The world of classical music hides incredible anomalies, such as the fact that Gustavo Dudamel has never conducted the London Symphony. Being the orchestra of his great friend Simon Rattle, nothing should have prevented it, at least during the last decade in which the British group has tried hard. Finally, it is the BCN Clàssics cycle that has made it possible. And in combination with Ibermúsica, it takes it to the Madrid Auditorium.
"Dudamel wanted to conduct at the Liceu and the Palau, so we needed two programs, one symphonic for the modernist hall and others with voice for the opera house," says Llorenç Caballero, general and artistic director of BCN Clàssics and Ibermúsica. The first (May 10, 2025 at the Liceu) features soprano Marina Rebeka performing Shéhérazade and other poems that Ravel set to music, and will also play Don Juan and the Suite from Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. The second, the next day at the Palau, includes two of the most famous symphonies in the repertoire, Mozart's Jupiter and Mahler's Titan.
Created in 1904, the LSO is one of the first orchestras founded by its own musicians. And its reputation has transcended from generation to generation. And it is likely that the loyalty that Dudamel has maintained for years to the London-based Philharmonia Orchestra that Walter Legge founded in 1945 was, in the end, what delayed this meeting. And it is shocking that it is taking place for the first time on tour in Spain. The rehearsals for this project will be held in London, but it will be performed there after the Madrid-Barcelona circuit.
This is the main novelty of the 2024-25 season that BCN Clàssics presented this Tuesday, with a total of ten concerts plus one extraordinary one. To which we must add the four concerts at Km. 0, that is, those held at the Petit Palau with local artists - this year they will feature names such as Albert Cano Smit and Anna Urpina - and local pieces as well. : contemporary works or those that constitute a recovery of the Catalan or Iberian repertoire fit in there.
Another unique concert will be the one that commemorates the centenary of the performance of Pierrot Lunaire in the same Palau de la Música, on April 29, 1925, under the baton of Arnold Schönberg himself. In complicity with the modernist hall, the cycle organizes on April 25, 2025 an evening in which the outstanding violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja will leave the instrument to personify the Pierrot while she is accompanied by an ensemble of friends.
The cycle will start on October 28 with another great orchestra that has not played in Barcelona for decades: the Tonhalle of Zurich, conducted by Paavo Järvi. "The last time the Swiss orchestra was in the city, it was conducted by Neeme Järvi, the father of the baton that is now the principal conductor," recalls Mònica Royuela, director of Ibermúsica Artists. Its soloist will be the German violinist of Georgian origin Lisa Batiashvili, a resident of philharmonics such as Berlin and Munich, who will perform Concerto no. 2 by Porkofiev. And as is usual in the classical seasons of the Catalan capital, there will be no shortage of a work by Mahler, in this case the 7th Symphony.
The third major symphony orchestra of this ninth edition of the cycle will be the Suisse Romande, conducted by its head since 2017, Jonathan Nott, and with Midori as soloist. It will be February 13. He will perform Sibelius's Concerto in D minor, followed by Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.
It had been two decades since the so-called 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic had come to the city. Taking advantage of the fact that the magnificent German group does not perform in February, its musicians organize themselves every year to go on tour in chamber groups. In this case with the cellos, a group of soloists that emerged in 1972, half a century ago, after the success of a radio production of Julius Klengel's Hymn for Twelve Cellos. BCN Clàssics programs them on February 2 with "a repertoire in the most popular line, which can bring new audiences closer to classical music," says Caballero, who takes them throughout the Iberian Peninsula plus the Canary Islands.
In December there will be two concerts. On the 4th, a Carmina Burana directed by Josep Vicent in which the Orfeón Donostiarra joins the ADDA Symphony Orchestra of Alicante and local solo voices that Ibermúsica wants to highlight, since "they will be in the seasons of important theaters next season and They will probably be talked about in the future," says Aleix Palau, head of the promoter's vocal department. These are the soprano Sabrina Gárdez, the Valencian sopranist Rafael Quirant, and the Serbian baritone residing in Barcelona Milan Perisic.
The following week, on the 11th, the Palau will host a fabulous concert with Händel's Aquatic Music and Music for Royal Fireworks by Le Concert d'Astrée, an ensemble founded in 2000 by Emmanuelle Haïm and which For twenty years they have resided at the Lille Opera. The early music program will be completed on January 23 by the great organist and harpsichordist Maasaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan, which has been the star of the Bachcelona Festival for several editions. Here she performs with his son, Masato Suzuki, also a director, in a program that is 100% Mozart.
The cycle includes two recitals, one by Evgeni Kissin, who is the artist who has performed the most times at the BCN Clàssics (equipped this time with works by Bach, Chopin and Shostakovich) and another by this pleasant duo formed by the stellar guitarist Pablo Sainz -Villegas -the most international of the Spanish classics- and the Barcelona soprano Serena Sáenz. "But this time with a tailor-made program, beyond the use of guitar arrangements," say those responsible for the cycle. There will be pieces by Martínez Soler or Sor, but there will be no shortage of Bellini, Rossini and Mozart with which Sáenz can show off her vocal pyrotechnics.
The cycle grows into two concerts, thanks in part to the treasury facilities provided by the Generalitat. And its budget increases by 30%, up to 1,320,000 euros. This Tuesday the 5th, tickets and season tickets went on sale for ten concerts, but also for six or four. The number of subscribers went from 450 to 550 in the last year.
