---
title: Cassado at 125 by Benjamin Zander
description: September 30th, is the birthday of my beloved Maestro, Gaspar Cassadó (1897 to 1966). He was the most generous and noble of men.  I studied with him in Florence and Cologne for 5 years.
---

[Boston Philharmonic Blog ](https://blog.bostonphil.org)

# [Cassado at 125 by Benjamin Zander](https://blog.bostonphil.org/cassadoat125)

 Written by [Benjamin Zander](https://blog.bostonphil.org/author/benjamin-zander) | Sep 30, 2022 8:27:57 PM

September 30th, is the birthday of my beloved Maestro, Gaspar Cassadó (1897 to 1966).

He was the most generous and noble of men. I studied with him in Florence and Cologne for 5 years, from the age of 15 to 21.

He never charged my parents for his lessons - sometimes as long as 2 to 3 hours. He said to my father: “If I charged you what I thought my lessons were worth, you wouldn’t be able to afford it, so I won’t charge anything."  I never, in all those years, heard him say anything negative about another person.

 

Please take 4 minutes and 15 seconds, sometime tomorrow, to listen to this great and poetic artist play the Eb Nocturne of Chopin.

I always carry his sound in my head when I am conducting an orchestra - so you are, in a sense, all musical grand-children of Cassadó.

 

Happy Birthday, Maestro!  

[Listen to Cassado's Chopin Nocturne](https://blog.bostonphil.org/hubfs/FY23/01%20Cassado%20%20Chopin%20Nocturne.mp3)

 

[View full post](https://blog.bostonphil.org/cassadoat125)

```json
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "Benjamin Zander"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2022-09-30T20:27:57.528Z",
  "datePublished" : "2022-09-30T20:27:57Z",
  "headline" : "Cassado at 125 by Benjamin Zander",
  "image" : {
    "@type" : "ImageObject",
    "height" : 2614,
    "url" : "https://info.bostonphil.org/hubfs/Cassado.jpeg",
    "width" : 1960
  },
  "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://blog.bostonphil.org/cassadoat125",
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "height" : 60.0,
      "url" : "https://info.bostonphil.org/hubfs/BPO-Email-Logo.png",
      "width" : 233.0
    },
    "name" : "Boston Philharmonic Blog"
  }
}
```