Maestro Àlvaro Cassuto, Promotor of Portuguese Composers, Dies at 87

The photo promoted an Embassy of Portugal in Italy concert in 2014 of the Symphony Orchestra of the Province of Bari conducted by Maestro Álvaro Cassuto. Of the four pieces on the program, three were Portuguese -- Joly Braga Santos (Symphonic Overture n. 3), Federico de Freitas (Medieval Suite) and Àlvaro Cassuto (Return to the Future), while the fourth was Italian -- Gioacchino Rossini (Barber of Seville, overture).

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Besides leading an ensemble in interpreting a score, a maestro often selects the concert repertoire. The latter was very true for international musician Álvaro Leon Cassuto, who often chose the music of Portuguese composers to be played by orchestras in Portugal and worldwide in live performances and on recordings.

Born in Porto on November 17, 1938, conductor and composer, Álvaro Cassuto, died, at age 87, at his home in Guincho, Cascais, on April 6, a source close to the family told the Lusa news agency, reported Público (April 6). Cassuto was the son of German parents, whose father had Portuguese ties, and whose family sought refuge in Portugal from the Nazi regime in the 1930s, reported Haaretz (October 11, 2001).

"Álvaro Cassuto was, after Pedro de Freitas Branco, the Portuguese conductor with the greatest international renown and activity. Dozens of records, countless orchestras conducted, others founded, and a mostly enthusiastic critical reception attest to the greatness of this disciple of Herbert von Karajan. With Toscanini, he probably was the most iconic figure in orchestral conducting. But Cassuto was also a teacher, conducted courses, wrote books, composed much beautiful music and gave, as was my case, unique opportunities to young composers," wrote Sérgio Azevedo, in the Observador (April 6).

"He also encountered ministerial ill will, a lack of support, of money and, above all, a lack of belief in a vision that, for him, was never provincial, but always international. Against the tide of a Portugal that still thinks small, Álvaro Cassuto thought big, and it is no wonder, then, that most of the many records he made throughout his life were with foreign orchestras and labels, notably Naxos, the most powerful record label today, for which he recorded great works of Portuguese music and beyond.

"Because while Cassuto conducted iconic works of the symphonic repertoire superbly (as evidenced by archival recordings now available on CD), such as Richard Strauss' poem-symphony Don Juan, a gem which would not shame Karajan, it was in Portuguese music that he most distinguished himself. . . ."

Rather than recording "for the millionth time Beethoven symphonies or Rossini overtures",

Cassuto felt, "I dare say, a sense of mission" to record the national repertoire, particularly that of the 20th century, said the composer Sérgio Azevedo.

"Thus, we now have the complete, or almost complete, symphonic works of several of these leading composers, and there would be more were it not for the Maestro's advanced age having brought an end to an undertaking that, in the case of Joly Braga Santos' work alone, is absolutely monumental, given the quantity, variety and scope of the orchestral works of this great name in musical composition."

Álvaro Cassuto has released more than 30 albums on various record labels, featuring hundreds of works, mostly by Portuguese composers, reported Forbes (April 6).

According to the Portuguese Music Research & Information Center, Cassuto was "one of the most renowned Portuguese conductors" and "one of the main promoters of the work of the Portuguese composer Joly Braga Santos (1924-1988), his colleague and friend.

Àlvaro Cassuto Was a Good Shake-up

"The demands Cassuto placed on himself also were demanded of musicians, managers and patrons, and his reputation for being 'difficult' can only be understood if we look at the context of a country that, with the exception, of the Gulbenkian Orchestra (founded in 1962), no longer had anything resembling a professional orchestra worthy of the name in the 1980s . . . ," wrote Sérgio Azevedo, 57.

"It was this oppressive atmosphere, that of my musical youth, that the opening to Europe allowed an airing out with the coming of teachers and concert performers from all over the world. Together with the select group of high-quality Portuguese professionals and teachers which we still had . . . , Àlvaro Cassuto represented a real and violent (in a good way) shake-up.

"However, high standards come at a price. Just as Francisco de Lacerda, and even Pedro de Freitas Branco, had to deal with backward mentalities, lack of pride and commitment, negligence, little artistic ambition and other national ills that, today, and also thanks to him, are almost only a bad memory in the field of music, Cassuto was accused of tyranny, arrogance, among other epithets which, curiously, never came from the best, but always from the worst."

