The south also exists in terms of classical music. And it was made clear this week to the audience of the most fashionable auditorium in the world, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and also to those who managed to get close to the Konsthall in Stockholm, the media room where the Nobel Prizes are awarded every year and which this Saturday would have been full for the OBC concert had it not been for the unexpected spring snowfall that put the Swedish government on alert and caused 500 ticket refunds from people who were advised not to travel.
"Too bad, because you see how the weather has improved today," lamented a smiling Stefan Forsberg, the artistic and executive director of this facility, headquarters of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, which hosts a thousand concerts a year in its three spaces.
Between the walls of this 1,800-seat hall built in the 1920s – both for music and for the Nobel Prize – still resonate the generous clapping with which the Barcelona and National Symphony Orchestra of Catalonia was received, whose precise and captivating interpretation symphonic fragments of Daphnis et Chloé, by Maurice Ravel, brought tears to many music lovers present.
On its tour of these two Nordic cities of twilight, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra – as the group was presented, taking advantage of the inexhaustible pull of the capital – drew attention with a Gallo-Catalan program very representative of that Europe that embraces the Pyrenees on both sides : Shéhérazade and the aforementioned Daphnis by the Basque-French composer that the director of the OBC, Ludovic Morlot, knows so well, and the Five Black Songs by Xavier Montsalvatge from Girona, in addition to an express commission that L'Auditori has made for the Barcelona-born Raquel García. Thomas.
Both evenings began with this new creation by the author of Alexina B. entitled The constellations that shine brightest, an intimate and spectral 8-minute piece – “I will have to consider it the first movement of a larger work,” the composer acknowledged – that I already fell in love with the initial whistle tones: three unrecognizable flutes moved through high frequencies in contrast with the bass of the double basses in divisi, the bass drum, the tamtam, the contrabassoon...
The piece was enthusiastic in both cities of this brief tour. And the acoustics of the Elbphilharmonie made every timbral and volume detail audible. “Here in the north I have been surprised that people do not come to congratulate you but to thank you,” said Gacía-Tomás, happy with the result of this work that dialogues with the Llibre de meravelles that the illustrator Pere Ginard, his couple.
This has perhaps been the OBC's happiest tour of the new century. Both for its sound, which was tested in the bare acoustics of the Elbphilharmonie and shone in the most indulgent Konserthuset, and for the emotional impact achieved or the good vibes that were experienced among the musicians. Including the dynamic Fleur Barron, the mezzo who fell in love with playing Ravel with her dark-tinged voice.
The 300,000 euros of expenses involved in the project (with 100,000 in revenue per cache) are a necessary investment, financed by Inaem with funds from the cultural and scientific capital of Barcelona, according to the manager of the L'Auditori consortium, Isabel Balliu. , who has personally followed the journey through the North Sea.
The team building that motivates every tour, that is, the cohesion between the members of a large group, involved this time 110 musicians, including various reinforcements, such as the clarinetist Alfons Reverté, director of the Julià Carbonell de les Terres. from Lleida. But above all, the OBC showed off those 30 new musicians that it has incorporated in the last four years to compensate for retirements and finish expanding the staff. Extraordinary soloists such as the oboe player Rafael Muñoz, the flutist Francisco López, the cellist Charles-Antoine Archambault or the viola player Aine Suzuki. Furthermore, no one can help but be glad that his concertmaster, the charismatic and demanding Vlad Stanculeasa, was not ultimately chosen by the Berlin Philharmonic, which called him to also audition as concertmaster.
This is the artistic level that Morlot had in this Nordic adventure with a southern program. "I always build the programs starting with what the soloists want," the baton pointed out. At that time they were recording Shéhérazade with Barron - an album by Ravel that came out just this Saturday on the L'Auditori platform -, so The French conductor proposed making Ravel the axis of the touring program, adding the Pavane for a Dead Child and, as an encore, a fragment of Ma mère l'Oye.
"But I wanted, of course, to bring something Catalan on tour: a touch of new music and also something from Montsalvatge, which is so close to the French repertoire, even in poetry... because I almost hear Mallarmé in it. And to bring everything That's in the north, where they don't hear that repertoire very often or they hear it interpreted in another way. In the end Ravel is about how to say more with less, which is the most wonderful thing in art: being able to make people cry with a simple chord or a naive melody," Morlot explained to La Vanguardia.
“Many people have ended up crying,” confirmed Robert Brufau, director of L’Auditori and promoter of this adventure with ECHO allied theaters, at his side. “Together with the new L'Auditori record label and the entire digital distribution strategy for the recordings we generate, traveling with the orchestra again is vital for international positioning. And doing so in some of the most emblematic rooms on the circuit and with the complicity of our ECHO colleagues, places us in a plan of institutional relations at the highest level and encourages us to continue growing every day.”
For Brufau, the fact that the pandemic forced the postponement of tour plans has turned out to be a blessing, "because it is now comfortable to do, after having worked with the orchestra and having renewed it with so many places." "Yes, before we didn't know each other that well, and now it was necessary for people to have that opportunity to chat and expose themselves to new acoustics and situations," confirms the maestro, who already has a tour in mind for next year: to the festival of Easter in Aix-en-provence and Lyon, and in summer to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. "Returning to your room having tasted others makes you value what you have, the strengths of your headquarters," he says.
"Exposing ourselves to new acoustics is something that I love, because it forces you to be alert," says flute soloist Francisco López. "At the Elbphilharmonie you feel naked because you can hear everything, an extra accent is immediately noticeable, but it generates a colder temperature. Because if we sound like a mass, it creates like a sticky heat... in which you settle, nothing happens. But Ludovic works the orchestra very well. Balancing it is the best job he can do and he is balancing it like I've never heard it before. It's warm, in its place, and there's more discipline. Some will say it's colder, but we needed to cool it down a little. He's making it transparent."
For the concertmaster, this tour is "a beautiful consequence" of all the work the orchestra has been doing. Facing different acoustics forces them, he says, to be flexible and adjust in an attempt to team up. "It is fair to play in halls that already have a very brave orchestra. I am very happy, in the way we work we go much more into detail with Ludovic, and that is just what we needed now."
On the other hand, "Ravel and the Catalan repertoire are going very well for us. It is a good choice to present ourselves in a serious and competitive way," adds Stanculeasa, who has been in the orchestra since 2018, with a one-year hiatus spent in Basel. .. and now on intermittent paternity leave. “It's good to have returned, for the people and the city, which are closer to my way of being. In this sense, my family is Latino."
Barcelona will not be in the core of the European classic but it is becoming more and more evident that it has a power, remembers Brufau. The Barcelona brand plays in its favor when orchestra positions open up. "The level we have now in the first swords of the strings or the winds is that of people who are partly attracted by the city of Barcelona," confirms Brufau. But the ECHO auditorium directors themselves are fascinated every time they visit the "They are no longer amazed by the climate but by the magnitude: it is an intense city rich in culture, and they are amazed by our way of working together with Liceu and Palau for the city."
Stefan Forsberg himself, the very hospitable director of the Stockholm concert hall, assures by raising glasses and proposing a toast to the Barcelona Symphony - "Skål!" - that he is about to retire and that his plan is to travel more to often to the Mediterranean capital.
