Cosmos Quartet & 'friends'

Artists

Palau de la Música Catalana

The Palau de la Musica Catalana is a dazzling building situated in the northern part of Barcelona's Old Town. An architectural jewel of the Catalan Art Nouveau style, built between 1905 and 1908, its rich interior displays the work of the region's artisans in the form of stained-glass windows, ceramics, sculptures, paintings and blacksmithing. The extensive use of glass in the construction of the venue creates stunningly radiant interiors. The dusty red facade of the Palau is decorated with busts of great composers including Bach, Beethoven and Wagner, and colorful mosaics in floral patterns. The centre of the Palau is the magnificent concert hall, entirely lit by natural sunlight due to the extraordinary skylight in the centre of the richly ornate ceiling, which is popular for symphonic and chamber music. According to Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the architect who designed the Palau, the aim was to create a “garden for music” – an objective he definitely managed to achieve.

Franz Schubert

During his rather short life, Franz Schubert, one of the fathers of romanticism in music, had always been an unappreciated genius who had never received public acclaim. Only his family and friends were delighted by his music, and most of his works were discovered and published only many years after his death. Franz Schubert was born on the 31th of March 1797 in the suburbs of Vienna. His father and eldest brother were amateur musicians and they taught him to play piano and violin. At the age of 11 Schubert was a singer in a choir at the Lichtenthal parish and later auditioned for Antonio Salieri and admitted to the emperor’s choir. During that period young Franz started composing his own works. However, after his voice broke he had to leave the choir and in 1814 he started working as a teacher in the same parish school as his father. He never stopped composing and 4 years later he decided to quit teaching and devote his life completely to music. He fell out with his father because of that and struggled to make ends meet. In 1818 Schubert went to Vienna, where he met Vogl. Together they gave private concerts in small aristocratic circles, mainly playing Lieder, which Schubert wrote around 600. Franz Schubert gave only one big public concert in his whole life in March 1828, which was very warmly received by the audience. However, his health was deteriorating and in November the same year he died of thyroid fever at the age of 31.