What is Pablo Casals?
{{sources|date=August 2014}} [[File:Pablocasals.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Pablo Casals]] '''Pau Casals i Defilló''' (''Pablo Casals'') (born El Vendrell, [[Catalonia]], 29 December 1876; died [[San Juan, Puerto Rico]], 22 October 1973) was a [[Spain|Spanish]] [[Catalonia|Catalan]] [[cello|cellist]]. He made the cello popular as a solo instrument to the younger generation. In his later years he was also a [[conducting|conductor]] as well as a [[composer]]. Casals made many recordings of solo, [[chamber music|chamber]], and [[orchestra]]l music. Perhaps his best known recordings are the ones he made between 1936 and 1939 of the ''[[Cello Suites (Bach)|Cello Suites]]'' by [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]]. When the [[dictator]] [[Francisco Franco|General Franco]] started to rule Spain he felt very strongly about the political situation. When the democratic party was defeated in 1939 he said that he would never go back to Spain until [[democracy]] had been restored. He did not live long enough to see the end to Franco’s rule, which happened two years after his death, with the death of Franco. == Life == Casals' father was the [[pipe organ|organist]] at the local church. He gave Casals his first music lessons, teaching him [[piano]], [[violin]] and organ. When Casals was eleven, he heard a group of travelling musicians playing music. One of the instruments was the [[cello]]. He had never heard one and he decided that was what he wanted to play. His mother took him to [[Barcelona]], where he went to a music school: the ''Escola Municipal de Música''. There he studied the cello, [[music theory]] and piano. One day, when he was 13, he was looking at some old music in a second-hand music shop. He found some very old music for solo cello. They were the ''[[Cello Suites (Bach)|Cello Suites]]'' by Bach. People in those days thought they were just a collection of [[etude|studies]] to help cellists with their technique, but Casals, although only still a boy, realized it was great music. He spent the next 12 years practising them