If in recent years the Palau de la Música has chosen to renew itself and invite pop stars to participate in the traditional Sant Esteve Concert, this Christmas the invited star will be Tomàs Molina, the notorious TV3 weatherman who was suddenly requires in a more artistic and musical context. Their small interventions between performances by the great choral family of the Orfeó Català – which for the first time in the post-pandemic will be able to bring together all 300 on stage – will serve to contextualize Christmas Eve, Nadal’s Night in Catalonia, since that is the theme in which Adrià Aubert, stage director of this event for the fourth consecutive year, has decided to focus a good part of the show.
“The idea is to put into context the longest and most magical night of the year, the way in which darkness reigns at the winter solstice, which in the past was experienced completely. We only have to go back to 1913, when the Palau begins to celebrate the Sant Esteve Concert, to imagine a totally dark Barcelona at night,” explains Molina.
His is a reflective role. In the most televisual format concert that has possibly been broadcast from the Palau in Sant Esteve, Molina will wonder why we say that the Three Wise Men come from the East, which is related to the direction in which the Earth rotates, west to east. “A thing that shines in the sky, a star that invites you to follow it, would have made them come from the East,” he anticipates.
Broadcast live on TV3, the concert will have Laura Rosel as presenter and will be thematically divided into three blocks: the first dedicated to Christmas carols; the second to the anniversaries and the third to the winter solstice. Aubert anticipates that there will be some scenic elements and the musical director of the event, Pablo Larraz, director of the choirs, announces a monograph of Christmas carols with up to six premieres by composers from the country.
In this edition he will put music to poets in the Catalan language. Oh Jesús de ma infantesa, a poem by Joan Maragall with music by Josep Ollé i Sabaté, will be premiered; Món de Nit, a poem by Carme Cabús with music by Anna Campmany, will be performed; and based on a poem by Dolors Miquel, Les cuatre estaciones will be released with music by Jordi Cornudella Heras.
The program includes carol arrangements by local composers such as Salvador Mas, Baltasar Bibiloni or Albert Guinovart, and the arrangements by Mariona Vila (The Annunciation to the Shepherds) and Elisenda Fábregas, guest composer at the Palau this season (La Pastora Caterina ), as well as the medley Un ram de nadales by Joan Vives and Sanfeliu. A sample of the richness and plurality of this musical genre.
After this immersion in symbols such as hope, renewal and kindness, the second part of the concert will include songs that will talk about light, darkness, the moon and other evocative elements. And well-known fragments of the oratorios El Messiah by Händel and Elías by Mendelssohn will be heard. Without forgetting choral works by contemporary composers: Ola Gjeilo (Palau guest composer of the season), Darius Lim (with his spectacular staging of his A puppet’s dream) or Daniel Elder.
In the year that marks half a century since the death of Pau Casals, the Palau will have a particularly emotional moment with the interpretation of three fragments of his oratorio El Sebre. And for the final song “Glory to God” the voices of all the young people and adults from the choirs of the Orfeó and the Cor de Cambra of the Palau will join together. A song to peace for which Casals worked tirelessly “and very necessary in these times of international conflicts,” Larraz noted.
In the televised edition of the concert you can enjoy images of the modernist building while El Pessebre is performed in tribute to its architect, Domènech i Montaner, on the centenary of his death. And once again the party will conclude with El cant de la senyera, the anthem of the Orfeó Català, with all the choirs gathered on stage and with the participation of the public; and as an encore, El noi de la mare will be offered, with an arrangement by Albert Guinovart that he himself will play on the piano.
The Palau wanted to involve citizens by inviting people to record themselves on video singing El noi de la mare and post it on social networks with the tag
Regarding the independence spirit that this event has acquired in the last decade due to the spontaneous action of the public, the director of the Palau de la Música, Joan Oller, believes that “everyone experiences it in their own way.” “It is a musical proposal and that is how it is proposed from home. But as such and linked to the Palau de la Música, it is not independent of the passage of time and what happens at every moment.”
“The Concert de Sant Esteve was born 22 years after the Orfeó Català was founded, and it was born with a spirit of brotherhood and joy, very artistic, and that is what it continues to be for us, a concert with which to share our songs with as many people as possible,” added the president of the entity, Joaquim Uriach. “And let everyone express themselves however they want, like at the Camp Nou.”
