I have many unforgettable memories of the Prades festivals, but the most wonderful of all is associated with the second festival in 1951. It was at that festival I first my beloved Martita.
I have cause to thank God for much that has happened in my long life. I have enjoyed much good fortune and much happiness. But the years I have shared with Martita have been the happiest years of my life. I was blessed in my childhood to have a mother like my mother, and I have been blessed in my old age to have a wife like Martita.
I have observed a curious trait in many men-though they do not hesitate to say how much they love their mothers, they are reticent to say how much they love their wives! There is no such reticence in me. Martita is the marvel of my world, and each day I find some new wonder in her. I am aware that I am no longer exactly a youth, but if I speak of her in words perhaps expected of young lovers, it is because that is how I feel about her. Perhaps, indeed, because I have lived longer than most people, I have learned more than most about the meaning of love....
Martita and I first met, as I have said, during the second Prades festival. One day I heard there was a writer who had come from Puerto Rico with his niece-a young cellist- to attend the festival, and he wished to see me. I was told this man, whose name was Rafael Montanez, was a good friend of relatives of my mother-members of the Defillo family who lived in Puerto Rico. I had never been to Puerto Rico. My mother used to speak with great nostalgia of the land of her birth, and I often said to her after I had known some success in my career, "Mother, let me take you there." But she would always reply, "No, later, Pablo. Your work must come first." Sadly, that "later" never came. I had never met any of her relatives, and I was delighted at the opportunity to meet someone who knew tham well.
When Martita and her uncle came to my house, I had the impression that for the first time I was touching my mother's homeland. When I looked at Martita, I said to myself, "This is no stranger who comes to visit me." I had the curious feeling she belonged to my family. she was then only fourteen-a lovely child with long black hair reaching down her back-and the thought flashed through my mind that my mother must have looked just like her at that age! Later that resemblance became even more pronounced, and today when I show people my mother's portrait as a youn woman they are astonished at how much she and Martita look alike.
It was midafternoon when Martita and her uncle arrived at my house-I had moved from the Villa Colette the year before and was renting a gardener's cottage, which I called El Cant del Ocells, on a nearby estate. My schedule was crowded as usual. But there was so much to talk about! More than once Montanez said he thought they had taken up enough of my time and should leave, but I said, "No, please don't go yet." I asked them to stay for supper. It was late in the evening when they left. We had been talking for six or seven hours, but I had not noticed the passage of the time....
After the festival, Martita and her uncle returned to Puerto Rico. I did not see her again for three years. Occasionally I exchanged letters with members of her family. Then, early in 1954, I received a letter from Martita's uncle telling about her progress on the cello. she had, he said, been studying at the Mannes School In New York with Professor Lieff Rosanoff-I had known Rosanoff for years, and he had attended my classes in the early 1900's at L Ecole Normalede Musique in Paris. Martita's uncle asked if it would be possible for her to come to Prades to study with me. I agreed to accept her as one of my pupils.
Martita and her mother arrived in Prades that summer. A striking change had taken place in Martita-the lovely child of a few years before had become a vivacious young lady. We began her cello lessons. Mrs. Montanez remained for a month or so and then returned home. Martita stayed on at the house of a Catalan family with whom her nother had become acquainted in Prades.
Of all the pupils I have taught, Martita was one of the best. I was impressed form the outset not only by her musical talent but by her remarkable aptitude-I have never had a pupil who learned more rapidly or worked with greater discipline. At the same time, though studying an instrument is of course a serious affair, she brought an irrepressible brightness of spirit to her work. Her gaiety was infectious. I soon discovered she had a wonderful sense of humor. I had never known such a born mimic. Not even Harold Bauer could compare!
Naturally I felt a special responsibility toward her-she was, after all, in a strange land, far from her family and friends-and I wanted her to come to feel at home in Prades. But, to tell the truth, she was a remarkably self-sufficient young woman, and she was soon helping me as much as I helped her! She did all manner of things to facilitate my work. She taught herself Catalan in no time at all-she has a rare facility with languages and today speaks French, Italian, Spanish, English, all with equal ease-and she began assisting me with my correspondence. It was, as it still is, very heavy-I sometimes received thirty letters a day-and I have always considered it a matter of conscience to answer anyone who feels it of sufficient importance to write me. Often, too, Martita would drive me when I went to visit my Spanish refugee friends. We began spending more and more time together. The months went by without my being conscious of the bond that was growing between us....
Then in the late summer of 1955, after Martita had been studying with me for more than a year, I was preparing to go to teach my annual master classes in Zermatt when I suddenly realized how much I dreaded the idea of leaving her. I told her, "You, you will be all alone in Prades! And I will feel alone in Zermatt. I cannot think of going without you." She said she too could not stand the thought of our being separated. She accompanied me to Zermatt and kept notes of my comments during the classes. And that was when I first realized that I had come to love her....
Later we spoke of marriage. I told her, "Please think about it most carefully. I am an old man, and I would not want to do anything to spoil your life. But I love you and I need you. If you also feel this way, would you marry me?" And she said that she could not think of life without me.
That winter, together with Martita, I visited Puerto Rico for the first time. My brother Enrique and his wife Maria accompanied us.
For me, Puerto Rico was a case of love at first sight! Everything my mother had told me about its beauty I now saw with my own eyes. The brilliant sea, the mountains with their opulent flowers and ferns, the massive cloud formations and luminous fields of sugar cane-they simply took my breath away. Above all, I was captivated by the people, by their dignity and gentleness and warmth. And what hospitality! Everywhere, I was greeted with flowers. One banquet followed another. People hailed me on the street: "Buenos dias, Don Pablo!" Much of the time I felt I was in Spain. The government provided me with a spacious apartment on the top floor of a tall building overlooking the ocean. One of my greatest ambitions since childhood has been to live in a lighthouse, and this was the closest I ever came to it!
Martita and I visited my mother's birthplace, the town of Mayaguez. And there we discovered an astonishing thing. The house in which my mother had been born in 1856 turned out to be the very same house in which Martita's mother was born some sixty years later! Not only that-but our mothers had both been born on the same day of the same month, November 13! Can one explain that simply as coincidence?
While we were in my mother's house, a number of neighbors, relatives and townspeople gathered in the street outside. I felt that only through music could I say what was in my heart. I went out onto the balcony with my cello, and I played the Catalan lullaby my mother used to sing to me when I was a little child. Then, while I accompanied her, Martita sang some early songs of mine of which my mother had been especially fond....
Soon after my arrival in Puerto Rico, I was invited by Governor Luis Munoz Marin to meet with him at La Fortaleza. I took an immediate liking to this handsome, expansive man. He reminded me of the scholar-statemen who had headed the Spanish Republic. He was interested in cultural affairs no less than in politics-he had, in fact, been a poet himself in his youth. We talked about Puerto Rico, and he told me about the impressive program he had initiated to improve living conditions and combat poverty on the island. Now, he said, he was seeking to raise the educational and cultural standards. he wanted to know if I had any suggestions for the musical development of the island. Was it possible, he asked, that I would direct an annual music festival in Puerto Rico like the one in Prades? Then he said impulsively, "Don Pablo, join us and live here! It is the home of your mother. You are already part of our family!"
Others urged me to make my home in Puerto Rico. Martita did not try to influence my decision, but I knew that here she would be among her family and friends. I was especially moved by the thought that I might be of service to my mother's homeland. I began giving serious thought to the possibility of settling on the island.
Afte several weeks I told Governor Munoz Marin that I was willing to direct a music festival in Puerto Rico. I suggested Alexander Schneider as the ideal man to organize it. Munoz Marin immediately invited Schneider to come to Puerto Rico to discuss the matter. In a single day the three of us worked out the plan for an annual festival. Sasha agreed to organize it-that of course included assembling an orchestra-and to act as my assistant director. The first festival, we decided, would take place the following spring in San Juan.
In March Martita and I returned to Prades, and that winter, following the Prades festival and my master classes at Zermatt, we moved to Puerto Rico. Munoz Marin announced that an annual Festival Casals was to be initiated under the auspices of the commonwealth government. The first festival, the governor stated, would take place in the spring of 1857 at the theater of the University of Puerto Rico. there would be twelve concerts in all.
The preparations for the festival were very exciting. A festive air pervaded the island. The building and streets of San Juan were hung with banners and pennants. Electric signs proclaimed WELCOME TO THE CASALS FESTIVAL....
A week before the opening concert, the orchestra musicians arrived from New Youk with Schneider. Our first rehearsal was scheduled for half past nine the following morning at the University Theater. I arrived about half an hour early. Schneider wanted to introduce me to the musicians right away and commence the rehearsal. But I told him, "No, not until nine thirty. Do you want my friends to get a bad impression of me?"
When the time came to start, I welcomed the musicians and said, "This morning let's not really rehearse. Let's just play to get to know one another." And so we began with Mozart's little A-major symphony. After that, I suggested that we play Schubert's Fifth. I was extremely warm when we began the work-my shirt was wet with perspiration-and as we commenced the Andante movement, I felt an unusual weariness. But the beauty of the music took hold of me. At one point I told the musicians, "You must make an accent here, and it must come from the heart." Then, a few moments later, in the middle of a phrase, a fierce pain gripped my chest and shoulders, and I felt faint. I knew I could not continue. I put down my baton and said, "Thank you, gentlemen...."
I was taken to the dressing room. By then the pain had become intense. I was having a heart attack.
Everyone was so gentle and concerned. I told them how sorry I was to have such a thing happen at such a time-our first rehearsal, and such a wonderful orchestra! The doctors gave me drugs to ease the pain, and I was taken home in an ambulance. I knew I would now be unable to take any part in the festival.
Several thousand people in Puerto Rico and other countries had bought tickets and made arrangements to attend the festival. Many persons had worked night and day preparing for the occasion. Besides, there was so much at stake in terms of the future of music on the island....But there was a marvelous response to the crucial situation. The festival officials called an emergency meeting that same evening-it lasted until four in the morning-and they decided to proceed with the concerts if the musicians were willing. The festival, they said, should be held as a tribute to me! Schneider discussed the proposal with the other musicians. As one man, they agreed to go ahead. They decided not to have any conductor replace me on the podium-Schneider would lead the orchestra from the concertmaster's chair.
And so the festival took place! It was an immense success. Every one of the three thousand seats at the University Theater was occupied on the opening night. The orchestra performed magnificently. "Each man played as if the whole performance depended on him," Sasha told me afterwards. "They played like gods!"
My recuperation was a trying time. I was plagued by the thought that I might never be able to play again-to think of life without work! I had the thoughtful attention of the eminent Puerto Rican heart specialist, Dr. Ramon Suzrez, and the care of my own physician, Dr. Passalacqua, and other doctors. Governor Munoz Marin arranged for the famous heart specialist, Dr. Paul Dudley White, to come from Boston to see me. How considerate and understanding he was! Unless there were complications, he told ne, he saw no reason why I should not recover completely and play again. Even so, doubts still afflicated me-if I should recover, how strong would I be? I was, after all, eighty years old. Would I regain full control of my fingers? I chafed at the passage of the weeks. For the first month I was not allowed to move from my bed. I spent another month in a wheelchair, and after that I was allowed to start taking short walks. Finally, without letting the doctors know at first, I began practicing a little each day. It was very frustrating-I felt as if I'd have to learn to play all over again. I had particular difficulty with the fingers of my left hand. But gradually the strength returned. And as I once more found the music of my cello, I marveled more than ever before at that other instrument which made it possible for me to play again. Man has made many machines, complex and cunning, but which of them indeed rivals the working of his heart?
I cannot claim most of the credit for my recovery. All of the time, Martita was at my side. No nurse ever watched over a patient with more loving care-or greater skill! I am not the only one who says Martita would have made a remarkable doctor-the doctors themselves say so. Of course her medicine did not consist only of pills-though I must say there were plenty of them. Whenever my spirits lagged, it was she who raised them. She always had something to say to make me laugh when things seemed darkest. Never for one moment did she seem to doubt that I would play again. She took charge of all my affairs. She handled the voluminous correspondence, met with visitors, made all necessary appointments. Yes, she was everything in one-dear companion, nurse, manager, secretary, and guardian angel!
And the fact is that during our married life Martita has continued to be all these things-and much more. Without her I could never do my work. In addition, of course, she makes the loveliness of our home. Indeed, she does so much that it often troubles me. How, I ask myself, does she find time for herself?
When I was well on the way to recovery, we decided that the time had come for us to get married. The ceremony-a very simple one attended only by a few close relatives-took place early in August. I was aware at the time that some people noted a certain discrepancy in our ages-a bridegroom of course is not usually thirty years older than his father-in-law. But Martita and I were not too concerned about what others thought; it was, after all, we who were getting married-not they. If some had misgivings, I can only say with joy that our love has deepened in teh intervening years....
Shortly after our marriage we moved into a lovely little house in Santurce, a suburb of San Juan. The house was right on the ocean-only a few yards separated our back garden from the water-and all day long the sea breezes swept through our windows. I had often said that the most beautiful sea in the world was the one beside my house at San Salvador, but now I came to feel that the sea on which I looked from my new home was even more beautiful.
Once again I was able to take up a regular schedule of work. I resumed my daily routine-after my morning walk on the beach with Martita and after my communion with Bach at the piano-of practicing and composing. Indeed, before long I found myself busier than ever. Ideas that Governor Munoz Marin and I had discussed only a year or so before were already taking shape. Aided by a special appropriation of the commonwealth legislature, and with the enthusiastic support of splendid Puerto Rican musicians, the first truly Puerto Rican symphony orchestra had been formed in San Juan. I did whatever I could to aid in its organization, and in the winter of 1958 I conducted its first public performance. The concert, at the thoughtful suggestion of Munoz Marin, was held at my mother's birthplace, Mayaguez. Another development was the establishment of the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. I agreed to serve as its president, and we secured as its director the gifted Argentinian conductor and composer, Juan Jose Castro. This same Castro, remarkably enough, had been a violinist in the orchestra in which my brother Enrique played when he fled to Argentina some forty years before to avoid service in the Spanish army!
