Pablo Casals in 1917 at Carnegie Hall.
If you are reading this on the day I am publishing, it is Saint Stephen's Day (Boxing Day). In many Catholic countries, Saint Stephen's Day is a public holiday. In Ireland, certainly. As well in Catalonia. I single out Catalonia because below is a link to a very beautiful Christmas carol and lullaby from Catalonia.
A song for peace. Its title is The Song of the Birds, or in the Catalan tongue, El cant dels ocells. It was made famous outside Catalonia by the remarkable Catalan cellist, Pablo Casals. Or Pau Casals in his native tongue. Casals was born on 29th December 1876 in Tarragona, northern Spain, also Catalonia. His father was the organist in a local church. Although he was already playing several other instruments, Casals junior did not begin his studies for the cello until he was eleven years old, which is remarkable given that he is considered one of the modern masters of the instrument.
Here are two recordings of Casals playing this exquisite piece of music. Do listen, they really are very moving. Casals described El Cant dels Ocells as 'The Soul of My Country: Catalonia'.
He played this music for Peace.
https://www.thestrad.com/video/pablo-casals-performs-the-song-of-the-birds/10365.article
This second recording was performed at the United Nations after forty year's of silence, of Casals not playing in public. His gesture of silence was his protest against war and fascism. This recording was made when he was in his mid-nineties. He died a year later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T8DjwLt_c4&list=RD_T8DjwLt_c4&start_radio=1
When Casals was thirteen, in 1890, having already decided that he would dedicate his life to the cello, he was with his father in Barcelona. There, in a second-hand music store, Pau made an extraordinary discovery. He found a tattered score copy of the Bach Cello Suites (composed between 1717 and 1723). The Suites were hardly known, infrequently performed, and might well have been lost forever had it not been for Casals. He spent eleven years practising the six suites before he felt ready to perform them in public in 1901. The music sheets he had unearthed had no phrase markings and, because this music was so rarely played, Casals had no references to fall back on or to help him discover how the music was intended to be interpreted. He followed his own knowledge and instincts and the results are sublime.
Casals was the first cellist to record these suites, which he achieved in studios in Paris and London. In London at the Abbey Road studios, where decades later the Beatles recorded many of their timeless classics. Casals took three years from 1936 to 1939 to record all six of the Bach Cello suites. It is entirely thanks to him that these instrumental pieces have been brought to the public's attention and are celebrated as part of Bach's immense legacy.
Here is a link to Casals playing the Cello Suites. (Beautifully remastered.) I read that he practised at least one of these pieces every day throughout his long life.
https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/disques-de-legende/pablo-casals-joue-les-suites-pour-violoncelle-de-jean-sebastien-bach-2060270
Those three years, 1936 to 1939, were the years of the Spanish Civil War.
During those three shockingly violent years, over one million Spanish lives were lost including one of my own favourite writers, the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca who was shot in the back, murdered by Nationalist militia on 19th August 1936, probably on the road between Viznar and Alfacar. Lorca's remains have never been officially found but some claim that his family - in the dead of night - opened a public grave where many slaughtered Spaniards had been abandoned and took Lorca's body to a private family grave.
During my researches for my travel book The Olive Tree, I visited the site where it is believed Lorca was murdered. I stood alongside the olive tree that was possibly the murder spot. I also visited the Federico Garcia Lorca Park in Alfacar, Granada, inaugurated in 1986.
In 1939, after the Republicans had been defeated by the Nationalists and Franco took control of the country, Casals became an exile in southern France. He swore he would not set foot again on his native soil until democracy had been restored. He settled in Prades, a small town in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France, historically a Catalan region. Alas, Casals passed away on 22nd October 1973, two years before the end of Franco's's 36-year dictatorship. Franco died on 20th November 1975.
In that respect Casal's story is not dissimilar to another: the painter, titan of modern art, Pablo Picasso, who was originally from Malaga, down along the southern coast of Spain. Picasso vociferously denounced the Franco regime; he also had settled in France, spending his last years very close to where I live in Mougins. He died in Mougins at the age of 91 on 8th April 1973.
Franco outlived both these great artists. Tragically, neither Casals nor Picasso ever saw their mother country again.
Casals is remembered today not only as a consummate artist, for his extraordinary contribution to the world of music, but also for his voice as a pacifist, and his impassioned stand on human rights. He lived through two world wars as well as the Spanish Civil War.
Should you ever find yourself in the small town of Prades, you might want to attend the Pablo Casals Festival. It was created by Casals in 1950 and is held annually from the end of July to mid-August. After the Spanish Civil War and the victory in Spain of fascism, Casals refused to play in public. It was his peace protest. In 1950, the bicentenary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach, musicians from all over the world declared that if Casals would not play in public at concerts, they would come to him, to his village, his home. Thus was born the Festival pf Prades, now known as Festival Pablo Casals. It has drawn over the years the finest of the world's chamber musicians and audiences from everywhere.
I thought I would also mention, because for me it resonates after the preposterous renaming of the Kennedy Centre last week, that President John F Kennedy and his First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy invited Casals to play at the White House. He performed in the White House East Room on 13th November 1961.
I hope you have enjoyed a pleasant Christmas in the company of loved ones and that 2026 will bring peace to our deeply troubled world. I am writing this from Marseille where I am working on my next novel set predominantly during the Second World War. Marseille was a vital and vibrant hub for fugitives trying to escape Nazism. It was the last free port in France and became known as the Port of Exiles.
My most recent novel, (not a war story!), ONE SUMMER IN PROVENCE, is available as an e-book or paperback and can be found in all good bookshops. Here is a link to the Kindle edition:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Summer-Provence-olives-Margolyes-ebook/dp/B0DQZS6ZCM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0
As well as offering the above links to the magnificent pieces of music played by Casals, I would like to include a quote from Lorca:
"I will always be on the side of people who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace."
It rings very true for today, doesn't it?
I pray that 2026 brings an end to the wars we are witnessing and that several western governments are supporting, and that we can find resolutions to the escalating world conflicts. Might I also dare to pray for the world to be blessed with leaders who have their people's health and welfare at the heart of their policies?
Art, the arts, artists and their voices for peace, are vital lifelines in times of conflict and dissension. It takes courage to take a stand. My huge respect for those who do.
Happy New Year to you all. Peace on Earth.
www.caroldrinkwater.com
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