Tribute to Joan Maragall at the Palau de la Música Catalana

A year and a half ago I was in a serious car accident in which I almost lost my life. It was nighttime. I was driving towards Seville. A girl sped towards me on a two-lane road. I was hit several times and ended up off the road, crashed into a wall.

When I got home, something strange happened. I've played piano since I was little and I compose regularly. I don't know why, but my songwriting ability inexplicably skyrocketed. I started setting poems by my favorite poets to music. I composed 160 songs in four months. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. The only explanation I can find is that my main inhibitor, the fear that my music wouldn't live up to my writing and economics, vanished. I stopped caring what people would say.

One of those poets was Joan Maragall. At twenty-two, thirty-five years ago, I set to music... The almond treeSince then, nothing more. Between April and May of last year, I set fifty-two of his poems to music. Maragall's poetry has completely stolen my heart. He begins his poems in a light, almost childlike way, with an innocence that, at first glance, makes nothing seem out of the ordinary. Little by little, he leads you somewhere else, toward a thought or feeling that you yourself have hidden deep in your soul, and suddenly, you find yourself completely captivated by a symbolism and spirituality that have no equal. And you don't know where you are. His captivating power is breathtaking.

A descendant of Joan Maragall told me that Salman Rushdie had stated that, in nature poetry, only our great Catalan poet was on par with Walt Whitman.

I decided to record fifteen of the songs in Marc Parrot's studio, sung by Roger Padullés and with piano arrangements by the maestro Miquel Ortega. You can listen to the album on streaming music platforms (Living Word).

Then, I delved deeper into his life. His biography fascinated me. A TV3 report stated that Maragall lacked imagination. He would leave his house, go for a walk, and see things in every detail that no one else could. And he would transform them into poetry. An unusual sensitivity.

My writing interest led me to explore those everyday, family moments from which his poems emerged. And I thought that no one better than Clara Noble, his wife, to whom we owe the fact that Maragall's work has not fallen into oblivion, could narrate those intimate moments of the poet.

I wrote a fictional diary, and the great actress Sílvia Bel agreed to recite it at the Palau de la Música. It's a dramatic piece about Clara's ear. She knew that Maragall was going to go down in history. What role did she play? How did she experience a relationship with a man who was in love not only with her, but also with poetry and nature? What were her feelings?

The newspaper ARA has decided, in its commitment to the Catalan language and culture, to support this premiere. On March 7, With the young talent Miquel Esquinas on piano, we look forward to a performance featuring his poems, my music and narration, and these great artists. It will be my debut in Catalonia as a composer. I only have words of gratitude for everyone who has made it possible, and for life itself, for giving me the opportunity to be reborn.