Cellist in Exile: A Portrait of Pablo Casals

New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1962. First Edition (presumed; no prior editions or printings cited). Octavo with brown boards, gilt titles, dust jacket, 120 pp: photographs; 21 cm Very Good volume, thick paper, slight edgewear to head and tail of spine; pages clean; Very Good dust jacket, jacket shows wear to edges and open tear to tail of spine. Now in archival mylar. Hardcover.

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 that flavor of 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's long, intense, rich, and purposeful life.