Late Catalan musician Pau Casals receives posthumous honorary doctorate at University of Barcelona 

The University of Barcelona (UB) commemorated the late Catalan musician and composer Pau Casals with an honorary doctorate degree in a ceremony on Tuesday, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of his death.  

Originally, Casals was to be appointed Doctor Honoris Causa by the university on January 18, 1939, but Civil War tensions were high in Barcelona, as it was about to fall into the hands of the Francoist army a week later. A large number of the professors went into exile, including Casals and the then-President of the university Pere Bosch i Gimpera. 

It was, therefore, never confirmed whether Casals received his award at the University or whether it was sent to his home address. In any case, it was not possible for an award ceremony to take place due to the circumstances of the Spanish Civil War.  

Now, more than 8 decades later, the University of Barcelona has held the award ceremony as a way to rectify what they call the "historical debt." 

At the event, the record of his appointment as Doctor Honoris Causa in 1939 was read, emphasizing Casals' humanitarian and artistic dimensions. 

To pay homage to Casals, the cellist Biel Garriga played a 1921 cello that belonged to Pau Casals, and the pianist Yoko Suzuki interpreted musical pieces related to Casals' work. 

Pau Casals was a musician and composer born in 1876, who was also beloved in Catalonia for fighting for democracy during the Franco dictatorship. He died two years before the end of the regime, in 1973.