The Caribbean soprano Jeanine de Bique puts herself in the shoes of Cleopatra, Rodelinda, Alcina or Agrippina, characters from Händel’s operas and those of their contemporaries, accompanied by the Concerto Köln ensemble. Maestro Daniel Harding lands in the Empordà (perhaps piloting the plane himself) with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe performing Beethoven and Sibelius. Mark Padmore conducts and sings Bach lamentations with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The Piedmontese soprano Erika Grimaldi, with exponential projection, is inspired by the repertoires of Victoria de los Ángeles to pay tribute to her centenary, with Albert Guinovart at the piano. The pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, a referential in Chopin since she won the contest, will also transit Beethoven and Liszt…

And the country’s artists also shine: Vespres d’Arnadí rescues Domènec Terradellas’s oratorio Giuseppe ricinosso; Maria del Mar Bonet joins the lute player Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata, and Marco Mezquida dares to play his Talaiot Concerto with the Simfònica del Vallès in front of the Medes, a stage in Punta del Molinet reserved until now for the jazz of L ‘startit It will be on July 14, “but only if there is no tramontana”, says the Menorcan. In addition, Juli Garreta’s Medes Islands and Mendelssohn’s Las Hebridas, inspired by the Scottish coast, will play.

Sometimes all that glitters is gold. The Torroella de Montgrí Festival presented its 43rd edition yesterday –from July 29 to August 18– with an overwhelming line-up and noteworthy debuts (Harding is not exactly cheap), but in balance with the commitment to the heritage of the past which is his seal. The Empordà will be dressed in lights to inaugurate an edition that “challenges you by offering the opportunity to connect with the humanist ideas that music transmits”, in the words of the director of the contest, Montse Faura.

Domènec Terradellas (Barcelona, ​​1713 – Rome, 1751), a great representative of the Neapolitan operatic school and key in the evolution from Baroque to Classicism, triumphed in Europe even with this first work that he premiered in Naples. The recovery was made by the musicologist Josep Dolcet in 1995, with a modern orchestra and without any of the characters -it was seen at the Religious Music Week in Cuenca-, but now it comes complete and with the original sound of Vespres d’Arnadí. “It was an oratorio that we wanted to do and it would be wonderful to be able to record it,” says Espasa. It is his only opera with a sacred theme and one of the first that he composed, since it was almost a final year project ”.

This is not Torroella’s only production this year –with a budget of 616,854 euros, 16 concerts and various activities–: also Bonet-Pluhar, or the complete Shostakovich quartets by the Gerhard Quartet. But the poster doesn’t end here: Amandine Beyer’s Gli Incogniti (with Händel and Corelli) return; the Ensemble O Vos Omnes by Xavier Pastrana, with a history lesson by Josquin ses Prez (the essayist Ramón Andrés will give a lecture); Le Poème Harmonique evokes the Venetian processions of the baroque; Les Sacqueboutiers mix ancient and traditional music, from Spain to the Balkans, from the Mediterranean to Japan… and as for the piano, Víkingur Ólafsson offers the Goldberg Variations while Joaquín Achúcarro pays homage to Alicia de Larrocha, with whom he had ties in life.