Who is the greatest cellist of all time?

Pablo Casals was a statesman and advocate for peace

Question: Who is the greatest cellist of all time?
Position‹3 of 7›: Pablo Casals is the greatest cellist
Argument1 of 2›: Pablo Casals was a statesman and advocate for peace

Pablo Casals used his musical talents as a platform to address the humanitarian issues of his time. He was bigger than the music he played and connected the peace and joy of music as a way to heal human suffering and injustice.

The argument

Pablo Casals used his gifts as a cellist to change the world. In 1963, John F. Kennedy recognized this, and announced that he would be giving Casals the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honor only made more rare by Casals Spanish citizenship.Casals also composed an anthem for the United Nations in the name of peace. Casals was exiled from his native Spain in 1939 after the Spanish civil war broke out, but he did not go quietly. While in exile, he continued to speak out against Francisco Franco. Casals went on a 13-year artistic protest in 1945 to voice his displeasure with countries that supported Franco's regime, before playing for the UN in 1958. As a result of this protest, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Casals wrote letters addressed to the FBI Director between 1958 and 1961, made television appearances, and gave speeches. He even met with other Civil Rights advocates such as Martin Luther King, Jr. Pablo Casals is the greatest cellist of all time because not only was he able to be an accomplished musician, but an outspoken activist as well.

Premises

[P1]The greatest cellist should not only excel musically but also use their artistry to influence the world beyond music. [P2] Pablo Casals achieved exceptional musical accomplishment while also serving as a tireless statesman and advocate for peace, earning the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. [P3] Through his exile protests against Franco, his UN anthem, and his engagement with leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Casals turned his cello into an instrument of moral leadership. [C] Therefore, Pablo Casals is the greatest cellist of all time.

Counter-arguments

While Pablo Casals was undoubtedly an accomplished Civil Rights advocate, this fact alone does not make him the greatest cellist of all time. To be the greatest cellist of all time, a person's skills playing the cello must be examined apart from all of their other accomplishments.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise redefines the question. "Greatest cellist" names a ranking within an instrument, and the criterion offered would place a lesser player who campaigned above a greater one who did not — a judgement about public life rather than about cello playing. [Rejecting P2] The musical claim occupies a single clause and the moral one the rest. A Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination recognise public conduct, not musicianship, and a nomination carries little evidential weight given how wide the class of eligible nominators is. The genuinely musical case — his rediscovery and recording of the Bach cello suites, and the changes in technique he brought to the instrument — is the part the argument leaves undeveloped. [Rejecting P3] These acts are admirable and largely accurate as described, but they establish moral leadership rather than pre-eminence on the cello, and every rival for the title would have to be assessed on the same footing. Casals's exile and protest are entirely compatible with someone else having been the greater player.

Proponents cited

Peter Gutmann
“Casals' significance transcended his musicianship, phenomenal though it was”
Yehudi Menuhin
“The image which is evoked in my mind by the great master Pablo Casals is that of a jeweller. His art and his nature show qualities characteristic of his vocation. An almost microscopic searching into the depths of detail, an unshakeable patience, a sense of belonging to a land, to a tradition, to a concept, to a way of living which is deeply rooted, almost botanical, a calm persistence bordering on stubbornness, like the resistance of plants against the cruelties of Nature; all these things testify to the presence, in this world of small men and faint hearts, of a being whose simplicity, grandeur and integrity restore our faith in human nature.”
Neil Heyde
“Pablo Casals had an enormous impact on the world. The powerful force of his musical personality and the conviction with which he communicated his humanitarian ideals went hand in hand.”