Pau Casals, Beethoven and Bach fill the 2026-2027 season of the Palau de la Música
The program includes 212 concerts, in addition to 157 of a family and school nature
Barcelona"Peace is the guiding thread of the 2026-2027 season," says Joaquim Uriach, president of the Fundació Orfeó Català-Palau de la Música Catalana. "Music has a very powerful social and civic function; it creates a space for meeting, listening, and mutual understanding. It must be a place of refuge, of solace, and of hope," he adds. To illustrate this purpose, Uriach cites three names that will have special relevance in the Palau de la Música's calendar: Pau Casals, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johann Sebastian Bach, all three pillars of a "very ambitious" season with its own programming that includes 212 concerts, in addition to 157 family and school concerts. Some of these are part of the main cycle offerings presented a few weeks ago, and others were made public this Monday at a press conference by Joan Oller and Mercedes Conde, the institution's general director and associate artistic director, respectively.
The Palau de la Música is participating in the commemoration events for the 150th anniversary of Pau Casals' birth, honored as both performer and composer, with special concerts such as the complete Suites for cello by Bach, performed by Jean-Guihen Queyras (October 7); the complete Suites for cello and piano by Beethoven, performed by Gautier Capuçon and Frank Braley (February 4); the premiere of an arrangement by Xavier Pagès-Corella for El cant dels ocells in a program of music linked to bird songs (October 29); the oratorio El pessebre with the Cor Madrigal and the Franz Schubert Filharmonia (December 15); and a concert by the Quartet Casals and the Camerata Casals with works by Bach and Mozart (December 17). Also noteworthy is a heritage recovery on April 1, El misteri de sant Pere Ursèol, a piece that Pau Casals premiered in Prada in 1952.
Beethoven will be much more than a common thread. 200 years after his death, the work of the Bonn composer will be spread throughout the Palau de la Música's season. "We will perform Beethoven's great works," assures Oller. The Ninth will inaugurate the season with the Vallès Symphony Orchestra and the Orfeó Català (September 28). Daniele Gatti and the Staatskapelle of Dresden, in a project promoted with BCN Clàssics, will perform the complete symphonic cycle from May 7 to 11, 2027. Jordi Savall will conduct the monumental Missa solemnis (January 29) and Pablo Heras-Casado will tackle the opera Fidelio with the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (June 30, 2027). These are just three examples of the Palau de la Música's extensive Beethoven offering.
With Bach, who has had a dedicated cycle at the Palau de la Música for years, there will be a triple performance of the St. Matthew Passion
, coinciding with the third centenary of its premiere in Leipzig on Good Friday in 1727: Simon Rattle with the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Zürcher Sing-Akademie (March 18), Václav Luks and the Collegium 1704 (March 20), and Teodor Currentzis and the Utopia Orchestra & Choir (April 3). According to Oller, Currentzis's version promises to be the most innovative. One of the most interesting Bach-related projects will be the complete organ works, a three-year undertaking by Juan de la Rubia, who will perform the 300 pieces on the new Blancafort organ in the oratory of Sant Felip Neri, "an instrument very suitable for this repertoire," as Conde states. "It's a dream, a very important life project, where all of Bach's music for organ will be heard, the good and... the extraordinary," assures De la Rubia. The concerts will always take place on the second Tuesday of the month, from October to June.
Purcell and Shostakovich
The Palau de la Música promotes other long-term projects (over three seasons), such as a cycle with three operas by Purcell that Dani Espasa will carry out with Vespres d'Arnadí, the complete string quartets by Xostakóvitx performed by the Gerhard Quartet at the Torroella Festival, and the complete sonatas for piano by Mozart with Christian Blackshaw.
As usual, there will be guest composers: the American Eric Whitacre, a titan of contemporary choral music (author of the moving The sacred veil), Agustí Charles from Manresa and Marian Márquez from Tarragona. As a novelty, the Palau de la Música is introducing the figure of the guest heritage composer, who this season will be Father Antoni Soler, one of the most representative names of the Iberian 18th century. In the field of commemorations, three anniversaries will be remembered: that of pianist Rosa Sabater (1927-1983), that of choral director and pedagogue Oriol Martorell (1927-1996), and that of Manuel Cabero (1926-2020), founder of the Cor Madrigal.
