(載自music & Arts 網站)Five years after World War II had ended, Casals' friends were determined to find an honourable way in which to break the cellist's silent protest against Franco and those who supported him, to bring once more the great man's art before the public. Between them, the pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski, whose friendship with Casals dated back to 1906, and the violinist Alexander Schneider devised a scheme which they hoped would bring the "Hermit of Prades" back to the concert platform, a series of all-Bach concerts at Prades marking the two hundredth anniversary of Bach's death. Would Casals attend? Would he play "in honour" of his revered Bach? Casals eventually capitulated to the persuasive arguments of his old colleagues and a thirty-piece orchestra with Schneider as concert master was assembled and rapidly fashioned by Casals into an homogenous ensemble. The soloists gathered; Horszowski, Haskil, Istomin, Serkin, Stern and Szigeti amongst them. The greatest wonder was when Casals opened each of the six major programs with a Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suite. Casals, aged 73, was silent no more. Such was the triumph of the 1950 Prades Festival that the decision to hold further annual meetings was a foregone conclusion. The 1951 Festival was held at Perpignan, more accessible and with better facilities, though the subsequent years found the Festival, transformed into a chamber music celebration, returning to the unique atmosphere of Prades. Almost all the public performances were recorded, and there were also recordings made by Columbia of many works on the programmes without audience, though at the time many could not be released due to contractual obligations of the artists involved.
This collection features the best public performance recordings from Prades, in which Casals is joined by the violinists Menuhin, Szigeti, Grumiaux, Goldberg and Vegh; the pianists Cortot, Serkin, Horszowski, Kapell and Curzon; and a host of other illustrious instrumentalists. None of these performances appears on the recent Pearl collection of Prades and Perpignan performances which derive from the commercially issued "without audience" Columbia recordings
