The Musical Aesthetics of Pau Casals. The Philosophical Influence of Henri Bergson on Pau Casals’s Musical Conception
Author: Magda Polo Pujadas
Format: digital
Number of pages: 74
Language: catalan
ISBN: 978-84-09-78387-8
Year of edition: 2026
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This research proposes an aesthetic reading of Pau Casals’s conception of music, focusing particularly on the influence of Henri Bergson’s vitalism, while also considering a phenomenological and hermeneutic perspective that, we believe, helps to illuminate the full scope of the musical dimension of the musician from El Vendrell. All of these philosophical currents exerted a significant influence on many of the artists who lived through the twentieth century. Beyond a merely technical approach to interpretation, Casals conceived of music as a lived, embodied, and spiritual experience. Drawing on the concepts of intuition, duration, and the élan vital, this study explores the convergence between these philosophical legacies and the aesthetic vision implicit in the Catalan cellist’s musical composition and performance.
Magda Polo Pujadas
She earned her PhD in Philosophy from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona (UB), graduating with the highest distinction, cum laude unanimously (1997). During her doctoral studies, she was awarded a Research Personnel Training Fellowship (FPU, 1989–1993). She subsequently developed her teaching career at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Barcelona. As a tenured professor at the Higher School of Music of Catalonia (ESMUC), she taught courses in Aesthetics, History of Thought, Music Theory, and Cultural History.
As an associate professor and visiting lecturer, she has taught courses on the History of Contemporary Thought, Aesthetics, Music History, Philosophy of Music, and Publishing Studies at the University of Barcelona, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Autonomous University of Madrid, Ramon Llull University, the University of Cantabria, the University of Valencia, the University of Carabobo (Venezuela), the University of Guadalajara (Mexico), and the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna (Italy)..
