Pau Casals

Pau Casals Defilló, whose full name was Pau Carles Salvador Casals y Defilló (Vendrell, Tarragona, 29 December 1876 – San Juan, Puerto Rico, 22 October 1973), was one of the most outstanding Spanish musicians of the 20th century. The son of a Catalan father and a mother born into a family of Catalan indianos (Catalans who had made their fortunes in the Americas) in Puerto Rico, Casals is considered one of the greatest cellists of all time. He is also widely known by the Castilian version of his name (which is also his baptismal name), Pablo Casals, as well as by the Catalan version, Pau Casals.

One of his most famous compositions is the Hymn to the United Nations, known as the Hymn of Peace, composed while he was living in Puerto Rico, where other internationally renowned Spaniards had also lived, such as Juan Ramón Jiménez and Francisco Ayala. A magnificent conductor and a most distinguished composer, Casals was always a thoroughly complete artist, of iron discipline and great dedication.

Besides standing out as a performer, Casals was also recognised for his activism in defence of peace, democracy, freedom and human rights, which earned him prestigious honours such as the United Nations Peace Medal and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Casals also publicly expressed his opposition to the Franco regime (see chapter V of his memoirs, originally dictated in French to Albert E. Kahn and translated into Catalan as Joia i Tristor).

Pau Casals died on 22 October 1973, at the age of ninety-six, in San Juan (Puerto Rico), as a result of a heart attack. He was buried in the Puerto Rico Memorial Cemetery in San Juan. The Casals Festival of Puerto Rico is currently organised in that city, where the Pablo Casals Museum is also located.

On 9 November 1979, once democracy had been restored in Spain, his remains were transferred to the cemetery in Vendrell, his birthplace, where they now rest.

In the centre of Vendrell is the Pau Casals House-Museum, and in the San Salvador district of the same town is the headquarters of the Pau Casals Foundation, with another house-museum opposite an auditorium named after him, and a bust by the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs.