Casals' story has an epic quality. Set in an era of massive turbulence and change, it is the story of a man's passionate pursuit of beauty and justice in a world racked by revolutions and wars. It is a story whose protagonist performed for Queen Victoria in the late 1800's and for President John F. Kennedy shortly before man set foot on the moon. It is the story of a consummate musician who silences his instrument to articulate his love of man; of a fervent patriot who protests iniquity by exiling himself from his beloved homeland for a third of his years; of a man who when nearing ninety embarks on a personal peace crusade, taking his music to a score of lands.
Across the stage of this drama move peasants and celebrated artists, students and statesmen, anarchists and kings. Its pages are peopled with a host of fascinating characters-the vastly erudite authority on Spanish music Count de Morphy (whose father was an Irishman named Murphy); the frenetically eccentric composer Emanuel Moor; the dazzling virtuoso-who never practiced-Pablo Sarasate; the "sturdy young woman who was studying medicine" when Casals first met her, Gertrude Stein; the gay and gentle genius Fritz Kreisler, wounded as a soldier in the First World War; the fantastic and adventurous prodigy Isaac Albeniz; the nonconformist Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, Exquistite and iron-willed; the noble humanist from Lambarene, Albert Schwietzer. It is a story that takes the reader on a fabulous odyssey from remote villages of Catalonia to the royal court of Madrid, from Paris of La belle epoque to the Wild West of America, from the concert halls of the world's captials to the concentration camps of Nazi-occupied France, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the flowering mountains of Puerto Rico. It is a story that culminates in the ineffably tender account of Casals' love for Marta, his lovely young wife and co-worker. Above all, surmounting the viloence and cynicism of our time, it is a story of human compassion, reverence for beauty, and faith in man.
In his Prefatory Note, Albert E. Kahn-to whom Casals relates the thoughts and recollections in this book-states that this work should not be termed an autobiography, It is, indeed, a book which fits no formal category. it is both a testament and a song: a testament to a way of life and a song to life itself.
Joys and Sorrows is illustrated with more than 50 pages of hitherto unpublished documents, rare musical memorabilia, correspondence with president Kennedy, Albert Schweitzer and others, and a protfolio of uniquely intimate contemporary photographs of Casals by Albert E. Kahn.
When I first discussed with Pablo Casals the possibility of my writing a book on him, I had in mind a work quite different from the present one. The book I then envisioned was one depicting-in words and photographs-his daily life and work, and presenting an intimate contemporaneous portrait of him as an artist and as a man. Both the text and photographs were to be by me.
During my preparatory work on the book, I traveled extensively with Casals in this country and abroad, attending his concerts, master classes, performances of his oratorio El Pessebre, and music festivals in which he participated. Periodically I visited him at his home in Puerto Rico. Besides photographing his diverse and indefatigable activities, I kept detailed notes or made tape recordings of our conversation, which sometimes consisted of informal chats and sometimes of structured question-and-answer exchanges regarding his past experiences and his views on a wide range of subjects. To supplement my knowledge of his earlier years, I made a survey of his papers and memorabilia at his residence at Molitg-les-Bains, France, and his former home at San Salvador, Spain.
The more I learned about Casals, the more dissatified I became with my original concept of the book. His career spanned such a momentous panorama of history, and the drama of his life held such rich and human import, that I grew steadly more aware of the limitations of a book which concentrated on the present and failed to merge it fully with the past. There was, moreover, such color and cadence to Casals' own word, so natural a poetry in his personal reminiscences and reflections, that his voice seemed irrevocably wedded to the telling of his story.
For a time I experimented with the approach of devoting the textual portion of the book to my questions and his answers from our conversations, but the results were frustrating. The form had a mechanical quality, and my questions seemed not only superfluous but a distracting intrusion. It became increasingly clear to me that Casals' words should stand alone.
The idea then occurred to me of eliminating my questions altogether and coordinating Casals' recollections and comments into a unity of narrative, mood and subject matter. I discussed this approach with Casals, and he agreed to it. Gradually the book assumed its present form.
There is one matter to be clarified. Over the years Casals has consistently declined to write an autobiography. As he himself put it, characteristically, in one of his letters to me, "I do not happen to feel my life deserves commemoration in an autobiography. I have only done what I had to do." It should then be stated that this book is not to be regarded as Casals' autobiography. An autobiography is, of course, a man's own portrait of himself; and this book is inevitably in part my portrait of Casals. While the words in the book are Casals', its structure is of my devising; and I am responsible for the determination of much of its content. Had Casals written his own story, he might of course have chosen to emphasize different aspects of his life.
This book, then, is offered as a portrait of Casals, delineated by his memories and observations which I have set down over the past several years and woven into this form. To the extent that I have shaped this work from his own words, I have sought to portray him, above all, as a man whose life is a testament to his credo of "the indivisible affinity between art and human values."