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Regarded by some as one of the world’s greatest musicians of the twentieth century, Pablo Casals made extraordinary contributions as a virtuoso cellist, conductor, composer, and music educator. He was also a prolific music institution builder, founding several orchestras and festivals. Casals was a vocal pro-democracy activist and peace advocate. His most acclaimed compositions include “Sardana” (1923), the oratorio “El Pessebre” (“The Manger,” 1942), and the “Hymn to the United Nations” (1971).

Pablo (Pau in Catalan) Casals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain on December 29, 1876. He began his musical education at the age of four in his hometown and later in Barcelona. In the 1890s and early 1900s Casals toured in Europe and the Americas, earning wide acclaim as the world’s top cellist. In 1920, he founded the Pau Casals Orchestra and in 1926, established the Working Men Concert Association in Barcelona. During the 1920s and 1930s, he continued to tour internationally as soloist and with the acclaimed chamber music trio consisting of himself (cello), Alfred Cortot (piano), and Jaques Thibaud (violin).

Pablo Casals, Portrait at Carnegie Hall, 1917. (Bain News Service, Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A lifelong defender of democracy, human rights, peace, and national self-determination, in protest of Hitler’s anti-Jewish legislation (1935), Casals stopped performing in Germany, expanding his musical boycott to fascist Italy soon thereafter. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), he supported the Spanish Republic against Francisco Franco’s fascist forces. When Franco took over Catalonia in 1939, he fled along with hundreds of thousands of Spaniards to France, settling in the town of Prades, nestled within the mountains knowns as the Pyrenees.

After the end of World War II, Casals continued his performance boycott in protest of Franco’s regime, extending it to the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries that maintained diplomatic relations with Spain. He only resumed performing in public in 1950, exclusively in Prades, where he founded the Casals Festival.

In 1956, at the invitation of Governor Luis Muñoz Marín, Casals resettled in Puerto Rico where his mother had been born. At the time, Puerto Rico was embarking on an ambitious industrialization process and Casals became a leading figure in the island’s “Operation Serenity.”

During this time, Casals founded several music institutions: the Casals Festival (1956), the Music Conservatory (1957), and Puerto Rico’s Symphony Orchestra (1958). At the age of 80, he married his former student, cellist and singer Marta Montañez Martínez, who was Puerto Rican.

Pablo Casals stands before President John F. Kennedy, Governor of Puerto Rico Luis Muñoz Marín, and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, November 13, 1961 

Although he rejected an invitation to perform at the United Nations in 1951, Casals partially broke his international boycott in 1958, accepting an invitation from UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld to perform at the UN Headquarters in New York. This was the start of a long and profound relationship with the United Nations. The next UN Secretary-General, U Thant, would invite Casals to conduct “El Pessebre” in 1963. On November 13, 1961 Casals performed at the White House at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy, who bestowed upon him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  

Beginning in 1960, Casals devoted himself to the active international promotion of world peace, regularly conducting what was perhaps his greatest composition, “El Pessebre,” an oratorio based on Joan Alavedra’s Poema del Pessebre (Poem of the Manger), which he deemed his “humble contribution to the ideals of freedom and peace” (Casals and Khan,1970).

Casals died in Puerto Rico on October 22, 1973, at age 96, two years after the premiere of the “Hymn to the United Nations.”

The son of a church organist and music instructor, at the age of four, Pablo Casals began his music education, learning voice and to play the violin, piano, and flute under his father Carles Casals Ribes. His father built Pablo’s first “cello” out of an elongated gourd!

With the unyielding support of his mother, Pilar Defilló, Casals became a full-time music student, first at Barcelona’s Municipal Music School, where he performed his first solo performance at the age of fourteen in 1891. Two years later he composed his first work for piano. In 1893, he continued his studies in Madrid and later in Paris.

Pictured (from left): Fritz Kreisler, Walter Damrosch, Pablo Casals, and Harold Bauer at Carnegie Hall, 1917. (Bain News Service, Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

As cellist, Casals’ greatest contribution was his revival and innovative interpretation of Bach’s works, namely his six “Cello Suites.” Casals recognized Bach as his greatest influence, followed by Beethoven and Mozart. His compositions were also influenced by Catalan folk and religious music.

Just before the occupation of Catalonia by the Franco regime during the Spanish Civil War (1938), Casals fled into exile, resettling in the town of Prades in the French Pyrenees. A few months later the Nazis occupied France, and in protest of the war, he decided to stop performing.

The aftermath of World War II saw the founding of the United Nations (1945), which championed a worldwide decolonization process. Beginning in 1947, the Cold War polarized most of the world’s nations into two major blocs, one led by the United States, the other by the Soviet Union. Two years later, Mao Zedong established a communist regime in China.

This was a period of proxy wars during which the three world powers supported opposing forces in the Greek Civil War, First Indochina War, the so-called Malayan Emergency, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the Central American and Congo crises, among other conflicts.

During the Cold War, the United States, Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent China embarked on an aggressive campaign of nuclear armament proliferation. The nuclear arms race and the prolonged war in Vietnam sparked worldwide protests, which Casals supported by continuing his performance boycott. He established collaborations with Dr. Albert Schweitzer and other peace activists, and ultimately in 1960, began touring the world performing/conducting “El Pessebre.”

Casals received invitations to perform from numerous world figures, including María Cristina Queen Regent of Spain, Queen Victoria of Great Britain, US President Theodore Rosevelt, Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, and US President John F. Kennedy.

