Holy Week usually tests the Europeanness of the cultural life of this country. In Central Europe this is a period of great musical celebration linked to a greater or lesser extent to the spiritual nature of these dates, and in Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia strides are being made in that direction, regardless of whether the public is a believer or not. .
The Liceu, without going any further, has for the first time placed The Messiah in the period of the passion and death of Jesus and not in the nativity, while the Palau de la Música has not been content to program a Bach Passion with any cutting-edge international training: this time he wanted to produce it himself.
Similarly, Peralada has launched, now in its second Easter edition, to commission a contemporary service of darkness. And the Cervera Easter Festival once again highlights the Catalan musical heritage of yesterday and today. Here is a possible musical guide for these dates.
The Palau de la Música and the Orfeó Català maintain a long link with Bach's St. Matthew Passion, as they were the first to premiere the piece in Spain (1921), almost a century after Mendelssohn rescued it from oblivion in the same Leipzig where the brilliant singer had conducted it for the first time a century before. This was explained yesterday by the venue's deputy artistic director, Mercedes Conde, who two years ago decided to launch a project that would unite Catalan singers and choirs with a specialist in the German repertoire such as Christoph Prégardien, perhaps the tenor who has recorded the most. this passion in the role of Evangelist, directed by Leonhardt, Koopman, Harnoncourt, Gardiner, Herreweghe...
But in addition to his extensive career as a choir singer, lyrical tenor and conductor, Prégardien is a renowned pedagogue who has been teaching in Cologne for 20 years. And if last year he did an academy at the Schubertíada in Vilabertran, now, at the Palau, he has found a project to suit him: in this Passion he directs Vespres d'Arnadí, the Cor Infantil de l'Orfeó and the Cor de Cambra from the Palau, more soloists coming from their ranks (Mireia Tarragó, Mercè Bruguera, Guillem Batllori or Pau Armengol, who will play Jesus) who will also sing the choral parts.
“Here I can combine my experience in all these fields,” says Prégardien, sitting on the first stone of the modernist building. Speaking about this concert on the 25th that they will hold the day before at the National Auditorium in Madrid, he adds: “I agreed to work with those young soloists from ensembles because I trust this institution, but I made it a condition that they come to Cologne for prior work.” . For the long and complex role of Evangelista, he opted, however, for a young German student of his... “German is already difficult for German-speaking singers themselves, it was preferable not to risk that part. For the rest, we have worked a lot on diction and expression, and I am satisfied. “These young people will have a professional career.”
The tenor defends this Passion against that of Saint John, "in which the role of Jesus seems monolithic, a king on high who sings very beautifully, but nothing more." In that of Saint Matthew, however, he is human, he argues. “The interpreter has to show the emotional state of that personality. And here Jesus is a poor man full of fears, with emotions that each have their own color that connects with your soul. And you don't have to be someone who believes in God, you just have to believe in human beings,” says the artist, of Catholic training.
The director of the Palau Chamber Choir, Xavier Puig, who values "the generational novelty of choir singers/soloists that we didn't have years ago", will in turn conduct the Vallès Symphony in a Passion according to Saint John that it has a new dramaturgy by Sergi Belbel and narrators such as Enric López, Mercè Pons or Meritxell Yanes claiming genuine human passions in times of political correctness. It starts today in La Faràndula in Sabadell, tomorrow in the Palau, on Sunday in Tarragona and on April 5 in Terrassa, with the Madrigal Choir, among others, and Marta Mathéu/Elionor Martínez, Eulàlia Fantova or Josep-Ramon Olivé.
The second edition of Easter in Peralada begins with the fascinating San Giovanni Battista by Alessandro Stradella, which marks the meeting of the great Roman oratorio inherited from Carissimi with the Venetian opera of Cavalli. Vespres d’Arnadí takes on the challenge in the voices of Xavier Sabata, Giulia Semenzato and Elena Copons. The next day the Bachcelona Consort debuts in that square with the Salvat Beca Bach Soloists, which for Daniel Tarrida, director of the project, means “playing in the Champions League.” They will address Bach's unique version of the Stabat Mater, in which he changed the text, since the Lutheran liturgy does not include veneration of the Virgin, and added voices (viola) that do not appear in Pergolesi's original. The project, which completes arias for Easter cantatas, visits the Tenerife Early Music Festival the day before and on April 1 travels to Gliwice, Poland.
And since for a few years now, the Reus composer Joan Magrané has had the idea of putting music to the responsories of Holy Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Peralada has not hesitated to commission him, this Tenebrae responsoria (Feria Sexta in Parasceve) which opens on Friday (11 p.m.) in the Carme church and will dialogue with those composed by François Couperin in 1714, which will be performed on Saturday by the soloists of the Versailles Opera Orchestra and Choir. “This Easter festival is a meeting point between music and spirituality, and follows in the footsteps of other festivals in Europe – says Oriol Aguilà, artistic director –, with elements such as the South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim, who is not very Holy Week, but Yes, very Peralada.”
The 14th edition of the festival that started yesterday investigates Catalan musical traditions to discover their influence on current creators and performers. Organized by the Paeria, the only festival dedicated to Catalan music has 10 productions (14 concerts in 5 spaces) and pays tribute to Ricard Lamonte de Grignon, for his 125th birthday, and Josep Valls i Royo, on his 25th. his death.
To the former, Salvador Brotons is partly dedicating tomorrow's inaugural concert, in the university's parainfo, with Julià Carbonell de les Terres de Lleida: they will perform a re-reading of the composer on Father Antoni Soler, as well as premiering a work by Marc Migó and perform the colorful Symphony No. 3 by Brotons himself. On the 28th, cellist Arnau Tomàs (Quartet Casals) and pianist Mercè Hervada pay tribute to Josep Valls.
On the 24th there is an interdisciplinary show, Nu.A, by Núria Andorrà; on the 27th the book La viola tenor Parramon on this unique instrument by the Barcelona luthier Ramon Parramon is presented, and on the 29th there is a double concert (11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.) by Albert Guinovart in the Municipal Auditorium, in which he explores "three different poetics of Catalan piano". The Revolutionary Quartet documentaries will be shown. Gerhard's enigma and Alicia's hands with an exhibition dedicated to Alicia de Larrocha. Xavier Puig will conduct the closing concert Francesc Andreví and Ramon Carnicer: two Lleida natives in Madrid.