Martita participated in all of these undertakings with me, and, among other things, she became the cello teacher at the music conservatory. We had, of course, much other work to attend to. The second Festival Casals had taken place in San Juan that spring.
Though I was not yet ready to conduct-Schneider again led the orchestra-I played at a number of the concerts. And that same summer I returned to Prades to direct the three-week festival there. It was then that M. Barthelemey, the owner of the Grand Thermal Hotel, generously invited us to reside in a charming cottage adjoining this magnificent spa in the mountains about fifteen miles from Prades, and we were to occupy this cottage during future festivals.
Later that summer I received a letter from Estelle Caen, the head of the Music extension of the University of California in Berkeley, inviting me to teach a series of master classes at the university. I agreed to come in the spring of 1960. Thirty-five years had then elapsed since my last visit to California and sixty years since my first. When Martita and I arrived in Berkeley my mind was full of memories. One of the most vivid was the day on Mount Tamalpais which had almost ended my musical career at the age of twenty-four....
It was also in 1960 that I accepted an invitation from my dear friend, Rudolf Serkin, to conduct master classes at the summer music festival he had been directing for several years at Marlboro, Vermont. Since then I have not missed a single summer at Marlboro. Over the years I have held classes in many parts of the world-in Paris, Berlin, Zermatt, Tokyo and other places-but the mood in Marlboro is unique. the surroundings themselves-the wooded hills and rolling farmland, the country lanes that wind among ponds and birch trees, the little towns with their old inns and churches-hold for me an ineffable charm and loveliness. I know of no place where I am more conscious of the affinity between nature and music. Marlboro is a veritable Arcady of music! And the approach to music too has a special quality. About a hundred musicians-well-known artists and young professionals-come to spend the summer months studying and playing, especially chamber music, for their own edification and pleasure. Their practice sessions take place in the simple white frame buildings-some of them are remodeled farmhouses-that form the campus of Marlboro College. The hall where my classes are held was once, I am told, a cow barn. There are informal concerts on weekdays and concerts attended by the public on weekends....As you drive onto the campus, you pass a sign reading CAUTION-MUSICIANS AT PLAY. And all day the sound of musicians practicing pours from the windows of the buildings and mingles with the song of the birds! At Marlboro I find a special joy.
Yes, at my age I have much to be thankful for. I have my beloved Martita, my friends and the joy of my work. Yet I cannot say my heart is tranquil. How can one be at peace when there is such turmoil and anguish in the world? Who can rest when the very existence of mankind is imperiled?
I had hoped-like countless millions of others-that the victory over fascism in the Second World War would bring great changes to the world. I had looked to a time of new freedom and amity among the nations. Instead, the cold war came with its atom bomb tests, rearmament and bitter strife. When I visited the United States a decade and a half after the defeat of the Axis-after a war in which some fifty million human beings had perished-people were building private air-raid shelters. I read with horror about atom bomb drills in the schools-drills in which children were taught to crouch in corners and hide under desks. To me all this was madness-I knew that the only defense against atom bombs was peace.
In the summedr of 1958 I joined Albert Schweitzer in an appeal to the American and Russian governments to end the arms race and ban all future nuclear tests. In a public statement I said," I hope that the United States and Russia will overlook their political differences in the long-range interests of mankind. It is incredible that civilized men can continue to build new and more destructive weapons instead of devoting their energies toward making this a happier and more beautiful world."
Soon afterwards I was invited to play before the United Nations at a ceremony commemorating the thirteenth anniversary of its formation. In my eyes this international forum-despite all the problems and obstacles that beset it-represented the greatest hope for building peace among the nations, and I gratefully welcomed the opportunity to use my music in that cause. The concert on that occasion was a most extraodinary event. It was transmitted by television and radio to seventy-four nations throughout the world. Never before had a message of music reached an audience of so many million human beings. Together with Horszowski, I played at the great General Assembly Hall of the UN headquarters in New York City-we played Bach's Sonata No. 2 in D Major for cello and piano. The program then continued from Paris with performances by the American violinist, Yehudi Menuhin; the Russian violinist, David Oilstrkh; and the Indian sitar player, Ravi Shankar. The concert concluded with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva performing the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with a chorus and soloists from Great Britain.
I had written a message for the occasion, which was distributed among the audience at the General Assembly Hall before I played. "If at my age I come here for this day," I stated, "it is not because anything has changed in my moral attitude or in the restrictions I have imposed upon myself and my career as an artist for all these years, but because all else becomes secondary in comparison to the great and perhaps mortal danger threatening all humanity."
