A musical Christmas in Catalan: the Palau's videopodcast in 'Rehearsal Room' for these holidays

Rehearsal RoomThe Palau de la Música Catalana's music and thought videopodcast brings us a space for reflection this Christmas season on how we experience the holidays through music. The episode A musical Christmas in CatalanWith David Carabén (Mishima) and Joan Magrané, the episode explores the rituals we repeat, what we sing, what we've stopped singing, and what identifies us as a country.

While in much of Europe, Christmas is synonymous with listening to Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, in Catalonia we also have our own music. The episode takes Christmas Eve of Lamote de GrignonA little-known Catalan work, even among Catalans, serves as a starting point for discussing tradition, secularism, concerts, and ways of celebrating. An open dialogue about how we experience—and can reclaim—that time of year.

Christmas Eve It's one of the most recent recoveries of our heritage. It's a work from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and it has this whole Wagnerian element, which is fantastic. It's not very well known, yes, but this doesn't only happen with this work. Everything that's ours always seems to us to be less than what's from elsewhere," Joan Magrané aptly describes.

Joan Lamote de Grignon's oratorio, a composition that deserves to be rediscovered, could be enjoyed at the Palau this December with the voices of soprano Elionor Martínez, baritone Ferran Albrich, and the participation of the Casas i Amigó Choir. The special program has once again brought twenty-eight special concerts to the Palau for all audiences, because if there's one thing that's inconceivable, it's Christmas without music. "That is to say, music often forces you to go a little beyond words and the way we communicate in our daily lives," affirms David Carabén. It's like stepping into another dimension, or, as Joan Magrané put it, "it places you a little outside of yourself, and you enter this collective of what is most familiar to us."

Christmas carols

Christmas gatherings feature music, but Carabén confesses that "I don't DJ." "I'm already a nuisance enough, so I just go along with what people are listening to." Magrané, on the other hand, is one of those who provides a soundtrack and recommends French Baroque viola da gamba music, which "sounds like a table set." And Christmas carols? Neither of them considers themselves fans. For David Carabén, it's even an "unpleasant" genre because it goes against the times. However, it would be good to revive this tradition, lost according to Joan Magrané, because "the great Catalan choral tradition, as well as amateur choral music, has been very important, and it's something that's barely hanging on now."

Perhaps it's shyness, but, as he emphasizes, "we have the Birdsong "We usually sing them to say goodbye to someone, and people don't know it's a Christmas carol." Unlike pop music as a trendsetter, traditional music, Carabén points out, is a ritual. "It's a kind of meeting place, an agora, a public square where we used to meet, and there we recognized each other. And, of course, we miss it."

The Christian culture of Christmas carols is disappearing in schools, and therefore, its transmission is compromised. "For me, it's very sad. There's a kind of strange inferiority complex because of the rise of Islam. Europe is reacting, and I hope it does so quickly. We must overcome our inferiority complex and reaffirm ourselves as a society with a Christian tradition," says Magrané. As Carabén points out, "this is probably very generational. Our parents demanded secularism, and now we find it a bit absurd."

The New Year's Eve Concert

Tradition also dictates the celebration of the Christmas Concert. The most famous is the Vienna Philharmonic's. "It's fun because there's this whole thing with the conductors, wondering what they're going to do, what's going to happen, but the applause is awful, although it's fine. It's allowed once a year," says Magrané. "It's also a way for everyone to cure their hangovers," adds Carabén.

Amidst the jokes, the underlying message is to make the event, also at the Palau, a celebration to be enjoyed festively. "My father made a comparison, I think with the Liceu, talking about the silence at Camp Nou. The Catalan character is always very critical," says David Carabén. Just like with the Palau. "And if you travel around Europe, the noise in concert halls is multiplied a hundredfold. There are people who go to a concert as if they were going to a Barça match. It's not just about identifying with the music, but also about experiencing it," Magrané emphasizes.