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.
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.