Training in Portugal, Germany, Austria

Though born in Porto, Álvaro Cassuto grew up in Lisbon, studied violin and piano from childhood and, later, developed his musical training with composers Artur Santos (1914-1987) and Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906-1994), reported Forbes.

In 1959, he made his debut as a composer with works such as Sonatina, Sinfonia Breve and Overture for Strings, addressing the composition method of the 12-tone technique, developed by Arnold Schoenberg, which gives all 12 notes equal importance and the music avoids being in a key.

In 1960, he attended international courses in Darmstadt, Germany, where he worked with composers Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gyorgy Ligeti, Pierre Boulez and Olivier Messiaen. He studied orchestral conducting with Maestro Pedro Freitas Branco (1896-1963), internationally recognized as one of the best interpreters of Maurice Ravel's music, and later with Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989) in Berlin.

"For me, I never had another conductor in my circle whom I admired as much as Karajan," Cassuto said in a long conversation he had with José Jorge Letria, president of Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores (Portuguese Society of Authors) entitled Alvaro Cassuto: Maestro Without Borders (2016), adding that the German conductor "was one of the very few who achieved this 'fusion' of sounds in an absolutely astonishing way, without saying a word, just through gesture and his personality," according to Forbes.

In 1961, he made his debut as a conductor leading the Porto Orchestra. Subsequently, he was assistant conductor (1965-1965) and deputy director (1970-1975) of the Gulbenkian Orchestra.

In 1964, he graduated in law from the University of Lisbon, but he forsook the pursuit of a diplomatic career for music.

In 1965, he completed the conducting course at the Vienna Conservatory.

"I Didn't Have Much of a Future in Portugal"

Throughout his career, Cassuto would travel back and forth to the United States, remaining there from 1968 to 1986, according to Forbes.

"I quickly came to the conclusion that I didn't have much of a future in Portugal", therefore, this was "the best decision I could make".

In 1969, he received the Koussevitzky Prize for young conductors, awarded by the Tanglewood Music Center, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

Conductor Leonard Stokowski (1882-1977) invited Cassuto to be his assistant of the American Symphony Orchestra. Cassuto was also a professor at the Julliard School of Music in New York (1981-1982), reported Forbes. He also led the University of California Symphony Orchestra, at Irvine (1974-1979); the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra (1979-1985) and the National Orchestra of New York (1981-1986), with which he gained wide critical acclaim, including from The New York Times, for its regular annual concert series in Carnegie Hall, according to The World of Classical Music, Naxos.

During this American period, Cassuto also conducted some concerts in the United States for the fado singer, Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999), widely celebrated as the voice of Portugal.

An "Orchestra Builder"

At the same time, in Portugal, he was appointed deputy music director of the Portuguese National Radio Symphony Orchestra (1970-1974) and elected its music director (1975-1987).

In parallel, Cassuto developed a career as a composer and conducted concerts in venues on the international circuit, a "successful activity", according to the Encyclopedia of Portuguese Music in the 20th Century, reported Forbes.

Although he was invited regularly to conduct first-rate orchestras, such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, and the St. Petersburg and Moscow orchestras, among others, it was with orchestras which were receptive to an "orchestra builder" that he developed the major part of his career, reported The World of Classical Music, Naxos.

Back Home

Upon returning to Portugal, Cassuto founded the Nova Filarmonia Portuguesa (New Portuguese Philharmonic) in 1988, which he conducted until 1993 and with which he performed 635 concerts, reported Forbes. That year, he was invited by the government to form the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa (Portuguese Symphony Orchestra), which included musicians from the Philharmonic and the Orchestra of the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos. He was the principal conductor there from 1993 to 1999.

In 2000, he assumed the positions of principal conductor and artistic director of the Ra'anana Symphonette Orchestra in Israel, which he held until 2002, reported Forbes.

"I'm not religious because I am not a believer, but Jewish heritage is important to me. That's why I'm here," Cassuto told Haaretz (October 11, 2001).

In the 15th century, the maestro's father's forefathers lived in Portugal.

"In the national archive in Portugal is a license to build a home received by Yitzhak Cassuto in 1492. The Portuguese connection was maintained in our family. My grandfather, in Hamburg, spoke Portuguese, and my father also studied the language in university."

The conductor's father chose "to return" to Portugal in the 1930s.

