The OBC's 'French connection' in Lyon

Smiles spread across the faces of the audience leaving the Maurice Ravel Auditorium in Lyon after a memorable standing ovation . This Friday, in that reinforced concrete shell designed by architect Henri Pottier, a concert with diverse attractions took place, marking the return of the OBC since a decade ago when it played a post-Bataclan Cant dels ocells in that brutalist hall. And if back then the OBC's French connection was its manager, François Bou, this time the connection couldn't be more Lyonnais: its principal conductor, Ludovic Morlot, is a son of this city, no matter how much of an LA Californian he feels.

His cousins ​​and uncles had attended the musical event—“my parents live out of town and unfortunately aren't well enough to come”—and there will be more family from Provence waiting for him at the next stop on the OBC's French tour: the Avignon Easter Festival, an event founded and directed by Morlot's dear friend, Renaud Capuçon. “He had already invited me when I was musical director at the Monnaie de Bruxelles, and when he learned I was taking the OBC, he said, 'When you feel ready, I'd be happy to welcome you.'”

Hèctor Parra explains the context in which Miró painted the "Constellations," which he set to music and now orchestrated: "It's a powerful cry against fascism."

Morlot, who first took to the podium of this auditorium as a young assistant conductor at the Lyon National Orchestra and director of the Youth Orchestra—after having seen the world as a violinist in Canada and the US and training as a conductor in London—now arrived with the Catalan ensemble to offer his audience a generous two-and-a-half-hour program. It begins with Ravel's Spanish nod to Arbolada del Grafico and ends with the Pyrenees-Atlantic composer's orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition , the work Mussorgsky had conceived half a century earlier, in 1874, for solo piano.

Morlot presented himself with the elements that represent him: on the one hand, Ravel, the figure to whom he has been dedicating his study, effort, and recording project with the OBC; then there's L'Auditori's commission from Hèctor Parra, the Catalan composer whom the maestro knew even before arriving in Barcelona as the principal composer of the OBC. And finally, Morlot showed off his American side by including Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F in the hands of soloist Lucas Debargue, with whom he feels a great affinity. And who, incidentally, brought in a 2.87-meter Paulello piano, built with unusual strings that make it sound less tinny than a Steinway and much less than a Yamaha...

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"The manufacturer is a practicing soloist who has become famous in the piano world for his ingenious invention of carbon fiber strings, which makes them very powerful and durable," explains the French soloist during the train ride from Barcelona to Lyon, which included a group of about 100 musicians from the OBC (Basque Opera and Ballet). This trip allowed the orchestra and Renfe to sign an agreement within the framework of the railway's Culture Train program, while L'Auditori is a way of emphasizing "sustainable mobility," as Isabel Balliu, the hall's manager, emphasizes.

The final French connection of this concert is the aforementioned world premiere by Hèctor Parra. Although the OBC had previously performed it in Barcelona and Madrid, the intention was for it to be released in Lyon. L'Auditori's commission came about two years ago, after all of his Constellations for piano four hands based on Miró's paintings were heard there. "Those two hours of music were extraordinary; the work had the magnitude of a Silent Music, with Parra's great command of the pianistic language," recalls Robert Brufau, the outgoing director of the Barcelona venue who will soon become director of Stockholm's Konserthuset.

“It made perfect sense to do it in a program with Pictures at an Exhibition ,” he continued in the corridors of the Lyon auditorium. “Parra is a Catalan heritage, but he's also a leading figure in France, and a creator with whom we have a close relationship. We had been recording his music, and it made perfect sense to take him on tour. And so we proposed that he orchestrate a couple of the pieces, a short orchestral work.”

The Barcelona-born composer chose numbers 18 and 19. “The two middle ones seemed the most appropriate to begin orchestrating,” he explains, sipping a beer and having been unable to eat a bite to eat since leaving his home in Paris this morning. “That was the zenith of his work, the most critical moment of his life, when he thought he would be killed or that he would never be able to paint again if fascism won in Europe. He, a republican, was in Paris and had to leave for Brittany while Hitler invaded France. And finally, he had to return to Catalonia, to a Spain already ruled by Franco. Miró created this work as a testament. Something in a small format, with the paper he could carry under his arm on the train. It's a powerful cry against fascism, rich in color and very condensed,” he notes.

These Miró gouaches are very dense paintings, with stains, with monsters drawn in black. But then, the color sublimates this monstrosity. Héctor Parra composer

Minutes later, Parra takes the stage to enlighten the Lyon audience about what they're about to hear. He presents himself as a citizen with one foot in France and the other in Catalonia... "These gouaches by Miró are very dense paintings, with stains, with monsters drawn in black. But then, the color sublimates this monstrosity. For him, poetry was the way to defeat the monster within each of us humans. And at that time, frankly, it was an immense monster that destroyed human lives."

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This is how he announced the two small, four-minute constellations, a reminiscence, a paraphrase of the Constellations for Piano , a rethinking and expanding them through the orchestra. “In them, I work the orchestra as an extension of color. The strings are like the background, with many mixtures of somewhat ambiguous colors. But then there are solo voices that try to emerge from these orchestral magmas, and very incisive instruments—xylophone, piccolo—that draw monsters with teeth.” And he expresses his gratitude in advance for how inspiring he finds Ludovic Morlot's lyrical yet tectonic gestures. “He really likes my music,” he concludes.