The Catalan cellist Pablo Casals, reputed to have “discovered” J. S. Bach’s Cello Suites, is better understood as their most influential popularizer. Through his extensive concert tours in the early twentieth century and culminating in his complete recording of the cycle in the 1930s, he solidified their place in concert life and established paradigms that remain influential today. Among these are the practice of only performing complete suites, with all repeats and without piano accompaniment. Casals’s exile to Prades, France, in protest of Franco’s dictatorship, abruptly ended his concert career and established Casals as a humanitarian figure, inspiring later generations of cellists who used the Cello Suites to advocate for peace and an end to human suffering. Examples include Mstislav Rostropovich’s impromptu performance after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Yo-Yo Ma’s performance at the US-Mexico border and outside the Russian embassy, and Denys Karachevtsev’s performance on the heavily bombed-out streets of Kharkiv. Cellists have recently experimented with playing the Cello Suites in unusual venues such as subways, mountaintops, and in community settings worldwide. The Cello Suites’ global resonance is evinced by the wide range of art and popular media they have inspired.