PAU CASALS: FROM EL VENDRELL TO THE UNITED NATIONS

Pau Casals i Defilló

Pau Casals i Defilló (December 29, 1876-October 22, 1973) was a cellist and conductor from El Vendrell, El Baix Penedès in Catalonia. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time. 

He made many recordings throughout his career, of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, also as conductor, but he is perhaps best remembered for the recordings of the Bach Cello Suites he made from 1936 to 1939.

His father, Carles Casals i Ribes (1852–1908), was a parish organist and choirmaster. He gave Casals instruction in piano, song, violin, and organ. He was also a very strict disciplinarian. When Casals was young his father would pull the piano out from the wall and have him and his brother, Artur, stand behind it and name the notes and the scales that his father was playing.

More information: Fundació Pau Casals / Pau Casals Foundation

In 1899, Casals played at The Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria at Osborne House, her summer residence, accompanied by Ernest Walker. On November 12, and December 17, 1899, he appeared as a soloist at Lamoureux Concerts in Paris, to great public and critical acclaim.

Pau Casals with John Fitzerald and Jackie Kennedy

On January 15, 1904, Casals was invited to play at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt. On March 9, of that year he made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York, playing Richard Strauss's Don Quixote under the baton of the composer.

Casals was an ardent supporter of the Republican government, and after its defeat vowed not to return to Spain until democracy was restored. Casals performed at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on October 19, 1938, possibly his last performance in Catalonia during his exile.

In the last weeks of 1936, he already settled in the French Catalan village of Prada de Conflent, near the Spanish Catalan border; between 1939 and 1942 he made sporadic appearances as a cellist in the unoccupied zone of southern France and in Switzerland.

More information: Els sons de Pau Casals / Pau Casals' sounds

Pau Casals in the UNO, 1971

So fierce was his opposition to the dictatorial regime of Franco in Spain that he refused to appear in countries that recognized the authoritarian Spanish government. 

He made a notable exception when he took part in a concert of chamber music in the White House on November 13, 1961, at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy, whom he admired. On December 6, 1963, Casals was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.

One of his last compositions was the Hymn of the United Nations. He conducted its first performance in a special concert at the United Nations on October 24, 1971, two months before his 95th birthday. On that day, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, awarded Pau Casals the U.N. Peace Medal in recognition of his stance for peace, justice and freedom. Casals accepted the medal and made his famous I Am a Catalan speech, where he stated that Catalonia had the first democratic parliament, long before England did.

More information: El cant dels ocells / The song of the birds

Casals died in 1973 at Auxilio Mutuo Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the age of 96, from complications of a heart attack he had three weeks earlier. He was buried at the Puerto Rico National Cemetery. He did not live to see the end of the Franco dictatorial regime, which occurred two years later.

In 1979 his remains were interred in his hometown of El Vendrell, Catalonia. In 1989, Casals was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Al veure despuntar

el major lluminar

en la nit més ditxosa,
els ocellets cantant,

a festejar-lo van

amb sa veu melindrosa.

In seeing emerge

the greatest light

during the most celebrated of nights,
the little birds sing,

they go to celebrate Him

with their delicate voices.

El Cant dels Ocells / The Song of the Birds, Pau Casals