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Pablo Casals: Music as an Instrument of Resistance!
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by Patty Guerrero, W A M M
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War resisters have been with us throughout the years, but official history belongs to the warrior, so we don’t always hear about them—or if we do, we know them in another capacity. Pablo Casals was known as the greatest cellist of the 20th Century. Born in 1876 in Vendrell in the Catalonian region of Spain, he began playing musical instruments when he was very young and found the cello to be his first love.
But in his youth, he was also developing an anti-war foundation in his conscience. Casal’s life of trying to bring peace to the world began when the tyrant, Francisco Franco, came to power in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Casals left his country of origin and lived for many years in southern France. It was there he began assisting the refugees who had traveled over the mountains from Spain, only to be put in concentration camps by the French government. Casals dedicated his time to these victims. He put down his cello, not to play for many years, saying that his cello was his only weapon of resistance and as a protest he would play no more, and he didn’t again for many years. When he did begin to play again he refused to perform in countries whose governments were part of the war. He loved these countries, as he had performed in all of them before, but he condemned their politics. He said, “Wars are such devilish things. Governments tell our children to go and kill. They don’t want to kill, but they have to. This is horrible, terrible.”
Finally, in 1971 at the age of 95 he performed at the United Nations to the U.N. General Assembly, seeking to inspire harmony among people both with his cello and his years of silence. He died after a long and beautiful life of music and working for peace at the age on 97 in another part of the world that he grew to love, Puerto Rico.
Isn’t it time to start honoring those who have given us so much hope for a world of peace? The Pablo Casals Concert, sponsored by WAMM, is intended to do just that this November. It will be performed on Saturday, November 21, 7:00 p.m. and Sunday, November 22, 4:00 p.m. at Plymouth Congregational Church, 1900 Nicollet Avenue South, Minneapolis. See flyer in this newsletter.
Patty Guerrero is a long-time peace and justice activist. After reading Joys and Sorrows, the book by Pablo Casals as told to Albert Kahn and seeing the poster on her wall from the eighties of the “Concert for Survival by Musicians for Nuclear Disarmament” at Orchestra Hall, she thought it was time for another concert for survival, or at least one for peace. |
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© 2009 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete November 2009 Index - click here
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