I went on to say:
The anguish of the world caused by the continuation of nuclear danger is increasing every day....How I wish that there could be a tremendous movement of protest in all countries, and especially from the mothers, that would impress those who have the power to prevent this catastrophe!
Those who believe in the dignity of man should act at this time to bring about a deeper understanding among people and a sincere rapprochement between conflicting forces. The United Nations today represents the most improtant hope for peace. Let us give it all power to act for our benefit. And let us fervently pray that the near future will disperse the clouds that darken our days now.
In the immediately ensuing years I used every meaningful opportunity to raise my voice in the cause of peace, and I joined the boards of several organizations-like the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy-which were working to arouse people to the menace of atomic warfare. But I was not satisfied with these efforts of mine. I felt the need to act with deeds, not words. All my life, music had been my only weapon. How then, I asked myself, could I best use this weapon now? A plan took form in my mind. It revolved around my oratorio El Pessebre, :"The Manger," for which I had composed the music in Prades during the war. Since the message of this work was peace and the brotherhood of man, what better vehicle had I for acting at this urgent hour? I decided to take the oratorio anywhere in the world that I could and conduct it as a personal message in the cause of international understanding and world peace.
Some of my friends sought to dissuade me from the undertaking-they were concerned that it might prove too arduous for me. It was of course true, as they pointed out, that I was approaching my eighty-fifth birthday. But it seemed to me that the very fact I might not have much longer on this earth was all the more reason for acting while I could. Early in 1962 I announced my intention of embarking on a personal peace crusade with El Pessebre.
"I am a man first, an artist second," I stated. "As a man, my first obligation is to the welfare of my fellow men. I will endeavor to meet this obligation through music-the means which God has given me-since it transcends language, politics and national boundaries. My contribution to world peace may be small. But at least I will have given all I can to an ideal I hold sacred."
Whatever financial benefits came from the performances of my oratorio, I said, would go to a fund I was establishing to promote causes dedicated to human dignity, fraternity and peace....
The first performance of El Pessebre in my peace crusade took place that spring in the city of San Francisco. It was held in the Memorial Opera House, where the founding articles of the United Nations had been signed at the end of the war. The auditorium was filled to overflowing-hundreds were standing-and the audience's response to the music meant to me that they understood its message and fervently shared my longing for a peaceful world.
The response has been the same wherever I have taken El Pessebre-and I have given performances in North and South America, in England and France, in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Israel and a dozen other lands. Everywhere, people have demonstrated the same hunger for peace, the same desire to join their fellow men in building a world pledged to human happiness. Every performance has been for me a reaffirmation of my conviction that it is not the peoples of the world but artificial barriers imposed by their governments that hold them apart.
Two performances of El Pessebre stand out especially in my mind. They occurred under greatly contrasting circumstances, and yet there was a particular affinity between them. One was held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City; the other in the ruins of the Abbey of Saint-Michel de Cuxa in southern France.
The performance at Saint-Michel de Curx-which took place in the fall of 1966 as I approached my ninetieth birthday-commemorated the nine-hundredth anniversary of the Catalan Assembly of Tologes. That Assembly was an event of historic import. From it evolved the earliest parliament and first representative form of government in continental Europe. The proclamation of the Assembly-Pau i Treva de Deu or "Peace and Truce of the Lord"-called for the end of war as a means of settling disputes between nations and for peace among all peoples. And to think this proclamation was made almost a thousand years before the founding of the United Nations! One can imagine my emotions when I conducted El Pessebre in that ancient shrine on that occasion....
The performance at the United Nations occurred toward the end of October in 1963. Five years had elapsed since my previous appearance at the UN and almost two decades since the end of the Second World War-yet peace still seemed far distant. The missile crisis in Cuba-when the whole world had been on the brink of nuclear disaster-was fresh in everybody's mind; and there were already ominous rumblings of impending civil war in Vietnam. Who could say what perils lay ahead? My spirit was heavy with apprehensions, and yet the very nature of the occasion gave cause for hope....
I confided my feelings to U Thant, the Secretary General of the UN, when he graciously invited me to rest in his private office after a rehearsal of my oratorio. While we were talking, I noticed on a table a display of miniature flags of all the countries forming the United Nations. "What a wonderful thing!" I told U Thant. "To have before you every day this symbol of the time when the nations of the world will stand side by side, free and equal and at peace!" A few days after my return to Puerto Rico, a package arrived at my house. It contained the flags of the United Nations! Today they hang on the wall of the living room of my home in Santurce....
At the UN concert, I delivered a message which concluded with these words: "Music, that wonderful unviersal language, should be a source of communication among men. I once again exhort my fellow musicians throughout the world to put the purity of their art at the service of mankind in order to unite all people in fraternal ties. Let each of us contribute as he is able until this ideal is attained in all its glory."
