Centennial Tribute To Pablo Casals

In 1976, the centennial of Pablo Casals' birth, United Nations staff members and delegates joined together in a programme sponsored by Sri Chinmoy: The Peace Meditation at the United Nations to pay tribute to the great cellist. The programme took place in New York on 11 October. The Spanish Ambassador to the United Nations, Don Jaime de Piniés, paid homage to Pablo Casals as "a symbol of the power of the spirit."

Other staff members recalled the beautiful "Hymn to the United Nations" that Pablo Casals composed in 1971 at the request of U Thant. The Secretary-General awarded him a United Nations Peace Medal for this work.

Sri Chinmoy concluded the programme by reading extracts from his meeting with Pablo Casals in which the Maestro spoke of the child as a miracle of God.

O PABLO CASALS

O Pablo Casals, O Pablo,

Your wonder-cello-flames

Eternally shall love and hallow

Our diving and climbing human frames.

Charmingly short in earth's body-height,

Supremely long in Heaven's soul-length,

O child of tomorrow's dawn, no night

You saw in your beauty's world of strength.