PAU CASALS

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Biography

Chronology

1943: The poem “El Pessebre” (The Manger) by the Catalan poet Joan Alavedra wins First Prize in the first Floral Games of the Catalan Language in Exile, held in Perpignan. Pau Casals begins to set it to music.
1945: World War II having ended, on 27th June Pau Casals gives a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adrian Boult. At the end of the concert, Pau Casals sends a message to Catalonia from the BBC studios. After a week of concerts in England, Casals decides not to play again in this country in protest against the Allied countries' immobility with respect to General Franco's regime.
He turns down Doctorates Honoris Causa from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
1946: On 7th November, Casals is appointed Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour.
He decides not play again in public as long as the democracies do not change their attitude with respect to the Franco regime, and his second exile in Prades begins. In the next four years he devotes himself to composing, to giving cello lessons and, above all, to helping the Catalan and Spanish refugees.
1950: In May, Casals presides over the Floral Games of the Catalan Language in Exile, held in Perpignan.

At the initiative of Alexander Schneider, on 2nd June begins the first Prades Festival, the Bach Festival, in commemoration of the bicentennial of the great composer's death.
1951: July marks the holding of the second Prades Festival at the Palace of the Kings of Majorca in Perpignan, featuring the pianist Myra Hess. Marta Montañez attends the festival for the first time.
Casals conducts two of his own compositions in Zurich in September: “Sardana for Cellos” and “Els tres reis” (The Three Kings).
1952: He takes part for the first time in the Zermatt Summer Academy of Music. Between this time and 1966, he will hold master classes in interpretation here each year.
1954: From 7th to 23rd June, the 4th Prades Festival takes place, focused on Beethoven's chamber music, with the participation of Pau Casals, Eugene Istomin, Rudolf Serkin, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Szymon Goldberg, Joseph Fuchs and the Trio Pasquier.
In September, Marta Montañez comes to Prades to take interpretation classes with Pau Casals.
1955: Francesca Capdevila dies on 18th January.
The 5th Prades Festival is held at the beginning of the summer, in the church of Sant Pere, with the participation of the pianists Eugene Istomin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski, the violinists Yehudi Menuhin and Sándor Végh, and the singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
On 11th December Casals makes his first trip to his mother's birthplace, Puerto Rico, accompanied by Marta Montañez.
1956: At the initiative of Abe Fortas and the governor Luis Muñoz Marín, the Casals Festivals are created with Pau Casals as musical director and Alexander Schneider as musical assistant.
At the end of November, Casals returns to Puerto Rico, accompanied by Marta Montañez, his brother Enric and the latter's wife. He settles in a house at Calle Bucaré in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
1957: On 16th April Casals suffers a heart attack at the Theatre of the University of Puerto Rico during a rehearsal with the Festival Orchestra.
The festival management decides to hold the first Casals Festival of Puerto Rico in tribute to Pau Casals himself, under the direction of Alexander Schneider.
In parallel to the Casals Festival, the Symphony Orchestra of Puerto Rico and the Music Conservatory are created. Pau Casals is appointed president of the latter.
On 3rd August, Pau Casals and Marta Montañez marry in San Juan, Puerto Rico