Time.news — Frédérick Casadesus, journalist, unfolds the story of his family, poor and of Catalan origin, from the beginning of the 19th century to the present day. A patriotic family, faithful to the three colors which aims for excellence. Jean-Claude Casadesus and his mother, Gisèle are the best known to the general public. This book is like a manual of authoritarian pedagogy at a time when egalitarianism rhymes with leveling down. To put in the hands of parents who have ambition for their children.
Our contemporaries know Jean-Claude Casadesus above all, who founded the National Orchestra of Lille. He made simple people discover and love classical music. Gisèle, her mother, the former dean of actresses died at the age of 103. She played the ingenues at the Comédie-Française, then she became the most famous old ladies in the cinema.
The Casadesus is the story of a French family, of Catalan and modest origin, who love the Republic with passion, the three colors with loyalty.
In 150 years, seven generations of artists have succeeded on stage. But their career was not accomplished in dilettantism. The children have all received the paternal injunction to learn the notes before the letters of the alphabet. Family mythology claims that Luis, the patriarch, had a desire to start a family entirely of musicians. “Boys the violin, which allows them to perform outside, girls are taught the piano, of bourgeois reputation, which remains sheltered from bad lives. »
Luis will have nine children… musicians, actors or singers. A family of acrobats with sharp and contrasting destinies. The Casadesus are alive. They fall in love, work, do not earn money, divorce, succeed, remarry: they stay on their two feet, rooted in French soil.
It is one of them, Frédérick Casadesus, journalist and writer, historian by training, who tells us about the saga of this colorful family. Heavy responsibility! The artists are so numerous that one gets lost in the waltz of first names. But Frédérick – who owes his first name to the actor Frédérick Lemaître (1800-1876) – had the good idea to place a genealogy at the end of his book in order of appearance on stage. From the outset, he warns us that, like all families, the Casadesus know jealousy, experience anger, estrangements. But he won’t make any backyard revelations. His book is above all a way of paying homage to his ancestors. And what ancestors!
The life of each clan member is a novel in itself. The author of the biography avoids falling into the pitfall of misery. He tells us with his heart the adventures of the Casadesus in a playful, elegant, sometimes even breathless style. The concert of laughter and tears, in a word of life, accompanies these artists on the stage of the History of France. Music shapes the destiny of the Casadesus. In storms, they remain smiling, energetic; the music heals their wounds.
From tough to evil
The red curtain is up: the story begins at the beginning of the 19th century. The Casadesus are from Figueres, in Catalonia. Francesco and Antonia conceive a baby girl called Rosa Maria. At the beginning of the July Monarchy, they go to France to pick grapes in Cahors. Rosa Maria is raped and keeps her child. “She will never part with a knife stuck in her boots. »
She went to Paris and became a costume designer at the Châtelet. His daughter, Francesca, evolves in the half-world of actresses and dancers of the 1850s. Paul de Koch comes to pass. “Nine months later, by one of those quirks that make the charm of bourgeois follies, Francesca gives birth to a boy. » Luis discovers the violin at 13 years old that he plays everything « by the sheet », because he can neither read nor write the notes. To survive, he worked as a typographer, then as an accountant. He marries Mathilde when they are minors.
They are tough guys. The two lovebirds eat rats, survive as best they can. At the height of the siege, Luis enlisted in the National Guard, which earned him French nationality at the end of 1871. It was Luis who founded the Casadesus family, a tribe of artists forever attached to the homeland of human rights. He sets up his smala between New Athens, in the 9th arrondissement, and the Butte Montmartre, because he wants to live in neighborhoods where talents are recognized and careers are built through relationships.
It would be tedious to evoke the fate of the nine children of Luis and Mathilde. But here are some singular life paths.
Marcel, the fifth, becomes a cellist. A form of counter-power when all the boys are destined to become violinists. But he excels and is forgiven. On October 10, 1914, in madder trousers, he fell under German bullets, at the age of 32. Presentiment: he had written a very moving letter to his son before joining his regiment.
The eldest, Francis, composes music for the Popular Front, enters the Grand Orient de France. A dramatic turn of events: in 1940, he joined Marshal Pétain and composed works glorifying the regime. Was he an opportunist, was he an anti-Semitic socialist? The questions remain unresolved.
The last of the siblings is also a dark character. Marius composes pastiches of classical works. Deception touches the master stroke with Mozart’s fake “Concerto Adelaïde” played by Yehudi Menuhin. The famous violinist will definitely be at odds with Marius.
