Pau Casals i Defilló (December 29, 1876 – October 22, 1973), known during his professional career as Pablo Casals,[1][2][3] was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He made many recordings throughout his career, of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, also as conductor, but Casals is perhaps best remembered for the recording of the Bach Cello Suites he made from 1936 to 1939.
Casals was an ardent supporter of the Spanish Republican government. After its defeat in 1939, Casals vowed not to return to Spain until democracy had been restored, although he did not live to see the end of the Franco dictatorial regime.
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Casals was born in El Vendrell, Tarragona, Catalonia. His father, Carlos 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, Arturo, stand behind it and name the notes and the scales that his father was playing. At age four Casals could play the violin, piano and flute; at the age of six he played the violin well enough to perform a solo in public. His first encounter with a cello-like instrument was from witnessing a local travelling Catalan musician, who played a cello-strung broom handle. Upon request, his father built him a crude cello, using a gourd as a sound-box. When Casals was eleven, he first heard the real cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to dedicate himself to the instrument.
In 1888 his mother, Pilar DefillĂł de Casals, who was born in MayagĂĽez, Puerto Rico of Catalonian ancestry, took him to Barcelona, where he enrolled in the Escola Municipal de MĂşsica.[4] There he studied cello, theory, and piano. In 1890, when he was 13, he discovered in a second-hand sheet music store in Barcelona a tattered copy of Bach's six cello suites. He spent the next 13 years practising them every day before he would perform them in public for the first time.[5] He made prodigious progress as a cellist; on February 23, 1891 he gave a solo recital in Barcelona at the age of fourteen. He graduated from the Escola with honours five years later.
In 1893, another Spanish composer Isaac AlbĂ©niz heard him playing in a trio in a cafĂ© and gave him a letter of introduction to the private secretary to MarĂa Cristina, the Queen Regent. Casals was asked to play at informal concerts in the palace, and was granted a royal stipend to study composition at the Conservatorio de MĂşsica y DeclamaciĂłn in Madrid with VĂctor Mirecki. He also played in the newly organized Quartet Society.
In 1895 he went to Paris, where, having lost his stipend from Catalonia, he earned a living by playing second cello in the theater orchestra of the Folies Marigny. In 1896, he returned to Catalonia and received an appointment to the faculty of the Escola Municipal de MĂşsica in Barcelona. He was also appointed principal cellist in the orchestra of Barcelona's opera house, the Liceu. In 1897 he appeared as soloist with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, and was awarded the Order of Carlos III from the Queen.
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. He toured Spain and the Netherlands with the pianist Harold Bauer in 1900-1901; in 1901-1902 he made his first tour of the United States; and in 1903 toured South America.
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. In 1906 he became associated with the talented young Portuguese cellist Guilhermina Suggia,[6] who studied with him and began to appear in concerts as Mme. P. Casals-Suggia, although they were not legally married. Their relationship ended in 1912.
The New York Times of April 9, 1911 announced that Pablo Casals would perform at the London Musical Festival to be held at the Queen's Hall on the second day of the Festival (May 23). The piece chosen was Haydn's Cello Concerto in D and Casals would later join Fritz Kreisler for Brahms's Double Concerto for Violin and Cello.[2]
In 1914 Casals married the American socialite and singer Susan Metcalfe; they were separated in 1928, but did not divorce until 1957.
Although Casals made his first recordings in 1915 (a series for Columbia), it would not be until 1926 that he again released a recording (on the Victor label).[3]
Back in Paris, Casals organized a trio with the pianist Alfred Cortot and the violinist Jacques Thibaud; they played concerts and made recordings until 1937. Casals also became interested in conducting, and in 1919 he organized, in Barcelona, the Orquesta Pau Casals and led its first concert on October 13, 1920. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, the Orquesta Pau Casals ceased its activities.
