Looking more closely...

Tourists often have only one chance to enjoy a sight before going on to the next. We’re enjoying the opportunity as residents to look and look again, seeing a little more each time. Here are a couple of nearby sights we have been re-viewing.

Soon after arriving we walked past a church a few blocks down the Passeig de Sant Joan built primarily of brick. It seemed nice enough but of no special interest.
But as we passed by again, we began to notice more details. Several types and shades of brick were laid in complex patterns. Tiling was used alongside the brick for contrast and color, and together they create a variety of visual patterns.
























A small sign in fronts says the church was built in 1878 and designed by Joan Martarell Martels, one of Gaudi’s teachers. That is a decade before 1888 Exhibition, often cited as the beginning of the modernisme movement. The overall design of the church is not in modernisme style, but the use of brick and tile anticipated their widespread use by modernisme architects. Both brick laying and tiling are Catalan crafts incorporated into many modernisme designs.

Two surviving constructions for the 1888 Exhibit – the Triumphal Arch and the Café-Restaurant – are built of brick, which apparently was unusual at the time. Or rather, it was unusual to leave the brick exposed. Both still stand in the Parc Citudella at the end of Passeig de Sant Joan. So the church becomes an interesting anticipation of some aspects of modernisme architecture.

Closer to home, a couple of blocks down Sant Joan, is the Casa Macaya, a home built in 1901 by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, a major modernisme architect.
The overall impression is relatively symmetric and severe for a moderinisme design, but, like better known houses Puig designed on Passeig de Gracia and Avenue Diagonal, the Casa Macaya incorporates neo-Gothic design elements.




An elaborate neo-gothic window on the first floor of the right tower balances the gothic entry doors on the left. While his design otherwise differs greatly from that of the the church a couple of blocks away, Puig also uses tile to add a touch of color to the elaborate window design.









A row of green tile “plants” tops both the stone balcony across the first floor and that under the window.

Less obviously, tiling decorates the underside of the balcony over the entry door.















Finally, a close look reveals a whimsical, modern touch to the neo-Gothic design: a sculpted cyclist in the capital supporting one end of the stone arch over the entry.

Musica Catalana

This was a week for sampling music offerings in and of Catalunya.

A week ago Friday, we went to a performance in a nearby church of the Cobla La Principal del Llobregat. Pat had spotted a flyer advertising a concert that was "free" (with a 2 euro donation); we didn't really know what to expect but the price was right! And the concert was very interesting and enjoyable. Certainly nothing we otherwise would be likely to encounter.

It turns out that a Cobla is the traditional music ensemble of Catalonia, which is used to a accompany the traditional Catalan circle dance, the sardana. The Cobla we heard, as apparently is typical, was comprised of 4 shawns, 5 horns, a string bass, and a flabiol (small flute) and tambori (a small drum, perhaps 5-6 inches in diameter) played by the same person. Some pieces also included percussion, mainly a sort of tympani. When we came home, we looked up the Wikipedia article on these ensembles - here is the link.

The cobla generated a very distinctive sound, primarily due to the 4 shawns, which took the lead in most of the music. These are double-reed woodwinds, related to the modern oboe. There were 2 smaller tibles and 2 tenora. The tenora were quite long, roughly a meter, I'd guess. Both tible and tenora produced a strong, plaintive sound. [The Wikipedia article above has links to an article on these instruments.] The sound of the cobla can be heard at the website of the group we heard, which includes includes music clips from some of their recordings.

Many of the pieces played were sardana dances. As apparently is traditional, each began with a short, solo introduction on the flabiol ended by a single strike on the tambori -- and then the dance proper began.

The persistence of this traditional music can be traced back to the nationalistic movement of Catalanism, or Renaixenca, in the last half of the 19th century. This movement promoted Catalan folk music, including new pieces written in traditional forms for traditional instruments, as appropriate and desirable for maintaining Catalan culture and character against the incursions of foreign cultures -- which very much included Castilian culture.

The primary initiator of the Catalan musical revival was Josep Anselm Clave, who, beginning about 1850, founded many choirs to sing traditional Catalan folk music, or canco popular. The songs they sang included many that he composed for their use. [A statue of Clave, holding his baton, sits at the top of Passeig Sant Joan, two blocks from our flat.] In 1891, a choral society, the Orfeo Catala, was set up with the objectives of carrying on Clave's work and creating a bridge between traditional Catalan music and classical music. [This, like much local history in this and the previous post -- and no doubt in future posts -- is cribbed from Robert Hughes' Barcelona.] The Orfeo became sufficiently successful that in 1904 they commissioned Domenich i Montaner -- one of the primary moderisme architects -- to build them a concert hall. The result was the Palau de la Musica Catalana.

Our other Catalan music experiences this week consisted of two concerts at the Palau Musica Catalana. On Tuesday we were fortunate enough to get tickets to hear Martha Argerich and Mischa Maisky play in the Palau's main hall. They played Beethoven variations on Mozart, the Grieg and Shostokovich cello sonatas, and an excert from Messien's Quartet for the End of Time. The performances were as wonderful as you would expect. But the aesthetic experience of the music was rivaled by that provided by the building itself.

The hall is one of the most extraordinary spaces I have ever experienced. I have no pictures from inside the hall (I, unlike many others, made the mistake of believing warnings that no cameras were allowed). But here are a few outside, showing a sculpture celebrating Catalan culture and the tiled, columned, front of the Palau; these give some idea of what waits inside.





















The cafe in the building, where one can get a drink or tapas before a concert or at intermission, is full of Catalan-gothic vaulting and decorated with tiling, and again gives an idea of the style.

But these are only a hint of what waits inside the hall -- and I certainly can't do it justice in words. Much of the top of the hall is filled with a radiant sunburst of stained glass brightness and choristers. Stretching out from that in every direction, the rest of the ceiling is covered with brightly colored tiles that fill the hall with light. The proscenium is framed by two immense sculptures in white pumice stone. On the right a statue of Beethoven is topped with Wagnerian Valkyeries on huge winged horses galloping across toward the left -- where waits a statute of Clave surrounded with symbols of traditional Catalan culture. The sides of the hall are walls of stained glass fronted by columns decorated with brightly colored tile (much like those outside). Everywhere there is decoration and color and light. This easily could be a jumble of kitsch, but instead somehow manages to work together. But it certainly would never be mistaken for an excercise in minimalism! [The Palau's own website has a few pictures, including one that shows the proscenium sculptures; click "Palau" for more information and pictures, and the button for "English" at upper right to translate.]

Our third and last musical event of this week was a concert by the Emerson Quartet at the Petit Palau. This small underground hall was recently added to the Palau Musica. It is an exercise in modern minimalism, with generally excellent acoustics. [Except that, inexplicably, they failed to insulate it from outside street noises. This is a long-recognized acoustic problem of the glass-walled hall of the original Palau and, remarkably, the new hall repeats the problem. The steps up from the underground hall open onto a single-glazed glass wall on the street, with nothing to prevent sound from reaching to the hall.

The Emerson played a Schubert quartet (Death and the Maiden), the Shostakovich Quartet #13, and a very interesting contemporary quartet by Alfons Conde (who was born in Barcelona and attended the concert). The Shostakovich quartet (that is Xostakovitx in Catalan) was impassioned. The Schubert was distinguished by incredible drive and rhythmic precision, especially in the last movement.

A fine end to a great week of music in Catalunya!