Don Pablo and his magic cello.pdf

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extracted text: A living legend jDoh Pablo and His 'Ttla^ic Gello fl t is sometimes embarrassing to become a living legend. Some months ago a dig nified, courteous Puerto Rican appeared at the home of Pablo Casals and asked whe ther he could see the master. He would not give his name or explain his mission, but Senor Casals, who does not like to stand on ceremony, said he would see him. The man entered the living room, bowed, declared, “1 am honored,” accepted a seat and remained in it without uttering a word for half an hour. Then he arose, thanked Senor Casals gravely and de parted. Not all Peurto Ricans have felt the need to pay a personal tribute this way. But most of th.5 people on this island, whether highplaced or in humble circumstances, regard Senor Casals not only as an honored visitor but also as a friend. They speak of him affectionately as Don Pablo. Before he was stricken some time ago he would take a morning stroll, shad ing himself from the sun with a black um brella. Every Puerto Rican would have a "buenos dias, Don Pablo” for him. Panorama Senor Casals, who is worldfamous as the greatest cellist of his time and as a symbol of protest against dictatorship be cause of his self-imposed exile from Franco-dominated Spain, went to Puerto Rico last year out of respect for the memory of his mother, who was born in Mayaguez. He has found there a second home and a host of relatives. His mother’s maiden name was Defillo. Puerto Rico is full of Defillos and many claimed a relationship to Senor Casals, which has delighted him. (T he festival arranged in his 1 honor has been in his thoughts for months. Several days after he had suffered a coronary thrombosis, he listened with a smile to a report of how the musicians were carrying on in his absence. Then he mur mured to his physician, “I would like to play at least on the last day of the festival.” Sefior Casals has always packed an enormous amount of determination, energy and resi lience in a short, stocky frame. Although he was 80 years old last December 29, he had not ceased his regular practice, and his technical command of the cello continued to be the envy and despair of musicians fifty years his junior. Senor Casals owes his emi nence not merely to his domi nant position as a cellist and his forthright stand for Span ish democracy, although these would be enough for any ca reer. He is something more, a musician of incomparable ima gination and discernment. Per formers feel privileged to work with him, and young musicians have traveled thousands of miles just to sit at his feet. He has the gift for teaching and inspiring. As a musician he does not lay down the law; he suggests fresh possibilities, he encourages h i s associates to seek out new insights, he is not hidebound by tradition. He loves the masters such as Bach, Mozart and Schubert, who happen to be the subject of the festival in Puerto Rico, and he immerses himself in their scores. But he believes in the prompting of the heart. A stu dent working on a passage in Bach once said, ”1 think it goes like this.” “Don’t think,” Senor Casals replied, “It is better <to feel.” His capacity for feeling is boundless. Some months ago he told a friend, “I have always been emotional, but as I get older my emotions grow four times as strong as they used to be.” But there is not a trace of sentimentality. Anyone who has heard him play a sarabande from an unaccompanied Bach suite knows that this is emo tion stripped of impurities. November 1958 T t is hard to think of him as anything other than the il lustrious figure, no matter how simple he remains in his man ner and style of living. But the essential simplicity of the man is the key to his personality. In 1939, after the collapse of the Spanish Loyalist cause that he had supported, Senor Casals was in Lucerne, Switzerland, to play at a festival. He stayed at a modest pension, and when one visited him at twilight he sat under a masked bulb tapping his ever-present pipe and study ing a score. He was earning a good deal, but he wanted to save money to aid his needy compatriots in exile at Prades in southern France where he made his home from 1939. Music has been Senor Casals’ passion since his earliest memo ries. His father was parish or ganist in the little town of Vendrell, not far from Barcelona. Pablo was born there, and learned to play the piano, organ and violin before he was 10. A year later, he saw a make shift 'cello played by a travel ling musician and was en tranced with it. He begged his father for one and a homemade affair was fashioned out of a stick, strings and a gourd. Soon he got an honest cello and he went to Barcelona to study. He made revisions in technique and they were logical enough to stand up. He dis covered Bach, whom he vene rates above all other composers, and did more than any musi cian to establish his noble work for unaccompanied cello in the repertory. For years Senor Casals made it a habit to start the day, even before taking his constitution al, by playing at the piano pre ludes and fugues from Bach’s “well-tempered Clavier.” The maid in his home in San Sal vador, Spain, went about her work humming preludes and fugues the way a servant in New York might hum a calypso number. Senor Casals is a man of wide cultivation. He speaks half a dozen languages well, includ ing English. He reads exten sively in fields other than music. He i° also a humanist of farranging vision. Best of all, he has the purity of heart of an unspoiled child. When he moved into a house on the edge of the sea in Puerto Rico some months ago, he stood looking at the view and his eyes became moist. “It is like my San Salvador,” he whispered. “It is home.” '90 Panorama
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