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. On January 15, 1904, Casals was invited to play at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt. He toured Spain and the Netherlands with the pianist Harold Bauer from 1900 to 1901 in 1901/02 he made his first tour of the United States and in 1903 toured South America. On November 12, and December 17, 1899, he appeared as a soloist at Lamoureux Concerts in Paris, to great public and critical acclaim. In 1899, Casals played at The Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria at Osborne House, her summer residence, accompanied by Ernest Walker. In 1897 he appeared as soloist with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, and was awarded the Order of Carlos III from the Queen. He was also appointed principal cellist in the orchestra of Barcelona's opera house, the Liceu. In 1896, he returned to Catalonia and received an appointment to the faculty of the Escola Municipal de Música in Barcelona. 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. He also played in the newly organized Quartet Society. Casals was asked to play at informal concerts in the palace, and was granted a royal stipend to study composition at the Real Conservatorio de Música y Declamación in Madrid with Víctor Mirecki. He graduated from the Escola with honours five years later.Ī young Pablo Casals seen by Ramon Casas (MNAC) In 1893, Catalan composer Isaac Albéniz heard him playing in a trio in a café and gave him a letter of introduction to the Count Guillermo Morphy, the private secretary to María Cristina, the Queen Regent. He made prodigious progress as a cellist on Februhe gave a solo recital in Barcelona at the age of fourteen. Casals would later make his own version of the six suites. He spent the next 13 years practicing them every day before he would perform them in public for the first time. In 1890, when he was 13, he found in a second-hand sheet music store in Barcelona a tattered copy of Bach's six cello suites. There he studied cello, theory, and piano. 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. When Casals was eleven, he first heard the real cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to dedicate himself to the instrument. Upon request, his father built him a crude cello, using a gourd as a sound-box. His first encounter with a cello-like instrument was from witnessing a local traveling Catalan musician, who played a cello-strung broom handle. At the age of four Casals could play the violin, piano and flute at the age of six he played the violin well enough to perform a solo in public. When Casals was young his father would pull the piano out from the wall and have him and his brother, Artur, stand behind it and name the notes and the scales that his father was playing. He was also a very strict disciplinarian. He gave Casals instruction in piano, song, violin, and organ. His father, Carles Casals i Ribes (1852–1908), was a parish organist and choirmaster. He made many recordings throughout his career, of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, also as conductor, but he is perhaps best remembered for the recordings of the Bach Cello Suites he made from 1936 to 1939.Ĭasals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time. Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: Decem– October 22, 1973), better known in some countries as Pablo Casals, was a cellist. Pablo Casals - Kol nidrei Op 47 - Max Bruch.Pau Casals - El cant dels ocells (at the White House).Pablo Casals: Bach Cello Solo Nr.1, BWV 1007 (8.1954).
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