Imagination in power. The Simfònics al Palau cycle that the Vallès Symphony Orchestra has been celebrating at the Palau de la Música since 27 years will premiere this season two new works commissioned by two unclassifiable musicians: the Barcelona native Ferran Cruixent, author of musical experiments with the Supercomputer, and Menorcan Marco Mezquida, pianist, composer and improviser.
While the latter has proposed to write what will be his first Piano Concerto -which will be played along with pieces by Bernstein or Ellington in an American music program directed by Víctor Pablo Pérez-, the former has been invited to put the contemporary counterpoint to the Tchaikovsky music. Specifically, to a monographic program that includes his Pathetic Symphony and his Piano Concerto no. 1.
The result is an unexpected experiment for which Cruixent is inspired by eight bars of the second movement of the Pathetic to enter a world of sound and experience. He calls it Cyberpreludi and in it he plays to imagine how, at the end of his life, a whole musical career would have passed through the mind of the Russian composer. We must not forget that this sixth and last Symphony of his, autobiographical in nature, became his swan song, as Tchaikovsky died nine days after its premiere.
"Scientists discovered not long ago that just before dying, the brain begins to spin at many revolutions. And that is what makes many experiences of your life happen in a second. I like to play with that, and with the whole subject of technology", says the Barcelona musician. "I imagine Tchaikovsky in those final moments of his life, and how the whole symphony goes through his head, he revives the work he has created. In the 4 or 5 minutes that the work lasts we get that prelude to the Symphony and the end of his life."
The Barcelona composer resorts to his cybersinging technique that combines technology and real instruments. That is, recordings that the musicians activate from the mobile and that in this case include one from the Rosetta probe... "It's as if you entered a new dimension. And at the end there are about 15 seconds of many minutes of Tchaikovsky's music" , Add.
It has also introduced an element of denunciation to any type of war, because at a given moment the piece becomes military. "And I vindicate the Russian composers who have been sadly deprogrammed by the fact of being Russian. The creators are beyond politics and nations. We belong to a broader world, which is to transcend, communicate, transmit emotions", Add.
Xavier Puig, the principal conductor of the Vallès Symphony who will direct this concert at the Palau on October 8 (the Simfònics al Palau cycle is held on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.), recalls that the Pathetic is a very special work. "It ends on piano, because Tchaikovsky was no longer looking for the applause of the public, rather he was saying goodbye to all of us perhaps". The program will begin with the grand piano concert by the Russian creator, performed by the young Italian soloist Elia Cecino, winner of the Ricardo Viñas de Lleida competition.
This is just one of the 14 programs that the OSV has prepared for this season that begins on September 24 with Dvorák's New World Symphony and the Cello Concerto by the same composer. It is performed by the Russian Anastasia Kobekina, a current reference in the cello, with Andrés Salado on the podium. The concert will begin with a work by Florence Price, considered the first African-American woman to be recognized as a classical composer, at the beginning of the last century.
Other great soloists will be the violinists Julian Rachlin and Sarah McElravy, in a program that includes Mozart's Jupiter Symphony (November 5), or the Venezuelan double bassist Edicson Ruiz, the first Hispanic American to enter the Berlin Philharmonic, who on November 21 January 2023 will perform a program of rhythm and syncopation that includes Ravel's Bolero combined with Óscar Navarro's Libertadores Overture and Silvestre Revueltas' Sensemayá song.
Puig will also direct, in March, an Amor Brujo de Falla that he will combine with works by Gerhard, Granados or Lorca (Belén Cabanes will take the castanets and Jordi Brau, the narration). Vespres d'Arnadí will make baroque authors visible in April with the countertenor Xavier Sabata. The Coral Cantiga will participate in the tribute to Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota, the two great authors of European cinema soundtracks (November 19 and, as an extraordinary concert on December 3).
And another program dedicated to cinema and women will be that of celluloid heroines. This is how music from Out of Africa, Alien, Gone with the Wind or Emma will sound, with narrations in Catalan by the actress Mercè Montalà under the musical direction of the baton Virginia Martínez. The Orfeó Català will close the cycle with Beethoven's Ninth, which will feature a first-class local cast: soprano Maria Hinojosa, mezzo Marta Valero, tenor Marc Sala and baritone Josep-Ramon Olivé.
The OSV, founding entity of the Fundació Òpera Catalunya (FOC), recalled yesterday, in the presentation of its 27th Simfònics at the Palau, that 90% of the investment in music in Catalonia is focused on Barcelona. "There are enough examples and cultural projects that deserve support," said its president, Jordi Cos. Having Mirna Lacambra's opera school project in Sabadell, unique in the State, deserves that. If you have a more decentralized vision of the country, you have to come to the conclusion that Sabadell needs an auditorium that is a second center of cultural production in the country”.
With a circuit of 14 cities and 40 opera performances, Sabadell aspires, due to its conditions and technical level, to be a Komische Oper in Berlin or an English National Opera in London, that is, "a complementary center to the Liceu", added Òscar Lanuza, director general of the FOC.
One of the operas that Sabadell has in contention this season, Madama Butterfly, will be performed at the Palau (February 25) under the direction of Sergi Roca and with the voices of Hiroko Morita, Enrique Ferrer (Pinkerton), Manel Esteve (Sharpless) and Anna Tobella (Suzuki). And in April Carmina burana will be played with the participation of various choirs from Catalonia that will join the solo voices of Assumpta Mateu, Toni Marsol and Jordi Domènech. The versatile countertenor, pianist and composer will open the series of talks prior to the concerts, in the rehearsal room of the Orfeó, a new feature of the season.
The cycle's budget, around 500,000 euros, comes mostly from the box office and has a contribution from the Fundació Banc Sabadell. According to Joan Oller, director of the Palau de la Música Catalana, all seasons close with a balanced budget. "It doesn't generate a deficit but it does give work to the orchestra and also to the Palau, which sees the room occupied". Simfònics al Palau was the first presentation for the hall's new president, Joaquim Uriach, who described the cycle's programming as "eclectic, diverse, innovative, popular and exciting".
