Pablo Casals

Infobox musical artist
Name = Pau Casals

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Img_capt =
Background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth_name = Pau Casals i Defilló
Born = birth date|1876|12|29
El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain
Died = death date and age|1973|10|22|1876|12|29
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Instrument = Cello
Genre = Classical
Occupation = Cellist, conductor, pedagogue
Years_active =
Notable_instruments = Violoncello
Matteo Goffriller 1700
Matteo Goffriller 1710
Carlo Tononi 1730

Pau Casals i Defilló (December 29 1876 – October 22, 1973), best known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and later 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. 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.

Biography

Casals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain. His father, Carles Casals i Ribes (1852-1908), was a parish pipe organist and choirmaster. He gave Casals instruction in piano, violin, and organ. At age four Casals could play the violin, piano and flute. When Casals was eleven, he first heard the cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to dedicate himself to the instrument. In 1888 his mother, Pilar Defilló de Casals, who was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico of Catalonian ancestry, took him to Barcelona, where he enrolled in the "Escola Municipal de Música". [cite web
url = http://www.icp.gobierno.pr/zmh/zmh_noticias.htm
title = Proyecto de Recuperación de la Casa Defilló
publisher = Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña
language = Espana
date =
accessdate = 2007-01-25 ] There he studied cello, theory, and piano. He made prodigious progress as a cellist; on February 23, 1891 he gave a solo recital in Barcelona at age of fourteen. 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 and gave him a letter of introduction to the private secretary to María Cristina, the Queen Regent, in Madrid, Spain. Casals was asked to play at informal concerts in the palace, and was granted a royal stipend to study composition at the Conservatory de "Musica y Declamacion" in Madrid with Víctor 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 "Escuela Municipal de Música 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.

International career

In 1899, Casals played at The Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria at her summer residence at Cowes, Isle of Wight. On November 12, 1899, he appeared as a soloist at a prestigious Lamoureux Concert in Paris, and played at Lamoureux again on December 17, 1899, with 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, 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. In 1914 Casals married the American socialite and singer Susan Metcalfe; they were separated in 1928, but did not divorce until 1957.

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.

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 Francisco Franco dictatorial regime 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.

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. [cite web | url=http://www.cozio.com/Instrument.aspx?id=2366 | title= Cello by Matteo Goffriller, 1700c (ex-Casals) | publisher=Cozio | accessdate = 2007-01-22]

Later years

was inaugurated there in 1957.

On August 3, 1957, at 80, Casals married Marta Montañez Martínez, a young student of his from Puerto Rico. They settled in the town of Ceiba and lived in a house called "El Pesebre".

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.

Casals was also a composer; perhaps his most effective work is "La sardana" (The Sardana), for an ensemble of cellos, which he composed in 1926. His oratorio "El pesebre" (The Manger) was performed for the first time in Acapulco, Mexico, on December 17, 1960. 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 October 24, 1971, 2 months before his 95th birthday.

Casals had his memoirs recorded by Albert E. Kahn: "Joys and Sorrows; Reflections" (1970).

Casals died in 1973 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the age of 96. In 1979 his remains were laid to rest in his hometown of El Vendrell, Catalonia. 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 issued in 1976 a commemorative postage stamp in honour of the centenary of his birth.

In 1989, Casals was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Legacy

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 Bohórquez.

ee also

* C-32 (highway), a highway in Catalonia named after Casals
* List of Catalans
* List of famous Puerto Ricans

References

Further reading

* "Joys and Sorrows; Reflections", Pau Casals, (1973) ISBN 0-671-21774-7
* Song of the birds, Julian Lloyd Webber, (1985) ISBN 0-86051-305-X

External links

* [http://www.paucasals.org/ Pau Casals Foundation]
* [http://www.overgrownpath.com/2008/08/in-search-of-pablo-casals.html 'In search of Pablo Casals' on "Overgrown Path" music website]
*
* [http://www.elvendrell.cat/ Pau Casals' home town of El Vendrell]
* [http://www.histocat.cat/pdf/pau_casals_241071.pdf Pau Casals remarks] at the 24 October 1971 concert at United Nations and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKlkO3Tt3Kw video]
* [http://cultura.gencat.net/anc/FitxaFons.asp?CodiFons=340&Codi_Arxiu=1 Pau Casals Orchestra (1920 - 1938)] , in Catalan
* [http://www.festcasalspr.gobierno.pr Casals Festival] , San Juan, Puerto Rico
* [http://www.prades-festival-casals.com/ Festival Pau Casals Prades] Prada de Conflent, Catalonia
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5445995792243708180 Historic 26min video of Pau Casals exiliat a Prada 1939-1942 - J.S.Bach Suite n.1 in Sant Miquel Cuixà] Prada de Conflent, Catalonia