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Casals at Home

By TIM RAISON I DON'T care who you are,' said the indomitable late-middle-aged Englishwoman to the small crowd. `You can't come in. It was terrible yesterday, simply terrible.'

)11 just above the small town of Prades in the 1 rench• Pyrenees, where this year's festival was taking place. Backed by a notice on the door say- ing that the Master was tired and that on doctor's orders callers were to keep their visits short, she gave the impression that entry would only be over her dead body.

But of course it was all right. First the Vegh Quartet with their wives and children arrived; then Ernst and Lory Wallfisch. Then Kempff with his splendidly German-looking family or com- panions; then the Torteliers. Meanwhile a piano was echoing brilliantly inside. That's Casals, said the knowing. Shortly afterwards the doors opened, End a few of the faithful trooped in.

Casals, the quartet and Ernst Wallfisch were, 'rated in one room, prepared to rehearse the Lrahms sextet which they were to play a couple of evenings later. As we walked up the hill at kl °nig we had already heard Vegh and his cellist rehearsing passages from it in their different rooms ' the Pension; their unity is such that all four or the quartet might still. have stood at different windows and been in harmony with each other.

Madame Casals, the young and beautiful cellist whom Casals married last year at the age of eighty, stood quietly in the background. Since their mar- riage, he has found new energy, lost some weight and had an old wart removed from his face.

And as one watched and listened the two rooms seemed to become a microcosm of European civilisation. It was not merely that one was hearing at the closest quarters superb chamber music guided by the man whom everybody present Would swear was the greatest musician in the World. There was.the special feeling which domin- ates the Prades Festival of fine artists making music for pleasure, rather than just performing it before an obedient audience.

Wallfisch, who could only be a musician, stroked his viola and listened to his fellows with the most extreme sensitivity. Vegh is also every inch a musician, but to watch—though not to hear—he might be a café musician. His arm flows With a fine, high, swinging action. His body sways; his face is humorous, like a Disney piglet, and the 111°0d of each phase of the music is expressed on it. Ah, he seems to say, this will make you weep, or dance—and his body lunges and his arm soars. Wi • dh his broad-striped biscuit-pink and white shirt fin -PPing outside his trousers Vegh makes a sharp c°utrast to Casils. Casals as he plays seems quite Unaware of any audience. His tight mouth simply 1°n% a few private expressions. Just occasionally he - stops the rehearsal to explain how something should be played. •A crescendo draws the corn- -eat that this is not something to be imposed from outside. It must come as naturally as breath- ing in and out. Casals speaks in English as he explains this. At the end of a movement which has gone well he murmurs, 'Beautiful.'

As one listens one's eyes wander round the walls of the room. There is the large red and yellow Catalan banner. There are the diplomas, medals, scrolls of honour. There are photographs which tell the history not merely of music but of man in the last sixty years. A frock-coated violinist, his hair blown in the winds, plays on a sand-dune. Is it Joachim? Certainly he appears in other photo- graphs. Thibaud plays chess against Casals, with Cortot, who came like a ghost to this year's festi- val, looking on. There is Einstein, who always liked to havp his fiddle with him. There is Casals's cello lying on the sofa which used to be reserved for it—it always has the most comfortable place to sleep on, like an English spinster's cat.

Eventually, the rehearsal ends, and the artists and visitors wander away to lunch and the sea or one of the enchanting villages in the Pyrenees.

In the evening, as the concert draws near, the excitement begins again with the arrival of the police. The Festival is the highlight of, their year and they turn up in prodigious numbers to divert all traffic as far as possible from the concert. They stand at each road which leads to the central square and wave the cars away. No driver of spirit accepts this without a verbal battle.

Then comes the game of getting into the Church of St. Peter and finding a seat. The orderly—the Germans, the English, the rich from all over Europe—all have their places and move to them. But others, who are friends of Casals or Catalans—who are all friends of Casals anyway— or who object to paying fancy prices for the best seats or to sitting in a side chapel at the back and remember the days when only comparatively few people came to the festival—these all have their eye on the places d'honneur which make up the first three rows. They charm or avoid the ushers, and the places d'honneur soon fill up.

Meanwhile the mighty take their seats and the amateur finds to his delight that he is sitting just behind the men who fill the Festival Hall, and can overhear their comments. One famous pianist's comment on the playing of another was quite simple and succinct : an abomination.

Bright lights shine on the huge reredos which looms over the altar. It is gilt, immensely ornate, with statues springing out at all angles, and St. Peter dominating it all like a baby-faced Falstaff. One sees why the old hands sigh for the days when the festival was held in the noble, austere church of St. Michel-de-Cuxa.

But eventually the lights flash off and on, the officials stop officiating for a while and the concert begins. Yet however fine the first players are, the audience is half waiting for Casals. As he comes on to the space before the altar the church rises.

With a gesture of his bow he tells them to sit down. He tunes, plucking the strings. Then a nod to his fellows, and the fire and serenity which are within him flow out in the form of perfect sound.