Great Mena at the service of Schubert's 'Great'

The recent announcement of Juanjo Mena's retirement from concert halls and auditoriums due to a cruel and irreversible illness added interest to the OBC's weekend concert. Attending what seemed like a farewell to one of the great conductors of our time felt like a moral obligation. And there we were.

Fortunately, Mena's mastery made the program more than just a symbolic goodbye. The appeal was undeniable, given his prolific and always sensational performance. Ninth Symphony, the Big, by Franz Schubert. The last symphonic work by the composer of Winterreise It was complemented by the Haffner Symphony by Mozart and the Violin Concerto by Mendelssohn, but due to scheduling conflicts, the person writing these lines was only able to attend on Saturday afternoon, complemented by the Orchestra Tasting of the Classic men from Catalunya Música. And the only piece programmed was, precisely, Schubert's symphony. Numerous attendees almost filled L'Auditori, and it must be said that their behavior was exemplary, considering that a good portion of those spectators were debutantes In the Pau Casals Hall, as confirmed by Pedro Pardo and Albert Galeran before the start. No coughing, no cell phones, no misplaced applause: maximum attention to the great romantic piece and, at the end, enthusiastic applause.

It must be said that the final ovation was well deserved, because Mena's work with the OBC was pure artistry: while there was a slight excess of volume in the brass at the end of the first movement, the woodwinds were exquisitely detailed in the second, and the high and low strings were a felicitous combination in the scherzo and the brightness ofAllegro vivace The conclusive results confirm that we witnessed a truly delightful musical session.

Mena proved himself the great conductor he has always been: anticipating, gauging sound intensities—despite the aforementioned final passage of the first movement—attending to countless details... We didn't discover anything new from a well-known work, but we did enjoy a textbook interpretation.

Furthermore, all sections delivered excellent performances, with a particularly prodigious brass section (especially the trombones) and a lower string section with sinuous textures. The interplay also worked well, and the result was good. Juanjo Mena can be very proud of his career and will surely culminate his final year of performances with a high bar to clear. And it must be said that he is leaving the stage far too soon. It's not right.