Pablo Casals rehearses in the Diplomatic Reception of the White House, November 13, 1961

Casals developed friendships and collaborated with scores of internationally acclaimed musicians, including violinists Yehudi Menuhin, Alexander Schneider, Isaac Stern; pianists Harold Bauer, Reine Gianoli, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Eugene Istomin, Arthur Rubinstein, Jesús María Sanromá, Rudolf Serkin; cellists Takeichiro Hirai, Gilhermina Suggia, Rudolf von Tobel; and composer/conductor Richard Strauss.

Joan Alavedra was a Catalan poet, journalist, and close friend of Casals’. He wrote Poema del Pessebre, which inspired Casals’ oratorio “El Pessebre.”

Dr. Albert Schweitzer was a Swiss theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. In 1958, Casals accepted his invitation to sign a manifesto demanding nuclear disarmament of the United States and Soviet Union.

Casals composed “The Hymn to the United Nations” in 1971, in the context of the Cold War and Vietnam War, numerous civil conflicts and wars of national liberation, coups d’etat, and widespread acts of terrorism. This was also a time of global turbulence accompanied by worldwide youth protests for democracy, civil rights, and peace.

Pablo Casals conducting an orchestra at the United Nations General Assembly, October 28, 1971 (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images)

The three-and-a-half minute “Hymn” represented a distinct and original genre that blended two other musical genres, the hymn and the anthem. While hymns are written and performed for religious purposes, anthems generally celebrate nations and institutions.

“The Hymn to the United Nations” sits fully within the German/Austrian classical music heritage. It emulates a long tradition of compositions about war and peace that includes Haydn’s “Mass in Time of War” and Beethoven’s “Wellington’s Victory.” It was specifically influenced by Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

“Hymn to the United Nations,” composed by Pablo Casals with lyrics from W.H. Auden’s poem “An Ode to World Peace.” The hymn consists of three parts:

I

After a joyous fanfare, the full chorus summons all singers and musicians to gather their voices and instruments.

Eagerly, musician,
Sweep your string,
So we may sing,
Elated, optative,
Our several voices Interblending,
Playfully contending,
Not interfering
But co-inhering,
For all within
The cincture of the sound,
Is holy ground
Where all are brothers,
None faceless others.

II

A quick transition sets a somber mood as the male chorus calls out a warning, contrasting mere words with music.

Let mortals beware
Of words, for
With words we lie,
Can say peace
When we mean war,
Foul thought, speak fair
And promise falsely,
But song is true:
Let music for peace
Be the paradigm,
For peace means to change
At the right time,
As the world clock
Goes "tick" and "tock".

III

The third part returns to a joyous mood that prepares the audience for the hymn’s climax with more optimistic lyrics.

So may the story
Of our human city
Presently move
Like music, when
Begotten notes
New notes beget
Making the flowing
Of time a growing
Till what it could be,
At last it is,
Where even sadness
Is a form of gladness,
Where fate is freedom,
Grace and surprise.

In the context of the mid-2020s Casals’ “Hymn” is increasingly timely and relevant in light of international tensions and the constant threat of global conflicts.

“The Hymn to the United Nations” is important for young people—for all people—because it warns about wars while at the same time offering hope when individuals of all ages and walks of life promote peace through music and the arts. We can emulate Maestro Casals by asking ourselves what we can do to promote peace and justice, and how we can use our artistic and other talents to make the world a better place.

If you'd like to learn more about the impact youth can make on issues of global importance, check out the resources on the  where you can also learn about which occurs each year on August 12.

“The United Nations has long recognized that the imagination, ideals and energy of young people are vital for the continuing development of the societies in which they live.”

Pablo Casals concert at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, October 30, 1958 (Photo by Paul Slade/Paris Match via Getty Images)

boycott - A protest ban that stops relations or trade with specific countries or organizations.

blocs - During the Cold War the world was divided into two major blocs (typically combinations of countries or parts of countries sharing a common political cause) with differing political and ideological beliefs, the Western Bloc (the US and its allies) and Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies).

Catalonia - An autonomous community in northeastern Spain. With a long history of autonomy and cultural and linguistic differentiation, it was Casals’ birthplace and source of his ethnic identity and pride.

Cold War - Lasting between 1947 and 1989, the Cold War pitted the world’s super powers (US and Soviet Union) against each other. While it did not explode into an actual war, allies of each side fought “proxy wars.”

coups d’etat - (pronounced “coo-day-tah”) Sudden, violent, and unlawful seizures of power from a government, plural of coup d'etat, sometimes just referred to as a coup (pronounced “coo”).

Operation Serenity - A series of government artistic and cultural institutions and programs that accompanied Puerto Rico’s rapid industrialization and urbanization processes.

oratorio - An extended musical compositio,n usually of religious character, that includes a choir, soloists, and an orchestra.

proxy wars - Actual conflagrations between countries that stand in for super powers that support but are not directly involved in the conflicts.

Pyrenees - (pronounced “pee-ren-ay”) A mountain range shared by Spain and France.

Soviet Union - The name of a country that included 15 quasi-autonomous countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. It disbanded in 1991, being reduced to the Russian Federation in 1991.

Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández is a Pegasus Professor of History at the University of Central Florida and the author of several award-winning books and articles. He has spent four decades researching, writing, and teaching about the Hispanic Caribbean, including the history and culture of Puerto Rico.

Dr. Alberto Hernández-Banuchi is a humanities research librarian and author of several publications on Puerto Rican music, including articles in American Music Teacher and the book Jesús María Sanromá: An American Twentieth-century pianist.

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