Josep Pons: “We play concerts like those from the 19th century, we have to evolve.”

Josep Pons will spend this upcoming season with one foot at the Liceu and the other at the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, a transitional period in which he will complete his fifteen-year career in the Orquestra del Gran Teatre while laying the foundations for the new project he has planned for the German ensemble, of which he is also artistic director. He presented it a few days ago at one of the orchestra's venues, Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland, not without causing surprise. Its objective is to renew the still-nineteenth-century symphonic concert model. The inaugural concerts for his tenure will take place from October 9 to 11, in Saarbrücken, Kaiserslautern, and Metz.

Read also

He says that being the musical director of an opera house is like entering a convent.

Yes, I've been at the convent for 14 years and have had time to reflect on where we're going with the orchestral world. In any case, my time in Madrid leading the ONE was already a city project that involved El Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza. The concert world has progressively evolved from Mozart and Haydn to the symphony orchestra we know today: number of musicians, playing style, sound density, the dimensions of the halls, their capacity, the attire... Beethoven was already an octave larger than Mozart, until the industrial age, when that evolution petrified. The halls we know, like the Concertgebouw, are from that era. The orchestra is Wagner's, to put it mildly, and the number of instruments no longer evolves, like the attire: the tailcoats the musicians wear were the formal dress of that era. And the protocol is as follows: when I enter to conduct, I greet the foreman, and at the end, I award the best. What's more, subscription symphony concert series are similar to those of that time; people come to socialize and find an ideal program of overture, concert, and symphony. The same concert is performed every week; the order of the notes changes, but it's always the same. Everywhere in the world.

The museum has evolved further.

Yes, all places of artistic expression have done it, be it a museum, a theater, an opera house... it's incredible how opera has evolved. In the Renaissance, different areas of knowledge went together, whereas today the same object is observed separately and partially by a composer, a painter... Without a doubt, a broader view helps us understand the object. And on the other hand, the areas of thought that were separated now tend to merge: metaphysics, quantum physics, philosophy...

What does it take for an orchestra to generate renewal in this sense?

It's not about modifying the repertoire—Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi...—but rather rethinking it can help us rediscover it. In recent years, opera has sought not so much to explain a title in different ways, but rather to create the emotion of a first time, that shock that the title created at its world premiere. What I propose are thematic spheres, capsules that don't have to be limited to a single season. The Deutsche Radio Philharmonie is at the crossroads of Germany, Luxembourg, and France.

“I want music to be a driving force for other reflections for the first time.”

The heart of Europe.

Yes, and I'm proposing a large capsule entitled Visions of Europe because, despite the current debacle in the world, I believe Europe is the answer. The first year, the theme is the title of Stefan Zweig's book, *The World of Yesterday* , that is, the best side of humanity, beauty in art, thought, well-being, security, the capacity for self-criticism. At that time, at the beginning of the 20th century, they couldn't stop the arrival of the volcano that would erupt in the form of the Great War, and a Second World War. Therefore, isn't the world of yesterday perhaps the world of today? I want to try to make music, for the first time, a driving force for other reflections, that draws on other disciplines and knowledge. And here I am infinitely grateful to be a radio orchestra, because what we do has an immediate impact, whether musically or with a podcast, the creation of a video forum, etc. We must begin to think of names of philosophers, thinkers, artists, and writers under that motto of the world of yesterday, starting with Orlando Figes and his book The Europeans.

And the other two years of those Visions of Europe?

The second year's theme will be the pillars of Europe, its roots: Greek and Roman mythology, Jerusalem, Christianity, Judaism, Norse mythologies... Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, Montaigne. And the third vision will be an unresolved Europe: that of nationalisms. We have them here, in England, in Germany, in Italy...

Beethoven transcends the boundaries of Mozart's beauty, just as Goya transcends those of Velázquez. How should we play both?

And how do these capsules translate into music?

The first part is all Beethoven opera overtures mixed with others by Mozart, seeing how Beethoven pushes the boundaries of beauty just as Goya pushes those of Velázquez. How should we play both? Getting closer raises questions. And in the second part, speaking of myths, we'll cover R. Strauss's Elektra Suite, for example. And programs about European courts: Lully's Versailles and his Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme about Molière, later seen by Strauss in his eponymous Suite, which is in fact the first part of Ariadne auf Naxos . We'll take those kinds of journeys from Versailles... Regarding nationalisms, we also have everything that's peripheral to the center of these nationalisms. And there will be a discussion about it in the forum. Another central project is Universum Hildegard , dedicated to the medieval polymath Hildegard von Bingen, musician, poet, doctor, anthropologist, naturalist, feminist... and the first woman, as a nun, to describe the female orgasm. And we'll premiere Roland Kunz's oratorio Hildegard . What about Hildegard? You can listen to a work, but to suggest more: there's an aesthetic experience, not just an acoustic one, which is what I think we have to do to attract interest. There will be other capsules, like Laments of Passion , not just religious but secular, like the one by the late Sebastião Salgado for the planet.