Pablo Casals
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló, better known in some countries as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish cellist and conductor from Catalonia. 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. 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...
NationalitySpanish
ProfessionCellist
Date of Birth29 December 1876
CityEl Vendrell, Spain
CountrySpain
Beauty is all about us, but how may are blind! They look at the wonder of this earth and seem to see nothing. People move hectically but give little thought to where they are going. They seek excitement ... as if they were lost and desperate.
Let us not forget that the greatest composers where also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere.
To strip human nature until its divine attributes are made clear, to inform ordinary activities with spiritual fervor, to give wings of eternity to that which is most ephemeral; to make divine things human and human things divine; such is Bach, the g
I am perhaps the oldest musician in the world. I am an old man but in many senses a very young man. And this is what I want you to be, young, young all your life, and to say things to the world that are true.
The answer to helplessness is not so very complicated,
Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere.
I see in the melody of Nature, God. It is a wonderful work of art. The spirit of the art is wonderful. And I feel that I am myself because I have never taken music lightly. Music is the manifestation of God, like everything else.
For twelve years I studied and worked at them every day, and I was nearly 25 before I had the courage to play one of them in public. Before I did, no violinist or cellist had ever played a Suite in its entirety.
Thank God, I'll never have to play the cello again.
The art of not playing in tempo--one has to learn it. And the art of not playing what is written on the printed paper.
In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness... I see what people call God in all these things.
The most important thing in music is what is not in the notes.
Rock n' roll is poison put to sound.
I have always regarded manual labour as creative and looked with respect-and, yes, wonder-at people who work with their hands. It seems to me that their creativity is no less than that of a violinist or painter.