The splendor of Montserrat Torrent's organ resonates in Sant Felip Neri

BarcelonaIt was a dream that began to come true December 2021, when Cardinal Omella blessed the M-shaped organ named after Montserrat Torrent. The Barcelona organist already premiered it then, but the instrument built by the Blancafort workshop was not yet finished. A final phase was missing which, once completed, allowed for the official inauguration this Monday of a magnificent organ with 50 stops, 3,454 pipes, and three keyboards installed in the choir loft of the Oratory of San Felipe Neri, in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. "We are in the heart of the city, in the heart of Catalonia," said the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at the beginning of an event that was also a tribute to Montserrat Torrent, "a key figure in Catalan culture, a pride of the country." "This organ is the project of her life, because it was conceived sixty years ago, but nothing ends now; a new stage begins now: to bring activity to this fantastic instrument," explained Albert Torrens, commissioner of the Year Montserrat Torrent and biographer of the organist.

In a packed church, there were also the Minister of Culture, Sònia Hernández Almodóvar; the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni; and the provost of the Oratories of San Felipe Neri of Barcelona and Gràcia, Father Ferran Colás, as well as various personalities from the music world.

"It is the only large-format Baroque organ in the city," highlighted Collboni a few minutes before the second part of the event began, in which actor Pere Arquillué acted as a rhapsodist reciting the Poema per a un orgue by Narcís Comadira. Arquillué recited in a dialogue with the music performed by seven organists, who demonstrated the organ's different sonic and expressive possibilities beyond the Baroque. However, neither Illa nor Collboni were able to witness this splendor and versatility because they had to leave to attend other commitments after Torrent's first performance, which opened the musical part with a work by Francisco Correa de Arauxo, one of the reference composers for the transition between the Renaissance and Iberian Baroque.

Bernat Bailbé has also offered baroque moments regarding two pieces by Miguel López Sebastián, and Juan de la Rubia has explored the expressiveness of Montserrat Torrent's organ with an exuberant rendition of Bach's Concerto BWV 596. Beyond the baroque, Guido Iotti has performed Giovanni Pietro Baldi's Sonata per il grand'organo; Saskia Roures has championed the great Swedish organ pioneer, Elfrida Andrée, and Joan Seguí has unfurled symphonic color playing a piece by Charles-Marie Widor. Furthermore, Ignacio Ribas has premiered his own composition, Como un Torrente de luz, obviously dedicated to the Lady of the Organ. She herself closed the event with the martial drive of Johann Caspar Kerll's Battaglia, at the end of which she received ovations and many "Bravo!"s from the attendees. "It is an important moment for all of us," Albert Torrens had said. And it has been thanks to Montserrat Torrent's perseverance.