Guilhermina Suggia ('cello) - Allemande (Senaille, arr. Salmon) (1923)

Описание: Guilhermina Suggia plays 'Allemande,' with piano by George Reeves, recorded at Hayes on 31 October 1923.

From Wikipedia: Guilhermina Augusta Xavier de Medim Suggia Carteado Mena, known as Guilhermina Suggia, (27 June 1885 – 30 July 1950) was a Portuguese cellist. She studied in Paris, France with Pablo Casals, and built an international reputation. She spent many years living in the United Kingdom, where she was particularly celebrated. She retired in 1939, but emerged from retirement to give concerts in Britain. Her last was in 1949, the year before her death.

Suggia bequeathed an important British scholarship for young cellists, which has been granted to performers including Derek Simpson who was first holder of the Suggia Scholarship and continued his studies in Paris under Pierre Fournier, Rohan de Saram, Jacqueline du Pré, Robert Cohen and Steven Isserlis.

Suggia was born in Porto to a family of Portuguese and Italian descent. Her father was a competent musician and taught her musical theory and cello. Such was her progress that by the age of 12 she was appointed principal cellist of the local orchestra, the Orpheon Portuense. In 1904, under the patronage of Queen Maria Amélia of Portugal, she went to study at Leipzig under Julius Klengel. Although Klengel was a professor at the Leipzig Conservatoire, Suggia did not enrol there but rather took private lessons from him.

Within a year Suggia was asked to appear as a soloist with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under its conductor, Arthur Nikisch. From 1906 to 1912 she lived and worked in Paris with the cellist Pablo Casals. It was generally believed, incorrectly, that the two were married, and Suggia was sometimes billed as 'Mme P. Casals-Suggia.' She began to tour internationally, building her reputation. She and Casals were rated as ''the world's leading cellists.' Casals was close friends with composer Donald Tovey, who wrote his Sonata for Two Cellos for the pair. On visiting the couple to present the work in 1912, an unknown event occurred between Suggia and Tovey which caused strain on the relationship between Suggia and Casals, and the friendship between Tovey and Casals. After they separated, Suggia retained her admiration for Casals, describing him as pre-eminent among living cellists. In 1914 she formed a trio with the violinist Jelly d'Arányi and the pianist Fanny Davies. During the period of her residence in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s, she was a frequent visitor to Lindisfarne Castle in northern England, where a cello now rests in the Music Room in commemoration of her time spent there. Her 'Montagnana' cello rests in Conservatório de Música do Porto, her home-town in Portugal.

In 1927, Suggia married Jose Mena, an X-ray specialist. During World War II, Suggia and her husband returned to Portugal, where she lived in retirement. She visited Britain after the war, giving performances of the Elgar Cello Concerto in aid of charity. She gave her last concerts at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949 and in Bournemouth later the same year.

Suggia died of cancer in Porto at the age of 65, a year after the death of her husband.


I transferred this side from a 1920s English pressing of HMV DB 680.