Traditional Catalan music thrills Germany

Hamburg"This is the place to be; what happens here matters to the world," declared Joan Oller, the general director of the Palau de la Música Catalana, from the magnificent Elbphilharmonie building in Hamburg, by the river. The auditorium, which resembles a gigantic ship anchored in Elbe, is considered one of the finest concert halls in Europe. This Friday, the iconic venue hosted a sold-out concert: in the main hall, with an audience of 2,100, the Barcelona Symphony and National Orchestra of Catalonia performed, while in the smaller hall, Tarta Relena, winner of the 2025 National Culture Prize, took the stage. Shortly before the concerts, more than a hundred Germans gathered in the Elbphilharmonie's inner courtyard. This was just one small part of a week in which the Auditori di Barcelona, ​​the Palau de la Música Catalana, and the Institut Ramon Llull presented a sonic map of Catalonia in various German cities.

For a time, the Elbphilharmonie wounded German pride because it challenged the famous German efficiency. Its budget ballooned, and it took a long time to complete. Some joke that it was a kind of German Sagrada Familia, but it was the best marketing campaign ever: when it opened in 2007, tickets were impossible to find, and now more than a million are sold each season. The German audience that filled it on Friday rose to their feet and responded to the OBC with a very long ovation and cheers. Outside, it was all gray, dark, and raining, but inside, the Bolero Maurice Ravel's piece, with which the OBC, conducted by Ludovic Morlot, closed the concert, ignited the hall.

"With 'Rain' I've heard some very special things"

"Oh, the Rain"I felt like I was inside the ocean," said Anita, who had come from Switzerland for the concert. "The second part was perfect, especially the Rain, "I've heard some very special things, and Ravel has brought back my best memories of ballets," said Olga, who had traveled from Saarland. Andrea and Christine, who had chosen this concert specifically for their two daughters because they have Catalan friends, left thrilled:Rain It has been very special and Bolero "It sounded incredible." Rain It's a piece by Miquel Oliu that had its international premiere the day before in Stuttgart, but it sounded splendid in Hamburg. Perhaps the construction work at the Elbphilharmonie took a long time, but the acoustics finally achieved are perfect. Every detail could be heard, everything that Oliu's composition evokes: all the textures, the arrival of rain after the drought, the sound, and the life that begins anew. As the composer himself explained shortly before the concert began, he was inspired by the poem of the same name by Antoni Clapés. "It's everything that rain implies, the return to life after having looked within oneself," said Oliu, who valued not only the importance of a whole Catalan musical legacy, but also all that music can offer to communicate and transmit.

The concert hall not only offered extraordinary clarity, but also allowed one to observe every expression of the musicians and all of Morlot's movements as he explained how some of the pieces performed shared the commonality of being inspired by poems. Along with Ravel and Oliu, the OBC played Prelude to the après-midi of a faun (1882-1894) by Claude Debussy and the suite The Magical Opal by Isaac Albéniz. Soprano Núria Rialt also performed a selection of songs orchestrated by Albert Guinovart by Frederic Mompou and also The dancers inside a sack by Robert Gerhard.

Tarta Relena's "resistance"

Relena Cake They played in the small hall to a much younger audience. "How lucky we are to have such good Catalan musicians," Helena Ros and Marta Torrella declared to an audience that also included many musicians participating in Focus Catalunya. This duo of pagan prophets demonstrated once again that they have a firmly established poetic voice and that they can always go one step further. "We are very happy to present our work and for Catalan music to be understood around the world," Torrella said shortly before the concert. Ros emphasized that music, which stirs up all kinds of references, can also be a form of resistance: "It's a way of opposing globalization, of thinking about who you are and where you are, focusing on your own home." Tarta Relena sang, among others, tenth hand, which tells the story of a "wretched man" who has a terrible end written on his forehead, Odniramado, a song that was the result of a "computer accident" and that turns the lyrics of another song around and sings them backwards, Tamarind; and Blessed viscera, a medieval polyphony about Mary, who remains whole in the sense of virgin and pure after becoming a mother.

This is just one part of a week-long program at the Elbphilharmonie dedicated to introducing German audiences to classical and contemporary Catalan composers. The Catalan focus began with Jordi Savall performing with Hespèrion XXI and the Royal Chapel of Catalonia. Red Book from Montserrat, and Marco Mesquida & Chicuelo with their third joint work, From the soulThis Saturday it's the turn of the Cobla de San Jorge-Ciudad de Barcelona, ​​with pieces by Eduard Toldrà, Marc Timón, Juli Garreta or Twelve lustrums by Xavier-Pagès Corella, which demonstrates the innovative capacity of the copla, and Joan Albert Amargós and Joaquim Serra. The Chamber Choir of the Palau de la Música Catalana, with a concert framed within Generation C – of "contemporary Catalan choral composers" – will highlight the new crop of current Catalan authors.

"We wanted to show the diversity of origins and influences we have, because we are in a Mediterranean location with a great diversity of musical expressions, but we also want to demonstrate that we always like to innovate. In this sense, it is impossible not to mention Rosalía," Oller affirmed. "The music we have brought not only has a strong presence of tradition, but it demonstrates that tradition is alive because the musicians know it, value it, and have made it their own," explained the Llull's director of creation, Maria Lladó. "This choice reflects how a millennia-old tradition engages with contemporary life; this international presence allows us to have a voice in the world and to converse with other cultures," emphasized the Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernández. Sílvia Pérez Cruz and Salvador Sobral will close the Focus Català program.