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Robert Marcel Casadesus came from an outstanding musical family of Catalonian roots; his father Robert Guillaume and four uncles were all professional musicians, and his uncle Henri was a pioneer of performance on early instruments. Robert Marcel began learning piano with his aunt Rose; at the age of ten he became a pupil of Léon Diémer at the Paris Conservatoire, graduating in 1913 with the Premier Prix; in 1920 he received the prestigious Prix Diémer. His first forays into composition also date from that period. In 1921 he began his career as a concert pianist; he performed on leading concert platforms around the world, including in the USA, where he achieved great success, and also in Poland (Kraków 1926, Warsaw 1934). From 1921 he taught at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, co-founded by his uncle Francis, from 1940 to 1946 he led this institution's work in the USA, and on returning to France, in 1947, he became its director (in 1949 Nadia Boulanger was appointed his deputy). Among his pupils were Monique Haas and Claude Helffer. An important role in Casadesus's performance work was played by chamber music: for thirty years he played in a duo with the violinist Zino Francescatti, and he also recorded piano duets and works for three pianos with his wife Gaby and son Jean. He worked closely with such conductors as Arturo Toscanini, Dmitri Mitropoulos, George Szell and Leopold Stokowski. He was also a productive composer: sixty-nine of his opuses were published (e.g. by Durand and Salabert), including seven symphonies, three piano concertos, chamber works and other works for piano, and his own cadenzas to concertos by Mozart; he performed his Piano Concerto No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic directed by Stokowski.

Casadesus is the most outstanding pianist of the French school of the second half of the twentieth century; he forged his own individual style, marked by a sparing expression, the rejection of Romantic grandiloquence and the faithful realisation of the composer's text. He emphasised his aspiration to an ‘objective' interpretation by limiting dynamic contrasts and changes in tempo, by clear articulation and his own peculiar, none-too-melodious, tone, attaining what was then the ideal of classic French clarté. He was a master of French music from Couperin and Rameau to Chabrier and Satie; in his youth he was friendly with Fauré, Roussel (who dedicated to him his Trois pièces Op. 49) and especially Ravel; he was the first performer of many works. Among German composers, he performed more extensively Mozart (concertos) and Schumann (Fantasy in C major, Kreisleriana, Etudes symphoniques, Waldscenen), and he also played the occasional work by Bach, Weber's Koncertstück and Sonata in A flat major, Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5, late piano sonatas and all the violin sonatas, Brahms's Concerto in B flat major and rhapsodies, and Liszt's concertos and Totentanz. Casadesus's repertoire was crowned by selected Spanish works (Granados, Albéniz, de Falla) and Chopin.

He began to record in 1926, and made most of his recordings for Columbia (now reissued by Sony Classical). He was famous for his recordings of works by Ravel (complete works for solo piano, 1951), Debussy and Mozart (Piano Concertos Nos. 21-27 with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra directed by Georg Szell), still considered classic recordings today. Of works by Chopin, he recorded four complete sets of the ballades, as well as both sonatas, the Berceuse and the Mazurka in A minor Op. 17 No. 4 (on stage he also performed the Fantasy in F minor, nocturnes, etudes, Scherzo in C sharp minor and polonaises). Casadesus's classical-leaning Chopin interpretations are close to the readings of some German pianists (Backhaus, Kempff): pedal is used very sparingly, rubato sporadically, dynamics are mostly restrained; although there do occur stormy moments (Ballade in F major), they are always controlled. This vision of Chopin is closer to Mozart than to Schumann or Ravel.

Wojciech Bońkowski

August 2006