Cosmos Quartet performs this Wednesday at the Palau de Barcelona the world premiere of “El árbol de la vida”, by Bernat Vivancos.
This Wednesday, 5 July, the Palau de la Música Catalana will host the world premiere of El árbol de la vida [The Tree of Life] a composition by Spanish composer Bernat Vivancos (Barcelona, 1973) inspired by the bas-relief of the same title by the sculptor Naxo Farreras (Barcelona, 1951) which has adorned the façade of the extension to the building of the Barcelona cultural institution since 2004.
Farreras was the guest artist of this past season at the Palau de la Música, as he is a sculptor who creates sculptures, in many cases sound sculptures: some look like organ pipes, others are pieces that sound on impact and there is even one in the shape of an iron pentagram where the notes scattered by the pipes end up… The Palau had commissioned Bernat Vivancos to create a work, and with this particularity of Farreras’ sculptures in mind, he created a score for string quartet and percussion inspired by Farreras’ artistic creation, which can be heard this Wednesday at 8 p.m. in the Concert Hall, performed by the Cosmos Quartet, resident ensemble at the Palau de la Música Catalana this season. Closing the circle, Vivancos’ own music had been the previous starting point for the works that Farreras exhibited last October at the Palau’s Lluís Millet Hall.
During the performance of Vivancos’ piece, the Cosmos Quartet will be accompanied on stage by a selection of sculptures by Naxo Farreras created expressly for the occasion, which will interact with the music in a symbolic way. “A sculptor who sculpts music, and a musician who composes a musical work inspired by a sculptural work: Art in Art,” explained Vivancos and Farreras. The musical piece aims to represent the miracle of the life cycle of nature: from the emergence of life, in the depths of the earth, to the hatching of the fruit, which once ripe will once again become a source of life.
The concert on Wednesday will be completed with the Quartet in G minor, op. 10 by Claude Debussy, “a work that with its innovative harmonies and textures, exotic scales and unconventional chords expanded the sonic possibilities of this instrumental form and thus opened the doors to the future impressionist landscapes that the composer would draw”, as can be read in the press release issued by the Palau de la Música Catalana.