One month later the hopes of peace suffered an appalling blow that brought grief to all the nations of the world. It was then that President Kennedy was assassinated.
I had first met President Kennedy in the fall of 1961 when he invited me to play at a concert at the White House. For some time I had deeply admired the President. For me he exemplified qualities of idealism and leadership which were desperately needed in the crisis facing the world, and after his election I wrote him saying I rejoiced in his victory as a propitious omen for all humanity. I indicated my fervent hope that the principles of freedom and human dignity he espoused would hasten the return of democracy in my own beloved land. President Kennedy replied with a letter graciously thanking me for my expression of confidence in him.
However, despite my respect and admiration for the President, I hesitated before accepting the invitation to play at the White House. I wanted to be sure that my appearance would not seem to imply I had modified in any way my abhorrence of the Franco dictatorship in Spain or my opinion of the immorality of supporting this regime. But I decided that the overriding consideration was that my visit to the White House might advance my efforts in behalf of peace and enable me to raise again with the President the question of freedom in Spain. "I know that your aim," I wrote to President Kennedy in a letter accepting his invitation," is to work for peace based on justice, understanding and freedom for all mankind. These ideals have always been my ideals, and have determined the most important decisions-and the most important renunciations-in my life."
The concert took place on the evening of November 13-almost sixty years after my first appearance at the White House. It was one of the most meaningful events of my life. After a dinner honoring Governor Munoz Marin of Puerto Rico, about one hundred and fifty guests of the President gathered in the East Room of the White House. There my friends Mieczyslaw Horszowski and Alexander Schneider joined me in a program of chamber music by Mendelssohn, Schumann and Couperin. At the end of the program I interrupted the applause. "Now," I said, "I wnat to play a Catalan folk song." And I played "The Song of the Birds," the theme of the Spanish exiles, to convey what was closest to my heart-freedom for my people. Then I walked to where the President was seated, and we embraced.
Earlier that day, at President Kennedy's invitation, I had met privately with him at the White House. He took me to a small room, where we sat together alone and talked. I felt immensely drawn to him-he was so natural and unpretentious, so young and yet so wise and human. "It is a strange thing," I told him, "but I feel that I have known you always." And he said yes, that he too shared this feeling.
Ordinarily, on such occasions, a secretary comes and goes. You feel the pressure of time. But in this case there was nothing like that. After a while I said, "Mr. President, I think I am taking too much of your time." He replied, "Please do not feel this way. It is a privilege for me. Please let us keep talking." I said, "Thank you, bless you."
We spoke about many things, about his experiences and my childhood, about the grievous conditions in the world. I brought up the matter of Spain. I told the President how much I deplored the fact that American military bases had been established in Spain and that Franco was receiving aid from the democratic powers. He listened gravely-his expression reflected his sympathy. A President, he told me, invariably inherited certain problems and could not always act as he himself might most desire to. He intended, he said, to do everything in his power toward securing peace and liberty everywhere in the world. In my heart I felt that this man would do all he could for my people. Finally I said, "Mr. President, I cannot take any more of your time." And I insisted on leaving.
In the evening, after the concert, the President and Mrs. Kennedy arranged a small private supper-my colleagues and I had not eaten before the performance. Toward the end of the meal one of the President's aides brought him a message. "I am terribly sorry," President Kennedy told me, "but there is a matter I have to attend to." And he left.
It was very cold that evening, but Jacqueline Kennedy insisted on accompanying Martita and me to our car. She was without a coat-she was wearing an evening dress-and I was afraid she might catch cold. I asked her please not to come outside. But she said, "The President would want me to-and I myself want to." She stood there, in the cold, waiting as we drove away.
The following morning a magnificent bouquet of flowers from the President and Jacqueline Kennedy arrived at the hotel where Martita and I were staying. They were accompanied by a letter from the Prsident in which he expressed with great warmth his appreciation for the evening we had spent together.
On my return home, I wrote the President, "Last Monday night I played with all my heart-and I feeel that the results have been rewarding. I am grateful if my humble tribute to you may have at the same time contributed to music and culture. The whole of November 13th will always have a special meaning for me. My visit and conversation with you have strengthened and confirmed my faith and hopes for our ideals of peace and Freedom. Thank you, Mr. President."
I was to see President Kennedy on only one other occasion. That was when he visited Puerto Rico in the summer of 1963 as a guest of Governor Munoz Marin. I attended the dinner at La Fortaleza in the President's honor. In his speech he paid me a tribute that touched me deeply. That fall I received a message from him informing me he wished to confer on me the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He invited me to Washington to receive the award. Shortly before the designated date, there came that awful day of his death.
