El cant dels ocells

Casals has always been best known of course as a cellist, not least for his redisovery of Bach’s solo suites and his tireless work in establishing them in the repertoire. But he was also a composer of a wide variety of instrumental and choral music and a fervent Catalan patriot – which is why we prefer to give the Catalan versions of his Christian name and the title of his most celebrated composition. An arrangment of a Catalan Christmas song, The Song of the Birds was frequently presented as an encore in his own recitals. In his 97th year, he played it, for the last time in public perhaps, at the United Nations, explaining that what the birds sing is “Peace, peace, peace.”