Casals was an ardent supporter of the Spanish Republican government, and after its defeat vowed not to return to Spain until democracy was restored. Casals performed at the Gran Teatro del Liceo on October 19, 1938, possibly his last performance in Spain before his exile.[7]
He settled in the French village of Prada de Conflent, on the Spanish frontier; between 1939 and 1942 he made sporadic appearances as a cellist in the unoccupied zone of southern France and in Switzerland. So fierce was his opposition to the dictatorial regime of Francisco 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.[8]
Throughout most of his professional career, he played on a cello that was labeled and attributed to "Carlo Tononi ... 1733" but after playing it for 50 years it was discovered to have been created by the Venetian luthier, Matteo Goffriller around 1700. It was acquired by Casals in 1913.[9]. He also played another cello by Goffriller dated 1710, and a Tononi of 1730.
In 1950 he resumed his career as conductor and cellist at the Prades Festival in Conflent, organized in commemoration of the bicentenary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach; Casals agreed to participate on condition that all proceeds were to go to a refugee hospital in nearby Perpignan.[3]
In 1952, Casals met Marta Montañez MartĂnez, a young Puerto Rican student who had gone to Spain to participate in the Festival. Casals was very impressed with her and encouraged her to return to Mannes College of Music in New York to continue her studies.
He continued leading the Prades Festivals until 1966.
Casals first traveled to Puerto Rico in 1955, inaugurating the annual Casals Festival the next year. On August 3, 1957, at 80, Casals married 20 year old Marta Montañez. They made their permanent residence in the town of Ceiba, and lived in a house called "El Pesebre" (The Manger).[10]
Casals made an impact in the Puerto Rican music scene, by founding the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra in 1958, and the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico in 1959.
In the 1960s, Casals gave many master classes throughout the world in places such as Zermatt, Tuscany, Berkeley, and Marlboro. Several of these events were televised.
In 1961, he performed at the White House by invitation of President Kennedy. This performance was recorded and released as an album.
Casals was also a composer. Perhaps his most effective work is La Sardana, for an ensemble of cellos, which he composed in 1926. His oratorio El Pesebre was performed for the first time in Acapulco, Mexico, on December 17, 1960. He also presented it to the United Nations during their anniversary in 1963.
One of his last compositions was the "Hymn of the United Nations".[11] 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.[12] Casals accepted the medal and made his famous "I am a Catalan" speech[13], where he explained that Catalonia had the first democratic parliament, well before England did.
Casals' memoirs were taken down by Albert E. Kahn, and published as Joys and Sorrows: Pablo Casals, His Own Story (1970).
Casals died in 1973 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the age of 96 and was buried at the Puerto Rico National Cemetery. He did not live to see the end of the Franco dictatorial regime, but he was posthumously honoured by the Spanish government under King Juan Carlos I which, in 1976, issued a commemorative postage stamp to Pau Casals in honour of the centenary of his birth.[14] In 1979 his remains were laid to rest in his hometown of El Vendrell, Catalonia.
In 1989, Casals was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[15]
The International Pau Casals Cello Competition is held in Germany under the auspices of the Kronberg Academy once every four years, starting in 2000, in order to discover and further the careers of the future cello elite, and is supported by the Pau Casals Foundation, under the patronage of Marta Casals Istomin. One of the prizes is the use of one of the Gofriller cellos owned by Casals.
The first top prize was awarded in 2000 to Claudio BohĂłrquez.
American comedian George Carlin, in his interview for the Archive of American Television, refers to Casals when discussing the restless nature of an artist's persona. As Carlin states, when Casals (then age 93) was asked why he continued to practice the cello three hours a day, Casals replied "I'm beginning to notice some improvement." Carlin continues, "And that's the thing that's in me. I notice myself getting better at this."
In Puerto Rico, the Casals Festival is still celebrated annually. There is also a museum dedicated to the life of Casals located in Old San Juan.
On October 3, 2009 Sala Sinfonica Pablo Casals, a new symphony hall named in Casals’ honor, opened in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The $34 million building, designed by Rodolfo Fernandez, is the latest addition to the Centro de Bellas Artes complex. It is the new home of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra. Acentech Incorporated's Studio A served as acoustical consultant for architectural acoustics and sound system design of the hall[16].
Pau Casals (29 December 1876 – 22 October 1973), born Pau Casals i Defilló, was a Catalan cellist and conductor.
