Repertoire

Eduard Toldrà: Empúries, sardana lliure (1926) 7’
Joaquim Serra: Impressions camperoles, Op. 25 (1926) 17’
Vasily Kalinnikov: Symphony No. 1 in G minor (1894-95) 35’

ARTISTS

Barcelona Symphonic Band (BMB)
Salvador Brotons, conductor

Programme

Folk music is by no means cultivated through an ethnographic compilation of data; instead, it requires creativity and a healthy dose of imagination to bring the much-loved tunes, dances or melodies of a given region to life. Eduard Toldrà’s piece Empúries, described as a “free sardana”, is without doubt an excellent example of this practice.

Composed in the same year, 1926, the next piece on the programme, Impressions camperoles (Rural Impressions) by Joaquim Serra, explores sounds from a bygone century, evoking landscapes that have been all but forgotten but which may resonate with the listener or at least feel familiar to them. Lastly, the audience will be able to discover a work of considerable expressiveness and dimension: Symphony No. 1 by Vassili Kalinnikov, in which the sensitivity of Romanticism is revealed through the grandiloquent cantabile of his melodies.