The last concert that the Palau de la Música Catalana had yet to recover from its programming from the pandemic period contains precisely a commission from those who can make history: the Variations on El cant dels ocells by the composer, conductor and clarinetist Jörg Widmann, a piece for choir and organ that the fashionable German musician wrote for the Orfeó Català in full confinement.
The world premiere will take place this Saturday, in the modernist room, with Juan de la Rubia on the organ and under the baton of Widmann himself, who also, in his debut at the head of the Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, will perform the 7th of Beethoven and two more of his own works: Con brío, an orchestral piece to preface a Beethovenian concert, and the Violin Concerto no. 2 that he composed for his sister, Carolin Widmann, who will perform as soloist. Subscribers have a 20% discount on tickets purchased on the La Vanguardia sales website.
Jörg Widmann oozes enthusiasm from every pore. Everyone has left his first rehearsal with the OBC enthusiastic and he can't wait to meet the Orfeó. “It will be in this rehearsal that I will hear my Variations on El cant dels ocells for the first time, and believe me, the fact that it is such a well-known Christmas carol that Casals performed at each concert and took to the White House does not help”, he says with a smile. humble and complicit.
This musician who declares himself a fan of Barcelona, the Palau de la Música –“For us it is a temple”– and of Catalan culture admits that he now knows it better since the Palau sent him a wad of sheet music from the songbook popular of the land he requested. “I loved them, but in the end I ended up choosing El cant dels ocells. It is a melody that I carry in my heart”.
“And what surprises me most about it –continues this creator who embraces contemporaneity without implying composing abstract music– is that it speaks of joy, of the joy of Christ's arrival in the world and of how happy the birds are. . And at the same time it is in a minor key. That interested me a lot. And I have done it in Catalan, with help, of course. There have been many people in Germany who have been involved. I have written nine variations and the last one is a sckerzando, because I saw that it is something that has not been done. I hope everyone can feel my love for that melody, but through my eyes and ears."
For the Orfeó Català, studying this piece is an adventure. In the first place, because of the extreme vocal range –very high pitched in certain passages–, but also because of the window that opens to the knowledge of the original poem. This traditional Catalan Christmas carol of unknown origin – it could even be medieval – contains up to thirty birds.
“Most of the harmonizations that are sung in the choral world have three stanzas lasting three minutes,” says Pablo Larraz, director of the Orfeó Català–. And addressing a poem in which 30 birds appear about the birth of Jesus... For many it is a discovery, although it is part of our tradition. In Jörg's piece there are nine stanzas, with 14 birds. Each of the stanzas has different colors and takes us, for example, to chamber moments".
As Larraz explains, the work begins with the harmonization of Oriol Martorell, which is what the deputy artistic director of the Palau de la Música, Mercedes Conde, should have conveyed to him, and two stanzas with interludes develop, one of them with interludes of the sardana "It's a really interesting journey. The choir has stopped worrying about the notes and has begun to enjoy the colors," adds the conductor.
For his part, Conde recalls that one of the characteristics of Widman's work is that "he knows how to capture tradition very well." “For him it is very inspiring. It is common to hear references in the form of quotes or suggestions to composers from the great Western tradition and also the great popular tradition. He knows how to integrate it very well into his creativity..., something that I have not been able to discover in another composer”.
