Flavors, textures and more things

PalmaThird installment of a new season at the Principal Theatre of Inca, home of the Orquestra de Cambra de Mallorca, which we were able to hear once again at the church of Llubí. A program that was already quite appealing in itself, with a degree of difficulty that made it an added value and with an undisputed figure, Eduardo Ríos, violinist of the Berliner Philharmoniker, as the soloist commissioned for the occasion to bring to life the Violin Concerto in D major, op. 6. One of the most convoluted concertos and the only one Ludwig van Beethoven composed for the instrument. A composition that, like so many others, carries its legend attached. Premiered by Franz Clement, he received the score very shortly before the concert, and performed it as if it were almost a first reading, but, moreover, he added a sonata of his own as a cadenza played on a single string and with the violin upside down. So difficult was the execution of the concerto that the virtuosos of the time decided it was unplayable, until, thirty-six years after its premiere, at the age of thirteen, and with Felix Mendelssohn conducting, Josef Joachim placed it on the pedestal it deserved and from which it has never descended again.

The cadenza at the end of the first movement alone, of extreme virtuosity, a careful and exquisite dissection of the second theme of this Allegro ma non troppo, would have been worth the concert. But it was much more. The orchestra, in its long and illustrious introduction, with Fernando Valcárcel conducting and Ramon Andreu as concertino, made it clear that this was to be a superior evening. The timpani announced it with the four initial beats and the soloist confirmed it as soon as he took part in this infinite series of variations, which keep the essential structural balance intact, leading to a majestic, delightful, and intricate finale.

It wasn't just that. The concert had a premiere, the Prelude among lights, by Vicente Olivares, a composition that draws from the most classic and solid canons. Between one and the other, the Orquestra de Cambra de Mallorca performed the Suite of Pulcinella, by Igor Stravinsky, based on the ballet by the same composer that premiered in Paris, with scenography by Pablo Picasso. An eclectic, versatile and ingenious composition that becomes a fun metamorphosis between the baroque music of Pergolesi filtered through a breaker of its kind. In any case, a mosaic of great richness that transforms into a puzzle of infinite textures, which make a good part of the members of the ensemble protagonists, with special emphasis on the string leaders. A flavorful and succulent evening.