Pablo casais: Pablo Casais on Apple Music
Biography – Fundació Pau Casals
Biography
Pablo Casals (El Vendrell, 1876 – San Juan de Puerto Rico, 1973) was one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Cellist, conductor, composer, humanist and staunch fighter for freedom and democracy, his legacy makes him one of the most widely recognised names in music and peace.
At the age of twenty-three he enjoyed success in Paris at the hands of the great conductor Charles Lamoureux, beginning a brilliant career as a soloist that led him to play in the best concert halls in the world. In 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, he moved to New York where he continued his concert tours.
Find out more
about his career
In 1919 he returned to Barcelona and founded the Pau Casals Orchestra, which he conducted until 1936. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s victory in 1939, he fled to Prades, France, where he spent the first years in exile, and from 1957 onwards he lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he died in 1973, at the age of ninety-six.
In November 1979, with the return of democratic institutions and in accordance with his wishes, his remains were transferred to the cemetery in his hometown of El Vendrell.
Archive
Music is never the same for me, never. Every day there is something new, fantastic and extraordinary. Bach, like nature, is a miracle!
Pablo Casals
Works
Pablo Casals’ musical work and legacy stand testimony to his artistic career spanning almost a century as a performer, conductor, composer and teacher.
As a performer, his innovation in bowing technique and fingering made him the foremost virtuoso of the modern cello. When he was thirteen he rediscovered the six Cello Suites by J. S. Bach. He later played and recorded them, sessions considered by some critics to be the best classical music recordings in history. Pablo Casals’ contribution to the world of the cello is indisputable, both for his natural way of playing and for his intuition, which led him to become one of the most renowned performers of the 20th century.
Listen to his
discography
As a conductor, Casals mirrored his genius as a cello player. His gestures followed the musical phrasing and had a natural beauty that no school is capable of teaching. His aim went beyond technical perfection and was to communicate the power inherent in the music. In addition to the Orchestra Pau Casals, he conducted several international orchestras. After the Second World War, he regularly conducted at the Prada Festival, Puerto Rico Festival, Marlboro Festival and, from 1962, he conducted his oratorio El Pessebre all over the world.
As a composer, in addition to the oratorio El Pessebre, the Hymn to the United Nations and the cello arrangement of Song of the Birds, he also wrote religious music, lieds, sardanas, chamber music and large-scale compositions.
See his
compositions
My contribution to world peace may be small, but I will have given all I can to an ideal I hold sacred.
Pablo Casals
Commitment and struggle for peace
Throughout his life, Pablo Casals placed music at the service of the ideals of peace, justice and freedom.
In 1917 he refused to play in Soviet Russia and a few years later, in 1933, he refused to play in Hitler’s Germany. From exile he helped thousands of refugees from the Spanish Civil War and with the Second World War he intensified his commitment and his benefit concerts for the victims. In 1946, he refused to play for the Allied countries because of their tolerance towards General Franco’s regime, and he went into a long musical silence.
In the late 1950s, Pablo Casals broadened the scope of his struggle against Francoism in particular and dictatorships in general to the achievement of world peace. Concern about the nuclear threat at the time of the “cold war” strengthened his hope for and attachment to world governance: the United Nations organisation, to which he was invited, on three occasions. This attitude earned him, among others, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United Nations Medal of Peace and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Pablo Casals
at the United Nations
Love for one’s own country is natural.
But why should we stop at the border? We are all leaves of the same tree, and the tree is humanity.
Pablo Casals
The living legacy
The universal legacy of Pablo Casals is still very current today. The defence of peace, democracy, human rights, tolerance, respect and social commitment are central and extremely topical issues in the world we live in. At the Pau Casals Foundation and the Pau Casals Museum we are working to disseminate his legacy as an inspiring example to help create a peaceful, more sustainable and socially cohesive world.
Visit the
Pablo Casals Museum
The name of Pablo Casals is remembered in museums, festivals and auditoriums in Catalonia, France, Germany, the United States, Puerto Rico and Japan, keeping alive the legacy of one of the most important musicians of the 20th century.
Pablo Casals in the
world
Pablo Casals International Award – Fundació Pau Casals
Luka Coetzee
First Prize Winner
Amy Goto
AENA Special Prize Winner – ex aequo
Alejandro Gómez Pareja
AENA Special Prize Winner – ex aequo
Xuanhan Xu
First Prize Winner
Petar Pejčić
AENA Special Prize Winner
Felix Brunnenkant
Third Prize Winner
Carla Conangla
Winner ex aequo
Johannes Gray
Winner ex aequo
Mariona Camats
Pau Casals International Scholarship Winner
Pablo Pérez Martínez
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Pablo Ferrández Castro
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Moisés Lee Cheon
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Evaristo Urraca Pérez de Diego
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Bruno Hurtado Gonsálvez
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Oscar Alabau Fernández
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Pau Codina Masferrer
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Pablo Sánchez Payo
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Bruno Hurtado Gonsálvez
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Ferran Solà Albrich
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Álvaro Martín Herrero
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Oscar Alabau Fernández
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Pau Codina Masferrer
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Ferran Solà Albrich
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Álvaro Martín Herrero
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Oscar Alabau Fernández
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Anna Comellas Llagostera
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Joana Gual i Armengol
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Anna Comellas Llagostera
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Rocío Fuentes Magadán
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Joana Gual i Armengol
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Sergi Lara Rafecas
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Rocio Fuentes Magadán
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Ònia Tomàs
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Marina Comas
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Laia Puig i Torné
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Marina Comas
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Pau Codina Masferrer
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Joana Gual i Armengol
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Laia Puig i Torné
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Amat Santacana Gómez
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Joana Gual Armengol
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Montserrat Aldomà Caus
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Amat Santacana Gómez
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Gabriel Mesado Estrada
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Joana Gual Armengol
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Anna Costa i Pla
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Montserrat Aldomà Caus
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Laia Puig i Torné
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Joan Palet i Valero
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Núria Padrós i Cuxart
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Maria Eckart i Pla
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Cristina Bernal i Castelló
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Domènech Surroca i Sabat
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Oriol Aymat i Fusté
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Domènech Surroca i Sabat
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Oriol Aymat i Fusté
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Gabriel Mesado i Estrada
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Ivan Pérez Torras
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Montserrat Maja Costa
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Johanna Kegel i Zamora
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Antoni Fernández Godayol
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Isabel Bonnín Riera
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Anna Colàs i Mussons
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Daniel Oliu Nieto
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Mireia Quintana Carbonell
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Nabí Cabestany i Palau
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Marc Galabordes i Mallo
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Mireia Quintana Carbonell
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Damià Martínez Marco
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Nabí Cabestany i Palau
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Marc Galabordes i Mallo
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Daniel Regincós i Stijas
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Arnau Tomàs
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Ramon Solsona
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Álvaro Pablo
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Anna Comellas i Vila-Puig
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Josep Pazos Babasés
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Eva Sedó
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Lluís Heras i Fortuny
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Lluís Heras i Fortuny
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Joaquim Alabau i Pagès
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Màrius Díaz i Leal
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Laura Folch Eskelinen
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Laura Folch Eskelinen
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Josep Giró i Loperana
Pau Casals Scholarship Winner
Pablo Casais on Apple Music
Pablo Casais on Apple Music
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