English version
The Pradean years of Pablo Casals
The Pradean years of Pablo Casals
Arrival
During the spring of 1939, Pablo Casals arrives in Prades and rents a room at the Grand Hotel. When he looks southward through the window, he is moved to discover the sight of « his » Canigou, the sacred mount of Catalonian people, mount that he used to see from the other side of the border, mount song by his dear poet: Verdaguer.
A short time after, his room becomes the welfare office for Spanish refugees. Casals pays several visits to the prisoner’s campsites of Le Boulou, Rivesaltes and Argelès. The image he brings back from those visits “recalls Dante’s inferno” he says. Casals and all his European friends strive to help the refugees. He gives many concerts but France enters the conflict and is defeated in 1940. Casals intends to reach Portugal by sea but when he comes to Bordeaux, there’s no ship available.
He then decides to return to Prades and to stick there, whatever may happen. He keeps helping refugees, gives some concerts in Perpignan, Marseilles, Lyon, Cannes and he rejects all form of collaboration with the Vichy authorities even though the German army occupies the South of France. He settles first in “Les Salettes”, then in «Villa Colette » and finally in the house of the Val Roc doorkeeper. In spite of the danger, Casals stays in Prades, among his people with the risk of being arrested by the Gestapo.
In 1943, he begins the composition of his famous oratorio, El Pessebre, a suite of musical portraits, following the canvass of poems about Catalonian peasants, by Joan Alavedra, his companion in Prades. Actually, the poems are a message of peace, fraternity and liberty. El Pessebre will be inaugurated in 1960 in front of hundreds of exiled Spaniards, in Acapulco (Mexico).
As soon as the war is over, in 1945, he resumes giving concerts in London. There, by means of the BBC radio, he sends messages of comfort to the Catalonian people still under Franco’s dictatorship. He also plays in Paris, Salle Pleyel. But he is disheartened by the passive attitude of democratic countries towards Franco’s regime. He returns to Prades and refrains from playing for ever.
From the other side of the Channel, friends and fans beg him to come to live in the U.K. and to resume his recitals. He explains: “As an artist, my life and my ideal are closely linked together. I must stay in Prades, among my folks that are suffering”. Silence then dropped over his Val Roc dwelling and none of his near relatives was able to convince him to break it until… 1950.
Creation of the Prades Festival in 1950, narrated by Pablo Casals himself (excerpts)
« At the start of the Prades Festival are some of my excellent American friends. First of all is Alexander Schneider…He wrote me that he was coming to Prades. He was determined to convince me to play in his country. When he realized that my denial was firm, he suggested:”You cannot condemn your art to silence. Since you don’t want to leave Prades, would you consent that we come here, a group of musicians, and we give concerts with you? Next year, precisely, we will celebrate the second centennial of the death of J.-S. Bach and that would be a good occasion…” “I thought it over for a while and observed that his proposal was in pace with my position. So I agreed… The first Festival was entirely dedicated to J.S. Bach and took place in the gothic church Saint Peter of Prades. The greatest soloists of the time were present. It was an exceptional concert. The Prades Music Festival was born.”
