Last Saturday, the Beethoven Marathon featuring chamber ‎music saw 4,500 spectators pass through L’Auditori’s Sala 2 Oriol Martorell ‎during the 14 hours the event lasted. The first concert, with the Ludwig Trio, started at 10 am ‎and the last, with the Trio Fortuny, was at 11.30 pm. In total, nine concerts filled this ‎Beethoven Marathon with music, which marked the start of the Beethoven250 Festival.‎

Of the nine concerts, all of which were free, all the ‎seats were taken at four of the concerts and five were almost 80% full. This means there was ‎an average of 500 people per concert in the Sala 2 Oriol Martorell, which ‎has capacity for 580 spectators. ‎

The Beethoven Marathon included acclaimed ‎Catalan artists performing chamber music works by the German composer, most ‎notable of which were the complete renditions of the piano trios, the sonatas for violin and ‎piano and for cello and piano, with artists such as the Ludwig Trio, Vera and Claudio ‎Martínez Mehner, Miguel Colom, Arnau Tomàs, Enrique Bagaría, Josep Colomer and the Trio ‎Fortuny. ‎

‎The Beethoven250 Festival continues with the Calidore String Quartet and oboist ‎Cristina Gómez Godoy ‎
The next Beethoven250 Festival event to watch out for will be on Wednesday 15 ‎January with the Calidore String Quartet, one of the most ‎highly-rated quartets of today, and oboist Cristina Gómez Godoy, who has ‎performed as principal oboist with numerous eminent orchestras such as the Berliner ‎Philharmoniker, the Filarmonica della Scala in Milan and the London Symphony Orchestra.‎

The concert repertoire will include Quartet No. 4, Op. 18 by Ludwig van ‎Beethoven, a work in which the composer began to explore the emotional depth ‎of the tonality of C minor which he would reserve for his more dramatic works. The ‎‎Quartet in G minor by Edvard Grieg will also be performed, a ‎light work with a melodic spirit.‎

Finally, audiences will have the chance to hear the oboe quartets by Wolfgang ‎Amadeus Mozart and Benjamin Britten, both of which will test the technical and ‎expressive skills of the guest oboist, Cristina Gómez Godoy.‎