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[[File:|thumb|right|250px|Pablo Casals]]
Pablo Casals (Pau Casals i Defilló) (born El Vendrell, Catalonia, 29 December 1876; died San Juan, Puerto Rico, 22 October 1973) was a Spanish Catalan cellist. He is generally thought of as the greatest cellist of his time. He made the cello popular as a solo instrument and inspired many cellists of the younger generation. His Spanish name was Pau Casals i Defilló. His nickname Pau means “peace” in Catalan. In his later years he was also a conductor as well as a composer.
Casals made many recordings of solo, chamber, and orchestral music. Perhaps his best known recordings are the ones he made between 1936 and 1939 of the Cello Suites by Bach. When the dictator General Franco started to rule Spain he felt very strongly about the political situation. When the democratic party was defeated in 1939 he said that he would never go back to Spain until democracy had been restored. He did not live long enough to see the end to Franco’s rule.
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Casals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia. Catalonia is part of Spain. It has its own language: the Catalan language. Casals was always very proud of being a Catalan.
His father was the organist at the local church. He gave Casals his first music lessons, teaching him piano, violin and organ. When Casals was eleven, he heard a group of travelling musicians playing music. One of the instruments was the cello. He had never heard one and he decided that was what he wanted to play. His mother took him to Barcelona, where he went to a music school: the Escola Municipal de MĂşsica. There he studied the cello, music theory and piano.
One day, when he was 13, he was looking at some old music in a second-hand music shop. He found some very old music for solo cello. They were the Cello Suites by Bach. People in those days thought they were just a collection of studies to help cellists with their technique, but Casals, although only still a boy, realized it was great music. He spent the next 12 years practising them until he felt ready to perform them. Casals’ discovery of these wonderful Cello Suites was the most important Bach discovery since 1829 when Mendelssohn found and performed the St Matthew Passion which the world had forgotten about.
Casals showed enormous talent for the cello. On 23 February 1891, when he was 14 years old, he gave a solo recital in Barcelona. He graduated from the Escola with honours two years later.
In 1893, the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz heard him playing in a trio in a café. He gave him a letter which allowed him to be introduced to the Queen. She gave him money so that he could study at the Conservatory in Madrid. She then allowed him to go to Brussels to study at the Conservatory which was then the best in Europe for string instruments. The cello teacher mentioned a long list of cello pieces and asked him which ones he played. When Casals told him he could play them all, the teacher made fun of him. When Casals started playing, everyone was amazed at his talent. The teacher wanted him to be one of his pupils, but Casals had been insulted and so he went to Paris the next day. The Queen of Spain was angry with Casals when she heard what had happened and stopped sending him money.
In Paris he had very little money. He earned a living by playing second cello in the theatre orchestra of the Folies Marigny. His mother tried to earn some money by sewing. In 1896, he returned to Catalonia where he taught at a music school and played principal cellist in the orchestra of Barcelona's opera house, the Liceu. In 1897 he appeared as soloist with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, and was awarded the Order of Charles III from the Queen.
In 1899, Casals played the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto at Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria at her summer home at Cowes, Isle of Wight. He was becoming very famous. In Paris he make a great impression on everyone, especially the conductor Charles Lamoureux who had started a famous orchestra. Casals went to the Netherlands, the United States where he gave 80 concerts, and South America. He often played with the pianist Harold Bauer.
On 15 January 1904 Casals was invited to play at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt. He played in the Carnegie Hall in New York, playing Richard Strauss's Don Quixote with the composer conducting. Between 1906 and 1912 he had a relationship with a Portuguese cellist Guilhermina Suggia, although they were never married. In 1914 Casals married the American singer Susan Metcalfe. They were separated in 1928, but did not divorce until 1957.
Casals formed a trio with the pianist Alfred Cortot and the violinist Jacques Thibaud. They gave many concerts and made some of the first recordings of piano trio music. They played together for 30 years.
In 1905 he toured Russia. It was an unfortunate time because the Russian Revolution was taking place. During the concert he played in Moscow gunfire could be heard outside the hall.
