Henri Casadesus
and His Viola Concerto in C minor
Music forgery of the viola concerto in C minor
Henri Gustave Casadesus (1879-1947)
Casadesus was born in Paris in 1879 and died in Paris in 1947. He was a composer and violist, and also played the viola d’amore. Casadesus studied at Paris Conservatoire as one of the earliest viola students of Théophile Édouard Laforge, a French violist and first professor of viola at the Conservatoire de Paris. Casadesus was the first French violist to give recitals entirely devoted to viola music.
In collaboration with Saint-Saens in 1901, Henri Casadesus established the Société des Instruments Anciens Casadesus (Society of Ancient Instruments) to collect rare instruments and musical works, as well as organize concerts. The group was made up of members of the Casadesus family. They traveled between 1901 and 1939 performing as far east as Russia and crossing the Atlantic to the U.S. Much of the collection of rare and historic instruments that Henri assembled is now in the collection of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Museum. Because of his position as the founder of the Society, people started to believe that he discovered a lot of ancient music from the times of Mozart, Handel, and C.P.E. Bach.
Music forgery in the Viola Concerto in C minor
Musical forgeries were popular in the period between 1860-1935; the violinist Fritz Kreisler (1860-1935), for example, composed Preludium and Allegro in the style of Italian Baroque composer Gaetano Pugnani, and the cellist Gaspar Cassado (1897-1966) who in a similar fashion composed Toccata in the style of Girolamo Frescobaldi. Kreisler and Cassado even claimed that the pieces were written by the Italian Baroque composers, when in fact they themselves had written the pieces. During that time, there was little chance of being caught because most of the knowledge of the preceding musical era was not clear enough.
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Henri Casadesus claimed that he had found a viola concerto written by J.C. Bach. He first presented the piece to Madame Salabert in Paris, 1947. The preface in the score states that Casadesus received concerto in 1916 from Camille Saint-Saens. Casadesus claimed only to have edited the piece and had ‘evidence’ to document its original performance in 1789 on viola-da-gamba. Later, it became clear that this work was a forgery due to the absence of an original manuscript, and also due to stylistic incompatibilities. In addition, in 1985 (when the musical world knew more about music history) at the Viola Congress in Boston, Professor Franz Zeyringer suggested that for accuracy, Casadesus’s name should be hyphenated with Bach’s name on programs, to indicate that Casadesus is the composer and not the editor.
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This is not the only piece that Casadesus forged; he also did the same for his viola concerto in B minor (supposedly) by Handel. There were only a few pieces that existed for solo viola and orchestra, so as a violist, Henri Casadesus might have tried his best to compose more pieces for the viola to create more repertoire.
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The Viola Concerto in c minor has three movements, with the first and last propelled by rhythmic motives. The second movement is characterized by song-like lyricism that expresses characteristics of the viola’s tone color, and the final movement’s main theme is reminiscent of a Baroque dance, the gigue. Techniques such as harmonics, wide vibrato, rubato, portamento, and a lack of a double exposition are characteristic of the Romantic era than of the Galant style of J. C. Bach, who lived in the Rococo or the Pre-Classical Era.