L’Atlàntida de Falla

La cathédrale engloutie (literally, “the sunken cathedral”) is the poetic title of one of Claude Debussy’s piano preludes which can be heard in this recent and imaginative orchestration by José Luis Turina, who translates one of the Debussy’s most evocative visions into symphony form: the music will progress slowly, as if sketching the vision of a submerged building, amidst resonances and dreamlike harmonies.

With similar musical tools, La mer emerges itself as a richly textured orchestral fresco in which listeners can almost feel the water as the soundscape unfolds. Debussy constructs a sensory experience based on colour, light and continuous flow; an experience that will segue perfectly into Manuel de Falla’s great stage cantata Atlántida by in the second part of the concert.

Ernesto Halffter completed this monumental and visionary work – based on the poem by Jacint Verdaguer – that Falla left unfinished. The music projects its mythical and spiritual ideal thanks to the expressive richness of the score, which incorporates a choir and performances by leading soloists such as Nuria Rial, Maite Beaumont and José Antonio López, under the expert baton of Kent Nagano at the helm of the Spanish National Orchestra and Choir and the Barcelona Ars Nova vocal ensemble.

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