Word: cellistic
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...have never been much taller than my cello," Pablo Casals once remarked. He spoke more modestly than he knew. For in the history of music, Casal's cello stands very tall indeed. Most musicians would agree that he was the greatest cellist ever to play that awkward instrument. More than that, he was a humanist who refused to compromise or adjust in an age of compromise and adjustment. "We are before anything men," he said, "and we have to take part in the circumstances of life. Who indeed should be more concerned than the artist with the defense...
Nobody before had played the cello the way Casals did. He spent hours on a single phrase, days and weeks on a single movement, whole years on the Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello, which he was the first cellist ever to perform in their entirety. "People say I play as easily as a bird sings. If they only knew how much effort their bird has put into his song." He may have worshiped the masters, but once onstage he insisted on meeting them as an equal, employing powerhouse accents, theatrical contrasts and a ruddy tone with an infinite variety...
...luck. At 16 he was introduced to Count Guillermo de Morphy, a patron of the arts and adviser to Spain's Queen Maria Cristina. The count tutored Casals in several languages and presented him to the Queen, who was an enthusiastic pianist. Soon the Queen and the young cellist were playing duets together...
Died. Pablo Casals, 96, master cellist and conductor for eight decades (see MUSIC...
...fluctuation of the dance. Politics and music for Casals were both ordinary activities for ordinary people, in which human beings behaved as human beings and not as cogs in a machine. Casals's popularity accordingly extended to peasants, musicians and politicians alike. His status as the world's greatest cellist was virtually unquestioned. But he was evidently less ineffective politically than Franco's victory and the world's continuing strife might make him seem. "That Pablo Casals!" one Fascist general remarked. "I will tell you what I will do to him if I catch him. I will...