Palau de la Música Catalana: La Grande Chapelle & Escolania de Montserrat

About the Event

In this highly‐anticipated concert, hear the mellifluous sounds of classical choral music by Valls and Cererols at Barcelona's treasured and world‐renowned Palau de la Música Catalana.

F. Valls

Ruggero Leoncavallo went down in music history as the creator of the opera masterpiece 'Pagliacci'. Additionally he was known for representing a new artistic style verism whose followers focused on everyday subject matters instead of heroic deeds and legendary characters. He was born in Naples in 1857. When Leoncavallo was 8 he got accepted to the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory, where he studied for eight years. Besides his passion for music, he showed great interest in literature and later studied at the philological department of the University of Bologna. This knowledge helped him later to write librettos for his musical works. In 1879 he tavelled to Egypt to live with his uncle and work as a pianist and teacher at the court of the Egyptian Khedive Tewfil Pasha. However, three years later he was forced to leave the country due to the outbreak of war. He move to France, where he worked as a pianist and songwriter in cafes and music halls.
In 1887 he returned to Milan and concentrated on writing operas in the new verismo style. Five years later he finally achieved long‐awaited success for his opera Pagliacci. Leoncavallo himself claimed, the plot was based on a real murder trial which his father, a magistrate, reviewed in court when he was a child. It is still considered to be the best operas of the verismo genre and is still frequently performed to this day.

Joan Cererols

An English subject with German origins, Georg Handel was truly a musical pioneer, combining musical traditions of English, Italian and German composers. He was born in 1685 in Halle, Germany, into a very religious and conservative family. His father was dreaming for his son to become a lawyer and would not let young Georg play musical instruments at home. But the Duke Johann Adolf accidentally heard him playing in the chapel and convinced Georg's father to let his son receive a musical education. Thus, Handel became a pupil of the famous organ player and composer Friedrich Zachow.

The first success came to Handel in 1705 when he moved to Hamburg and staged his two premiere operas, Almira and Nero, in the Oper am Gänsemarkt. Almira immediately became a highlight of the theatre and was performed around 20 times. Later next year Handel moved to Italy were he received high acclaim and was put on the same level as renowned Italian composers of the time. In 1710 Handel travelled to London where later he decided to settle down. There he wrote a sacred choral piece 'Te Deum' that was played in St. Paul´s Cathedral at the ceremony devoted to signing the Utrecht Treaty. From that moment onwards he became the leading composer of England, as the country did not have any native prominent composers. His oeuvre was mainly focused on operas, but by 1730 the genre of Italian opera ceased to be popular and Handel´s success dwindled. During the last years of his life until his death in 1759 he was mainly composing oratorias, including his famous and magnificent Messiah.