ConcertPulse
Barcelona Symphony Orchestra / Fleur Barron / Ludovic Morlot
Elbphilharmonie, Großer Saal (Hamburg)
Barcelona is not just a vibrant Mediterranean metropolis and a popular destination for sun-seeking tourists. The capital city of Catalonia is also an important centre for music. The Palau de la Música, which was built in the early 20th century in the Modernisme style is one of the world’s most architecturally unusual concert halls. And the city gained another modern concert venue in 1999 with the L’Auditori de Barcelona. The latter is home to the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, which is famous far beyond the Spanish border and which now performs in the Elbphilharmonie for the first time. As the official national orchestra of Catalonia they will, of course, be performing music from their home region. In »Cinco canciones negras«, the programme features a work by the most important Catalonian composer, Xavier Montsalvatge. The solo part of the five orchestral songs, in which Montsalvatge works with rhythms and themes from the music of the Antilles, is performed by the young mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, a mentee of Barbara Hannigan. The concert opens with the brand new work »Las constelaciones que más brillan« for orchestra by Raquel García-Tomásder, who was born in Barcelona in 1984 and who has already been awarded the Spanish National Prize for Music. Fittingly, the programme also features works by Maurice Ravel, who was strongly influenced by Spanish music, not least because of his Basque mother.