Cellist in Exile

The cellist in exile is, of course, Pablo Casals, one of the noble figures of the century, who is aptly described here by Bernard Taper as that rarity—an artist with a sense of commitment to humanity.”

The book is informal, deeply personal, and permeated with Mr. Taper’s own wonder and affection for his subject. Sensitive, perceptive, and lucid, Cellist in Exile captures the flavor of a unique personality. The book reveals Casals as he is today—still playing the cello inimitably at the age of eighty-five, still stubbornly asserting the moral tenets which have shaped his life—and shows him in the setting of Puerto Rico, which has been his home for the past few years and is his present place of exile. At the same time the book, without being a formal biography, succeeds in re-creating for the reader a vivid sense of Casals’ long, intense, rich, and purposeful life.

In preparing this work, Mr. Taper enjoyed a number of conversations with Casals at his home, talks about a whole gamut of subjects—music, freedom, nature, peace, and the Catalonian homeland that Casals still yearns for after more than two decades in exile.

As expanded from the widely acclaimed Profile in The New Yorker, Mr. Taper’s book shows Casals in many moods and many different activities—rehearsing, playing the cello, early morning walks along the beach, and at home with his attractive young wife. He is seen in playful imitation of a novice performer’s nervousness when attempting a quavering line Schubert, a scene then heightened by Casals’ confession of the acute nervousness he has suffered before every one of the performances in his own triumphant career. Mr. Taper conveys the cellist’s warmth and simplicity when working with other famed musicians and the kind of communion in music shared with the members of his Casals’ Festival Orchestra.

Beautifully illustrated throughout with numerous photographs, some of which had never before been published.