Repertoire
Morten Lauridsen: O Magnum Mysterium (1994) 6’
Randol Alan Bass: The Night before Christmas (1988) 7’
David Maslanka: Alex and the Phantom Band (2001) 17’
Toshio Mashima: Dream in the Silent Night (1992) 9′
Salvador Brotons: Nadales catalanes (Catalan Christmas Carols), Op. 76 (1998) 12′
Artists
Banda Municipal de Barcelona
Berta Vidal, narrator
Carlos Ramón, conductor
Program
Christmas demands room for familiar things: the tastes and smells of traditional dishes, early nights drawing in, the excitement of opening presents or listening to seasonal tunes. Brotons’ Nadales catalanes has become a yuletide classic, partly because it includes a number of widely recognised popular songs, such as El petit vailet, L’àngel i els pastors and El cant dels ocells, among others, and partly because the score ends with the overwhelming energy of the first few notes of La santa espina.
DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM HEREWith a different character but the same message, the first movement of the Valencian composer Ferrer Ferran’s Symphony No. 2 describes, through verses from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the birth of the baby Jesus and the events of the sacred story until his baptism in the river Jordan. A powerfully expressive work that will leave no one unmoved. The concert ends with other Christmas-inspired works, some of them festive and others of extreme delicacy, such as Lauridsen’s responsorial chant O Magnum Misterium.
