The children of Ricardo Bofill Leví (Barcelona, 1939-2022) want to continue the passion that the architect felt for classical music, especially for Bach, his chief composer and the one he asked to play just before he died. That's why his Architecture Workshop, now run by Ricardo and Pablo Bofill, has decided to sponsor a concert by Ibercamera, the series programmed by Josep Maria Prat and which took place precisely in the Cathedral, the nave of the old factory of cement Sanson where Bofill made his studio, next to Walden 7.
That small stage and the good acoustics of the nave was what, in May 1980, gave rise to the birth of this Barcelona cycle that will be 40 years old next season. Lluís Claret on the cello and Albert Giménez-Attenelle on the piano gave the first concert: Bach, Zimmermann, Guijoan, Penderecky and Kodaly. And when, fifteen months ago, the architect of the National Theatre, T1 or the Vela hotel passed through, the pianist Varvara performed the Goldberg Variations, the same program and the same artist that this May are presented at the Palau de la Música with Ibercamera , sponsored by the firm Bofill. If it regularly contributes to the cycle, it would add to the support that the Vila Casas Foundation has been giving for a decade: cultural institutions that sponsor culture.
Yesterday, the program for the 40th season was presented in this space, where the stage is presided over by a piano and a replica of Gaudí's double chair: seven international orchestras in works from the great repertoire, plus recitals by Martha Argerich and Maurizio Pollini.
"I was 15 years old in 1980", Ricardo Bofill son began by explaining. "Josep Maria has always been a friend of the family and his beginnings with the cycle tell now, 40 years later, a story that carries the DNA of Barcelona, where I think we are losing interest in culture and art and we need to encourage them so we don't fall behind other cities".
The first time Prat heard a record of Glenn Gould playing Bach was here. Bofill also discovered Camarón for him, which he later represented. "Ricardo made a big impression on me, I met him when I was young and learned from him. At Walden there were poets, philosophers... Rubert de Ventós, Salvador Clotas or José Agustín Goytisolo collaborated there. Because architecture was just one more of the disciplines that moved him", he says.
At the commemorative gala Pinchas Zukerman and Maria Joao Pires, two historical figures from the Camera agency, will offer Beethoven's Sonata for violin and piano Primavera, which will precede the Ninth Symphony for the National Orchestra of Lyon and the Orfeó Català.
The million euro budget for this special edition – 200,000 more than the current one – guarantees the presence of orchestras such as the Finnish Baroque, which will offer El Messiah with Mireia Barrea and the Barcelona Ars Nova, or the National Philharmonic of Hungary, for which maestro Jordi Francés will arrange Granados' poetic waltzes. The SWR Stuttgart will not come this time with its headliner, Teodor Currentzis – who will offer Mozart's Requiem with Musicaeterna – but with Andrés Orozco-Estrada in Beethoven's Pastoral and Stravisnki's Consecration of Spring.
Ádám Fischer will continue with Mahler's symphonies at the head of the Dusseldorf Symphony (this time playing the Fifth) and the National de France will bring the new value of pianistics - "he reminds me of Daniïl Trífonov", says Prat - which is Alexandre Kantorow, playing Chopin and Prokofiev. Martha Argerich will be accompanied by the Korean pianist Dong-Hyek Lim, and Maurizio Pollini will return, another legend who at the age of 81 is still "in top shape".
"I hadn't come to Spain for 30 years, I was literally a god, I didn't have a manager, I didn't talk on the phone, I didn't watch TV. The best was the booing on the first tour, in Valencia. 'You don't know anything, and only if you listen to me will we move on: I don't care about money and expensive hotels, because we owe what we do to geniuses called Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. And I warn you, the next time there is an error in the names of the composers in the hand program, the concert will be performed by you'. This was solved by me traveling the day before to each city to check them", he concludes.
