Organ Concert: Juan de la Rubia

It promises to be a colourful performance on our very own queen of instruments! Our guest is Juan de la Rubia from Spain, who is organist at the famous Sagrada Família cathedral in Barcelona. He begins his wide-ranging programme with the grandiose overture to Handel’s soul-stirring drama »Samson«, which premiered in 1743. Eustache du Caurroy created a magnificent example of the French Renaissance with his fantasia on the popular and enchanting song »Une jeune fillette«, published in 1610. Bach’s legendary Chaconne in D minor stands for deep emotion alongside explosive outbursts. Charles Tournemire never notated his choral improvisations, such as those on the Easter sequence »Victimae Paschali Laudes« – they only survive because he recorded them on LP in 1930. Jehan Alain, who died young in the Second World War, wrote impressive variations on a folk song written by the 16th-century master Clément Janequin. Philip Glass composed the hypnotic »Mad Rush«, one of his best-known works, in 1979 on the occasion of the first visit of the Dalai Lama to the USA. Louis Vierne, who was organist at Notre-Dame de Paris for many years, completed a collection of artistic fantasy pieces in 1927, including the fascinating, lively music based on the activities of water nymphs. Furthermore, Juan de la Rubia will repeatedly demonstrate his incredible talent for improvisation in this concert – after all, a review of him once said that he plays »with the thousand shades that an instrument like the organ has to offer«.

Tickets from 25.08.2025 10 a.m.