His first encounter with a cello-like instrument was from witnessing a local travelling Catalan musician, who played a cello-strung broom handle.

When Casals was 11 years old, he first heard the real cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to dedicate himself to the instrument.

In 1893, Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz heard him playing in a trio in a café and gave him a letter of introduction to the Count Guillermo Morphy, the private secretary to María Cristina, the Queen Regent of Spain.

[citation needed] In 1899, Casals played at The Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria at Osborne House, her summer residence, accompanied by Ernest Walker.

On 9 March of that year, he made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York, playing Richard Strauss's Don Quixote under the baton of the composer.

In 1906, he became associated with the talented young Portuguese cellist Guilhermina Suggia,[11] who studied with him and began to appear in concerts as Mme.

[6] Back in Paris, Casals organized a trio with the pianist Alfred Cortot and the violinist Jacques Thibaud; they played concerts and made recordings until 1937.

Casals was an ardent supporter of the Spanish Republican government, and after its defeat vowed not to return to Spain until democracy was restored.

[12] In the last weeks of 1936, he stayed in Prades,[13] a small village in France near the Spanish border, where Casals would settle in 1939,[14] in Pyrénées-Orientales, an historically Catalan region.

He was mocked by the Francoist press, which wrote articles deriding him as "a donkey", and was fined one million pesetas for his political views.

He made a notable exception when he took part in a concert of chamber music in the White House on 13 November 1961, at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy, whom he admired.

In 1950, he resumed his career as conductor and cellist at the Prades Festival in Conflent, organized in commemoration of the bicentenary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach; Casals agreed to participate on condition that all proceeds were to go to a refugee hospital in nearby Perpignan.

"[18][19] Pau and Marta made their permanent residence in the town of Ceiba, and lived in a house called "El Pessebre" (The Manger).

On 13 November 1961, he performed in the East Room at the White House by invitation of President Kennedy at a dinner given in honor of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Muñoz Marín.

He was initiated as an honorary member of the Epsilon Iota chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity at Florida State University in 1963.

[23] Casals accepted the medal and made his famous "I Am a Catalan" speech,[24] where he stated that Catalonia had the first democratic parliament, long before England did.

Casals died on October 22, 1973 at Auxilio Mutuo Hospital in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, at the age of 96, from complications of a heart attack he had had three weeks earlier.

Australian radio broadcaster Phillip Adams often fondly recalls Casals' 80th birthday press conference where, after complaining at length about the troubles of the world, he paused to conclude with the observation: "The situation is hopeless.

The $34 million building, designed by Rodolfo Fernandez, is the latest addition to the Centro de Bellas Artes complex.

Many of the artist's memorabilia and precious documents are there: photos, concert outfits, authentic letters, original scores of the Pessebre, interview soundtracks, films, paintings, a cello, and his first piano.

In 2019, Casal's album Bach Six Cello Suites was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".