An incredible sense of work
Let’s shake the shaker. The family cocktail can preserve, in the disorder also, all its bouquet.
Robert, son of “Robert Casa”, is the star of the time. He becomes a great pianist, friend of Maurice Ravel. He marks his hostility to the Nazis, goes into exile with his wife in the United States, in Princeton. But he will not apply for American citizenship.
“The Casadesus never appreciated the Americanization of society. It is a family which has integrated French culture and which defends the nation-state, the French flag”, emphasizes Frédérick Casadesus.
Henri, violinist, is the founder of the Society of Ancient Instruments. He composes and works a lot. He leads a double life, but with “a certain fidelity”, and ties up for vacation time at the port of Ars-en-Ré. His wife, Marie-Louise, is a Calvinist, the religion transmitted by her Dutch father. Her mother Tatiana (hence Henri’s mother-in-law) is a Jewish Russian exile who wanted to protect her daughter by giving her her husband’s religion. During the Occupation, Henri uses his connections and saves the lives of the two women with false papers; he will do the same for others. From his stormy union are born Gisèle and Christian, the father of Frédérick, the author of this book.
Director of the theater L’Ambigu from 1954 to 1966, a large hall of romantic times, Christian is a personality of Parisian life. He tastes a decade of happiness, then overcomes painful failures. “To invent, to arouse impulses, to discuss with artists and elected officials, to create links, these are the ambitions of a wounded man who very often tries not to show anything. »
Christian is attractive, very pleasant to talk to and knows how to win hearts.
His beloved sister, Gisèle, is a rebel. She turns her back on music and becomes an actress. She joined the Comédie-Française in 1934; she is still a minor. She marries Lucien Pascal (real name Lucien Probst) and, in the process, she has her first child, Jean-Claude. “72 years of marriage, it remains an incomparable proof of love. »
Gisèle has found the fixed point, a source of absolute confidence in her husband. This greatly helped her to become a member of the Comédie-Française, to flourish in her role as mother of four children. Gisèle and Lucien’s family within the Casadesus family is a family in itself. Gisèle attains a social status, even a certain form of elitism. The lean period is over.
At 96, the old lady is approached in the street, because she gained fame with the film “La tête en friche” by Jean Becker, alongside Gérard Depardieu.
Jean-Claude scraps to impose his choices. He has the support of his uncle Christian, a weighty lawyer who helps him realize his artistic ambition. In the mid-1960s, he took his first steps as a conductor at the Théâtre du Châtelet. What could be more symbolic than starting where Rosa Maria found a job? Pierre Dervaux opened the doors of the Paris Opera and the Opéra Comique to him. In 1976, Jean-Claude began an unprecedented artistic and social adventure in Lille. He builds a symphonic formation that performs all over the world. At 86, he still wields the wand. Keen.
And young people in all this ? Thomas (fifth generation), grandson of Jean-Claude and Pénélope Casadesus, son of Caroline Casadesus (singer), has great talent. Under the proud pseudonym of Enhco, this musician and composer of classical and jazz music gives hundreds of concerts a year on all continents. His brother David, also a remarkable composer, has just released the album “Family Tree”.
Another era, another destiny. Pablo Casadesus, born in 2001, is a composer and producer of contemporary music. “Twenty years, the age of fulfilment. First musical pages offered on the Internet and first successes. The taste for the show is also taking shape. »
The Casadesus family is more than forty artists from the same grandfather Luis.
Is there a well-kept secret, a magic potion, specific genes, a family conditioning to explain the passion for music that is transmitted from generation to generation?
What is striking in this collective history is “an incredible sense of work, an absolute will, the requirement acquired, then transmitted, to stand up. »
Do we find the values of Protestantism there? An ethics specific to the Casadesus family? This book is like an authoritative pedagogical manual based on effort and demand. This gallery of portraits offers a great lesson in excellence at a time when egalitarianism rhymes with leveling down. To put in the hands of parents who have ambition for their children.
Frédérick Casadesus, a historian by training, was a journalist for 15 years for the weekly “Réforme” and collaborated with “Tribune Juive”. From now on, he hosts the program “One hour with…” for “Radio Frequency Protestante”, an interview with personalities from cultural and political life. He is the author of several books including “Twelve Protestants who made France”, published by Cerf.