A Cathedral too Small for the Escolania (Auch, France, 18-19th June 2011)

Sometimes when in a concert we feel that the choir is not big enough for that venue. This time, the choir dominated the Cathedral of Auch so much that only a venue double its size could be worthy of their singing!

Not only did we have to go in a bus from Barcelona to near Toulouse in one day, we also had to do this the day after singing at L'Aldea! This obviously meant having about 5 hours of sleep on Friday night, which was a big change from my usual average of 9-10 hours!

The trip up to Auch, the town where the festival Eclats de Voix took place in which the boys would perform their last concert of the year, was dull, like most bus rides. However, Flaixbac, the major Catalonian radio station, saved us once more from eating each other alive. I'm joking, It was quite a pleasant journey, especially as so many of the younger boys fell asleep after the five hours' sleep from the previous night!

You might remember from the previous post that I had had a curse with the camera so far. Well, this time was no different. I somehow managed to miss my alarm in the morning, and so I left without the camera's battery. Very clever of me, I know. Unfortunately this meant that I have no photos of Auch or the last concert, or of my last weekend with the Montserrat boys, which is quite annoying.

Arriving in Auch, we were struck by the cleanness of everything around us. It looked more like Switzerland than France. The sloping fields and vineyards were the only giveaway. The most impressive building by far was the cathedral: its hard to imagine that such a big building could be in such a comparatively small town!

I'll skip most of the things we did and go straight to the concert: the last concert of the academic year and the last concert for the boys of the top year. It was certainly a memorable experience. The programme was much the same as other times, but three pieces in particular stood out.

The first was, yet again, Pau Casal's Nigra Sum. I will never ever get bored of listening to this. And the boys sang it with such passion in the cathedral that all I kept thinking of was that the largest cathedral in the world would not be comparable in grandeur to the Escolania singing this piece.

The “Cant dels Ocells” (see other “Music” posts) was once more a very engaging experience. I was not singing on the front row with other Escolania staff, but a few rows behind. I was positioned nearly underneath a pulpit. And when the “Cant dels Ocells” started it came from directly above me: the soloist really did sound like a bird in a tree!

As mentioned, this was the top year's last concert, and after a very emotional rendition of a traditional Catalonian dance song, they lined up at the front of the church with the rest of the choir spread around at equal distances from each other and sang the other of Pau Casal's most emotive pieces: la “Oracio a la Verge” (“Prayer to the Virgin”). Very soon sniffing started to be heard from aorund the naves and transepts, as the vibrato-filled voices of ten boys drifted across the church. Having listened to the boys sing so many times, all I can say si that a few of these vibratos were unintentional and entirely due to the fact that it was their last time singing together in concert. I know that for a person to sing their last piece in a choir is an emotional experience if they truly enjoy what they do, but for the audience to start to cry is a sign that the choir has really moved the audience!

L'Aldea: Back to childhood (17th June 2011)

Dogs barking; old crumbly buildings, dusty roads; lush green rice fields: this is the Mediterranean I was born to. And this is the Mediterranean I visited on the last concert in Catalunya of the Escolania de Montserrat at the town of L'Aldea.

The small church of La Ermita at L'Aldea was a whitewashed buildings with an adjacent hostel. And instead of having a cloister to its side, there was a bullring. A true testament to the strong tradition of bull “corridas” which is as deep-rooted into the church life as it is to celebrate Mass. The church itself has a typically Mediterranean feel to it: small interior, very golden altar and backdrop, and plaster-covered walls in quite odd colours, in this case purple, orange, light green... But it reminded me a lot of the church we used to go to back in the days of living in Valencia.

I seem to have had a very unlucky camera throughout my time at Montserrat: I have always wanted to film the choir singing the famous and beautiful Nigra Sum by Pau Casals, yet for some reason I have either left the camera back at Montserrat, not had memory enough for the recording or simply run out of memory during filming it. I admit this is partly my own fault, but I came here determined to have an empty camera with a full battery. So I finally managed to film it!

As this was the last concert in Catalunya, the boys were determined to give it their full energy. And it certainly stuck in everyone's head, with many people saying it was their best concert so far this year. The soloists performed brilliantly and the sound echoed around the church like it had never done before. Obviously, the acoustics were much better than for example at the Auditorium at Ripollet, which in comparison sounded quite dry.

There was a tower next to the buildings which looked quite odd: we later found out that it was part of one of many fortresses lined along the delta of the Ebro river, the second longest river in the Peninsula and by far the one with a largest current, and which irrigates a large section of the surrounding countryside (hence all the watery rice fields around the buildings). The tower was the only section remaining, but thtere were also some ruins by its side, some of which dated back to Roman times. It shows just how important this river was that even in Roman times there were already structures which acted as watchtowers against invaders or pirates.

Memories of the day are quite vague. I blame this on the extremely hot and stuffy weather which is typical around this time of year along the coast. It normally results in very sudden but plentiful downpours (I remember various times in Valencia when we were caught in these downpours). However, all in all it was a great day. Seeing the rice fields again was probably the most memorable event of the day. But like always, the choir sweated their way through the concert and gave another spotless and pitch-perfect performance!

A View of Barcelona's Industry, Tourism and Trade

The other viewpoint of the whole of BCN, other than Tibidabo, is from Montjuic park and castle. It is possibly even more impressive than the views from Tibidabo. I think this because one can see a whole other perspective of BCN from up here: the sea port, the airport, factories, energy plants, the beaches, the Olympic village and Forum... each of these has contributed at least partly to Barcelona's expansion and its establishment as a centre of the Mediterranean.

So if you want to understand (at least partially) Barcelona's prosperity, visit Montjuic castle and simply admire the views on all sides!

There are many ways of reaching the castle or the viewpoint. Perhaps the most entertaining, although quite expensive, experience of climbing up to the castle is via the Montjuic Teleferic (Cable car), which carries you over the hill's parks and museums and over to the edge of the cliff where the castle stands. Although the return ticket will set you back €10 if you're an adult, or €6 if not, the journey and views and general experience is very much worthwhile! Its also a great way of seeing the park if you are not a very keen walker, especially since many parts of the park are quite steep, which mkight make it seem even more attractive to some!

The views were really quite incredible. Not only was the port about the size of half of the city itself, with hundreds of cargo ships and freight carries, but you could see as many as four huge cruise liners sitting peacefully on the clear water as if giant ducks sitting on the surface of a very calm lake. Another sight was the Port Vell (Old Port) with its shopping malls and extensive marina filled with imposing yachts and large expensive luxurious sailing boats, as well as the odd peeling fishing boat. It comes to show how Barcelona is a centre of fishing, trade, tourism and pleasure, moulding it into a hugely important national and international trade and tourism centre. It also makes this city more attractive and economically diversified to investors than other major Spanish cities like Madrid, which doesn't have the benefit of having a beach or port.

Montjuic itself should bi visited at a slow pace over a whole day. It has a great variety of museums, such as the Geological museum, the Joan Miro museum of the MNAC(see below), although the main attractions seem to be the Castle and the Olympic stadium and surroundings. It has many gardens and other places of historical interest. The towering MNAC museum (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya), with its grand avenue and stairway, is perhaps the biggest attraction, with a very impressive and extensive collection of Romanic art which should definitely be visited.