During the First World War Casals lived in New York. In 1919 he went back to Barcelona. He wanted to improve the music in his own country. There were very few people who could play well, so he founded his own orchestra: the Orquesta Pau Casals. This annual music festival continued until the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
Casals supported the Spanish Republican government. When it was defeated he said that he would not return until Spain was once more a democratic country. He then left his country and went into exile. He went to live in the French village of Prades which was near the border with Spain. He continued his career as a cellist. After World War II, in June 1946, he went to England and played the cello concertos by Schumann and Elgar at the Royal Albert Hall with Sir Adrian Boult conducting. Outside the hall the police had to help him get to his car because so many people were crowding round him.
Casals played in many countries, but refused to play in any country that was friendly with Franco’s government in Spain. In 1945 he gave a broadcast at the BBC and spoke to his people in Catalonia. He finished by playing a Catalan folksong called El Cant dels Ocells (The Song of the Birds). He played it at the end of all his concerts. When Britain recognized Franco’s government, Casals decided he could no long play in England. He made one big exception to his decision not to visit Franco-friendly countries: in 1961 he took part in a concert of chamber music in the White House on 13 November where he played to President John F Kennedy whom he admired.
[[File:|thumb|95px|left|Presidential Medal of Freedom]]
In 1950 he continued his career as conductor and cellist at the Prades Festival in Conflent. He agreed to play on condition that the money that was made at the festival would be given to a refugee hospital nearby. Franco said that Spaniards were forbidden to go to the festival, but many managed to cross the border on foot. Many world-famous musicians played at Prades: Josef Szigeti, Isaac Stern, Rudolf Serkin and Eugene Istomin and others.
He continued to lead the Prades Festivals until 1966.
When he was 80 Casals married one of his young students, a girl called Marta. They had met in Prades. Marta was from Puerto Rico where Casals’ mother had come from. They went to live in Puerto Rico in a house called "El Pesebre". In 1957 a musical festival was started there in the town of San Juan. He continued to visit the festival at Prades every year until 1966. He also gave masterclasses at American schools and universities as well as in other countries. Some of these were televised.
Casals was also a composer. One of his last compositions was the Himne a les Nacions Unides (Hymn of the United Nations); he conducted its first performance in a special concert at the United Nations on 24 October 1971, 2 months before his 95th birthday.
Casals wrote an autobiography Joys and Sorrows; Reflections (1970).
Casals died in 1973 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the age of 96. In 1979 his remains were taken to El Vendrell, Catalonia, where he had been born. He did not live to see the end of the Franco dictatorial regime. Later, when Franco had died and Spain was a democracy once more, the Spanish government under King Juan Carlos I, issued a postage stamp in honour of the centenary of his birth.
In 1989, sixteen years after his death, Casals was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
No other cellist had such an influence on cello playing in the 20th century. He changed the way people thought about cello technique. For example: when he was young violinists and cellists were taught to practise with a book under the right arm. This made the bowing arm very stiff. Casals taught his pupils to play with a free bowing arm. Casals was a great teacher, and he learned a lot about playing through his teaching. He thought about fingering and bowing, and showed his pupils how their left hand could be strong but also relaxed.
The International Pau Casals Cello Competition is held in Germany once every four years. It was started in 2000 to help young cellists to start their careers. It is supported by the Pau Casals Foundation, under the patronage Casals’ widow. One of the prizes is the use of a beautiful cello which was owned by Casals.
The Great Cellists: Margaret Campbell, London 2004, ISBN 1-86105-654-0, p.82. The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie; 1980; ISBN 1-56159-174-2
   | Festival Pau Casals Prades - Festival Pablo Casals : - La musique de Chambre au coeur de l'Europe |
| | Pau Casals Orchestra (1920 - 1938) - Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya. Fitxa del fons |
| | Instrument ID: 1254 - Cozio.com: cello by Matteo Goffriller, 1700c (ex Casals) |
| | Proyecto de RecuperaciĂłn de la Casa DefillĂł - Zonas y Monumentos Históricos - Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña |
 | Pau Casals' home town of El Vendrell - Benvinguts a www.elvendrell.net |
| | video - YouTube - Discurs d'en Pau Casals a les Nacions Unides |
| | Pau Casals' home town of El Vendrell - Benvinguts a www.elvendrell.net |
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