"This Yitzhak Cassuto, who received a license to build a home at the end of the 15th century, was a new immigrant in Portugal, as he came from somewhere else as well. It went like this: members of the Cassuto family came to Italy from Morocco, and their previous name was Italianized. From Italy, they moved to the Iberian Peninsula, and from there -- in the expulsion from Spain -- to Turkey, from Turkey to Italy and from there to Amsterdam. My great-grandfather, who was born in Amsterdam, moved to Hamburg as the cantor of the community. Up until my grandfather, they were all Sephardim, but my grandfather married an Ashkenazi woman, as did my father. My mother was from the Hammer family, which came to Germany from Poland."

Cassuto was invited to create the Algarve Orchestra and did so in 2002, according to Sul Informação (April 6). He told Haaretz that he "left the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, which I established in 1993 and headed until 1999. The break came after a decision was taken to turn the orchestra into the orchestra of the opera -- a destructive political decision that I couldn't accept. I was forced to resign. The authorities in The Algarve region -- a tourist and vacation area on the southern coast -- came to me and proposed setting up a new orchestra."

In 2004, he began his duties as artistic director of the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra until 2008, reported Forbes. From 2010 to 2013, he conducted the Symphony Orchestra of the Province of Bari, in Italy.

In 2016, in a written message to the Portuguese Society of Authors about his career, Cassuto recalled:

"In 1993, when I was tasked with forming and conducting the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, one of my priorities was the international affirmation of what should become the first and most important Portuguese symphony orchestra and, at the same time, to disseminate, through it, the most important orchestral works of our composers."

Recording Project of Portuguese Composers

In the following message written for the column On behalf of the authors, he reported on the recording project undertaken with the Naxos and Marco Polo labels in 1997, which involved recordings of major Portuguese composers and included the complete orchestral works of Joly Braga Santos, with the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony and National Symphony of Ireland.

"These recordings have earned the most enthusiastic praise from demanding international critics from the very beginning . . . extolling not only the extraordinary quality of the works but also that of the orchestra and their respective interpretations."

He highlighted the winning of the prestigious Prix International du Disque in Cannes.

The Composer

Regarding Álvaro Cassuto's activity as a composer, the Encyclopedia of Portuguese Music in the 20th Century states that it "reflects his orchestral practice". "In his early works, he applied serial dodecaphonism, later opting for free atonality".

"I had an internal conflict: I loved a certain type of music -- Bach and Mozart -- on which I was raised and whose works I played since youth, on violin and piano, but I was making different music. The conflict led me to leave composition for several years and, when I returned to it, I began writing 'consonant' music. Today, I know that the avant-garde school led to a dead end and, in effect, did not survive," the musician told Haaretz (October 11, 2001).

Some of his works have been published by Naxos and recorded by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

"His work as a composer, so often scorned by him, now, I hope, has a window of opportunity to begin being performed outside the realm of his baton, beginning this rebirth this year with the premiere, by 'his' Algarve orchestra and pianist Diana Botelho Vieira, of the revised version of the Concertina for Piano and String Orchestra, a work from his youth which I had the pleasure of working on with him," wrote Sérgio Azevedo, in the Observador.

Writings

Álvaro Cassuto published an autobiography, Incomplete Symphonies: The Odyssey of a Portuguese Maestro, in 1999, reported Forbes. He published the biography, Joly Braga Santos: A Life and a Work, in 2018. He also published another autobiography, Memoirs of a Maestro, in 2021.

In 2012, the Portuguese Society of Authors invited him to write the Author's Day message, which he entitled Creativity in a Materialistic Society. In it, he highlighted authors, novelists, composers and artists, the creators of intangible cultural goods, "those who enrich us with goods that, unfortunately, in the contemporary and essentially materialistic society in which we live, are the least valued", forcing their creators "to transform them into material goods, in order to survive and to be able to continue creating".

Tributes

In 2009, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his career, the Coliseu do Porto unveiled a commemorative plaque in its lobby. On June 10th of that year, on the national holiday of the Day of Portugal, Camões, and the Portuguese Communities, the President of the Republic, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, awarded him the rank of Grand Officer of the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword.

His "beloved friend", colleague and mentee, Sérgio Azevedo, wrote:

"Through the twists and turns of life, we ended up being practically neighbors, me in Estoril, him in the Guincho area, which allowed me to visit him from time to time and enjoy his company, wisdom and affability. I owe him a great deal, but we all owe him more -- musicians, music lovers, Portuguese people in general -- than we could ever imagine."