Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: [ˈpaw kəˈzaɫz i dəfiˈʎo]; December 29, 1876 – October 22, 1973), known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. 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 1939.
The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all.
2
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 greatest and purest moment in music of all time.
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Beauty is all about us, but how many 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.
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The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.
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Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.
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We ought to think that we are the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all of humanity. We cannot live without the others, and especially without the tree.
7
The cello is like a beautiful woman who has not grown older, but younger with time, more slender, more supple, more graceful.
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Music should serve a purpose; it should be a part of something much more larger, a part of humanity.
9
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?
10
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.
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Bach is the supreme genius of music... This man, who knows everything and feels everything, cannot write one note, however unimportant it may appear, which is anything but transcendent. He has reached the heart of every noble thought, and has done it in the most perfect way.
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Let us not forget that the greatest composers were also the greatest thieves. They stole from everyone and everywhere.
13
In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.
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Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage . . . to listen to his own goodness
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To retire is to begin to die
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The heart of the melody can never be put down on paper
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The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him
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The first thing to do in life is to do with purpose what one purposes to do
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I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance
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Fact
1
First Cousin Twice Removed of Puerto Rican novelist Rosario Ferré.
2
First cousin once removed of Sor Isolina Ferre, a renowned Puerto Rican humanitarian who was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton in 1999.
3
First cousin once removed of Luis A. Ferré, former Governor of Puerto Rico (1969-1972).
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Casals' widow later married condert pianist Eugene Istomin.
Soundtrack
Title
Year
Status
Character
Conxita Badia no existeix
2012
Documentary performer: "El cant dels ocells"
Gent de paraula
2010
TV Series 1 episode
Public Speaking
2010
Documentary performer: "Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major" - as Pablo Casals
Memòries de la tele
2007-2010
TV Series 6 episodes
Marina Rossell al Liceu
2008
TV Movie "El cant dels ocells"
El cant dels ocells
2008
"El cant dels ocells"
Un passeig per la cultura catalana
2007
TV Movie "El cant dels ocells"
Spy Sorge
2003
performer: "Cello Suites No. 6" - as Pabulo Kazarusu
Cap Tourmente
1993
performer: "Cant del Ocells" - as P. Cassals
Fluchtweg nach Marseille
1977
Documentary "El cant dels ocells"
Slaughterhouse-Five
1972
as Pablo Casals, "Brandenburg Concerto No.4 in G major, BWV 1049 - 3rd movement 'Presto'"
$15 Million