Because Martita knew what this great and dear man meant to me, she kept the news from me at first. All that afternoon friends came to see me at my house, but Martita told them not to tell me what had happened. I learned the news that evening. I have seen much of suffering and death in my lifetime, but I have never lived through a more terrible moment. For hours I could not speak. It was as if a beautiful and irreplaceable part of the world had suddenly been torn away. What a tragic horror that this young father and gallant leader on whom the hopes of mankind centered should be struck down in the street by an assassin's bullet! What monstrous madness!
Who knows what might have happened had President Kennedy lived? No single man, of course, controls the fate of all nations, and yet during his brief time as President one felt how his hand moved to heal the wounds and conflicts of the world. What savage strife we have witnessed since his death! Had he not died, how many of those who have perished in the towns and jungles of Vietnam might also be alive?
Sometimes I look about me with a feeling of complete dismay. In the confusion that afflicts the world today, I see a disrespect for the very values of life. Beauty is all about us, but how many are blind to it! 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 for its mere sake, as if they were lost and desperate. They take little pleasure in the natural and quiet and simple things of life.
Each second we live in a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again. And what do we teach our children in school? We teach them that two and two makes four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? we should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all of the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you. And look at your body-what a wonder it is! Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move! You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must cherish one another. You must work-we all must work- to make this world worthy of its children.
What extraordinary changes and advances I have witnessed in my lifetime! What amazing progress-in science, industry, the exploration of space! And yet hunger, racial oppression and tyranny still torment the world. We continue to act like barbarians. Like savages, we fear our neighbors on this earth-we arm against them, and they arm against us. I deplore to have had to live at a time when man's law is to kill. When shall we become accustomed to the fact that we are human beings?
The love of one's country is a natural thing. But why should love stop at the border? Our family is one-each of us has a duty to his brothers. We are all leaves of a tree, and the tree is humanity.
Not long ago Martita and I had a little country house built near the village of Ceiba on the coast about fifty miles from San Juan. We have christened the house El Pessebre.It is high on a hillside among fields of sugar cane. Beneath us stretches a great span of ocean with a shoreline fringed by palm trees and with green islands rising from the sea. The skies there are incredible-I have never seen such sunsets and such fantastic cloud formations! The wind comes in all day from the ocean-we are, I am told, in the direct path of trade winds that blow across the Atlantic the year round, the same winds that brought Columbus here from Spain five hundred years ago. Occasionally the wind gets very strong-the roof of our house is anchored to the ground by cables, and they sometimes hum at night like strange musical instruments.
Now when we are in Puerto Rico, we spend our weekends whenever possible at El Pessebre. How I love that place! It reminds me of San Salvador. Our dear friends, Rosa and Luis Cueto Coll, often accompany us, and in the evenings the four of us play dominoes together. Rosa is my partner-she plays a splendid game. We keep a running score, and Rosa and I are usually a good many points ahead of Martita and Luis. "Don't get discouraged," I tell them. "You may catch up with us when I'm one hundred."
Martita and I met the Cueto Colls soon after we came to Puerto Rico, and they ahve since become our intimate friends. They often accompany us to music festivals or when I'm traveling with El Pessebre. When we first became friends, I did not know that two of Luis' uncles had fought with the Loyalist army in Spain-one, Juan Cuelo, was a lieutenant colonel in command of the Basque front-and both of them were captured by the Fascists and shot. Luis' father Augusto Cueto, was a merchant in Puerto Rico who lost his business during the Spanish Civil War because he devoted all his time to an organization he'd founded to help the Repulblican cause-this man's last thoughts were of Spain, and when he died after the fall of the Republic his final gesture was to raise his fist in the Loyalist salute.
I keep in close touch with the situation in Spain. Each week I receive from Barcelona a package full of clippings from different newspapers and magazines. They concern all news of possible interest-political, cultural, economic, sports. They are sent to me by a Catalan friend-a man I met only when he came to Prades. He is a man of modest means, but he has made it his task to send me these clippings every week without fail.
I continue to serve as the honorary chairman of Spanish Refugee Aid- the organization was founded in New Yourk following the Second World War to help those Spanish anti-fascist refugees who were destitute in France. Though large numbers of my exiled compatriots have taken up jobs in France or settled in Latin America, there are still thousands in France who are sick and old and poverty-stricken; many of them were crippled in the Civil WAr or, later, fighting with the Allied forces against Hitler. The conditions under which they exist are heart-rending. They live in slums or rural shacks, mostly in southern France; and they have the barest necessities-many survive on incomes of less than fifty cents a day. To send them food and clothing and medical supplies, or money for coal and wood or for scholarships for their children-that is not charity, for these men and women are owed a debt that, alas, can never be repaid.
