Resurrected and at home: a magnificent artistic resolution by the Orfeó Català

At the beginning of April, The Catalan Orfeó visited Stockholm to offer, with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, a vibrant interpretation of Mahler's Second Symphony (Resurrection), directed by Daniel Harding. Now, the same program, featuring the same performers, has been seen and heard in Barcelona.

Since we weren't able to hear the Swedish performance (either live or on demand), it's difficult to make comparisons. An intense, vibrant, and even, I'd dare say, astonishing version of the Austrian musician's symphonic work has arrived in Barcelona.

In the second of the ten symphonies that Mahler created throughout his life, those ambivalent states of mind that would define the personality of the author ofThe song of the EarthExpressive and dynamic contrasts that synthesize the author's complex personality, here for the first time relying on the human voice.

Therefore, it is essential that the piece's direction clearly aim for a programmatic vision of the page, without losing discursive coherence throughout ninety minutes of dense musical information. And faithful to Mahler's numerous indications that obsessively populate the score. In this sense, Daniel Harding's baton proved strongly in tune with the spirit of the work, facing a ductile, precise, and full-bodied orchestra, with excellent health in the various instrumental families that comprise it.

Well complemented by the solo voices of soprano Johanna Wallroth and mezzo-soprano Avery Amereau, the choral part deserves a separate chapter. It is tailored and measured to a type of register that is neither theatrical nor oratorial, but which seeks to convey a message that is also worthy of reflection: in this case, the meaning of resurrection, with ideas from Mahler himself.