future research. These sardanas undoubtedly constitute one of the most international pillars of the sardana repertoire and a treasure of the Catalan musical heritage.

Albert Fontelles-Ramonet

Holds a degree in Performance from the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya and a PhD in Musicology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is currently a professor at the Institut del Teatre and the Universitat de Vic–Central University of Catalonia, as well as a member of the Research Group in Cultural and Musical Studies (2021 SGR 00454) at ESMUC. His research focuses on contemporary Catalan music, with studies on Cobla Barcelona, Igor Stravinsky, and Manuel de Falla. He has published in various scientific journals and recently contributed to the monograph Music, Propaganda and the Spanish Civil War: International Encounters with a Divided Nation (Oxford University Press, 2025). He is a performer with Cobla Marinada and has recorded around twenty albums, the most recent dedicated to Pau Casals’ music for cobla with the Cobla de Cambra de Catalunya and Antoni Ros-Marbà (2024).

Anna Costal i Fornells

Holds a degree in History and Music Sciences and a PhD in Musicology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is a professor at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, where she also coordinates the Research Group in Musical and Cultural Studies (2021 SGR 00454) and, between 2019 and 2024, coordinated the Master’s in Music Research. She specializes in contemporary-era music and the recovery of Catalan musical heritage. She has published several monographs, such as Això no és una biografia de Pep Ventura (Editorial Gavarres, 2023, 2nd ed.) and Les primeres havaneres a Catalunya (Dalmau Editor, 2023), as well as critical editions of works by Juli Garreta (Tritó, 2010-2012) and Enric Morera (Ficta, 2019). She was appointed by the Generalitat de Catalunya as curator of the Clavé Year (2024). She is a tenora performer and a representative of Cobla Vila d’Olesa.