Many people have forgotten what happened in Spain. They do not think about the refugees who sacrificed everything in freedom's cause. But justice and morality demand that these things be remembered-and, above all, the fact that the Spanish people still live under the yoke of tyranny. Recently, after Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States, I wrote him a letter about the situation in Spain. Once again I stated my longing to see democracy restored in my long-suffering country and my abhorrence of the dictatorship that had been established there with Hitler's and Mussolini's aid. "I am hoping," I wrote President Nixon, "that your country-so noted for its struggle for freedom-will reappraise its attitude toward the Franco regime in order to decide whether or not it should continue to help the harsh Spainish dictatorship, as it has been doing during the last thirty years." I received a noncommittal replay from one of the President's assistants.
Of course there have been important developments in recent years. The struggle against the dictatorship has grown throughout Spain-among students, workers, intellectuals, members of the clergy-and they have forced the regime to make certain concessions. And there are even articles about me now in the Spanish press-for years after Franco came to power it was not permitted to mention my name. Of course the articles today speak only about my music, never about my political opinions. When friends of mine recently visited the Spanish Travel Bureau in New York City, they were given promotional literature which referred to me as one of the prominent citizens of Spain-it neglected, however, to state I live in exile!
Not long ago a friend of mine who was visiting Puerto Rico mentioned he was feeling homesick-he had, he said, been away from his home for more than three weeks. "I understand what you mean," I told him. "I have been away from home for more than thirty years."
Perhaps I shall never see Catalonia again. For years I believed that freedom would come again to my beloved land before I died. Now I am unsure. It will come, I know, and I rejoice in that knowledge. But for me it is a sadness that I may not live to see it.
I have, after all, lived quite a long time, and I do not expect to live forever. I do not look toward death with fear. It is a natural thing, as natural as being born. But I do have regrets. I regret to leave the world in such a sorry state. I regret that Martita, my family and my friends will feel sorrow.
Of course I continue to play and to practice. I think I would do so if I lived for another hundred years. I could not betray my old friend, the cello.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the initial phase of my work on this book, I consulted various published works on Casals which provided me with valuable background material for our subsequent discussions regarding his early years. Among the most useful of these works were Joan Alavedra's Pablo Casals, J. Ma. Corredor's Conversations with Casals, Lillian Littlehale's Pablo Casals, and Bernard Taper's Cellist in Exile. In connection with my general research, I made frequent reference to the rich materials available at the music library of the University of California, Berkeley, and I am indebted to its head, Professor Vincent Duckles, for his generous assistance. Other valuable reference sources were the fine music collection at the Sonoma County Public Library in Santa Rosa, California; and, especially for current data, the files at the New York office of Festival Casals, whose music secretary, Dinorah Press, was greatly helpful.
I am indebted to Rosa and Luis Cueto Coll for more favors than I can recount and for the heartwarming hospitality they extended to me whenever I visited Puerto Rico. I am also grateful to Doris Madden for her friendly suggestions and enthusiastic support; and to Professor Alfredo Matilla of the University of Puerto Rico for his considerate aid.
My thanks must go to Josefina de Frondizi, not only for her painstaking examination of various Spanish materials but also for her warm interest in the whole undertaking; to my son, Timothy, for his valuable assistance in various aspects of my research and especially in my survey of Casals' papers and memorabilia at Molitg-les-Bains, France, and San Salvador, Spain; and to Luis and Enrique Casals for their gracious help when I visited Spain. I am also grateful for thoughtful aid from Alexander Schneider, Rudolf Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski.
I must record a special indebtedness to Peter Schwed of Simon and Schuster, whose wise counsel and constant encouragement were indispensable to my work. I am grateful to my editor, Charlotte Seitlin, for her solicitous attention to this undertgaking in all its phases; to Edith Fowler for sensitive understanding in the book's design; and to Ann Maulsby for exacting care in styling the manuscript.
I wish to express my deep appreciation to Louis Honig for his unflagging interest and perceptive editorial comment, and for presenting a group of my Casals photographs to the Stanford University Library. On more than one occasion Richard O. Boyer gave advice and support, for which I owe him much. I am obligated to A. Cameron for reading the opening portion of the manuscript. My thanks are due Professor Fred Warren, Daniel Koshland, Estelle Caen, Edwin Berry Burgum, Robert Kahan, David Grutman, Betty and Samuel Katzin, Harry Margolis, Jack Froom and Sara Gordon for facilitating various aspects of this work.
I am indebted to the Samuel Rubin Foundation for making possible a permanent museum collection of my photographs of Casals, and to Cyma Rubin for her enthusiastic and creative interest in this work.
To Riette, my wife, I owe special gratitude for her patient, unremitting and invaluable assistance in all phases of this work.
There are no words with which to express my indebtedness to Marta and Pablo Casals for their patient help, hospitality and friendship, without which this book could never have taken form.
A.E.K.