Ensemble Pygmalion & Pichon

Raphaël Pichon and his Ensemble Pygmalion return to the Palau de la Música Catalana with one of Mozart's great sacred works, the Great Mass in C minor, at the heart of a programme conceived with the personal stamp of the French conductor. Pichon is accustomed to surrounding the masterpieces of the repertoire with music that broadens his outlook and illuminates their connections. On this occasion, Mozart dialogues with motets and pieces by Schubert, Mendelssohn and Bruckner, on a journey that crosses different generations of sacred music and reveals continuities, resonances and new perspectives. The Great Mass in C minor crowns this itinerary. Monumental and, at the same time, profoundly human, it is one of Mozart's great vocal creations, a score in which the heritage of Bach and Händel coexists with a writing of extraordinary dramatic force. Pichon, recognised for the vitality, rigor and narrative capacity of his interpretations, proposes a reading led by Pygmalion and a vocal cast headed by Sabine Devieilhe, alongside Xenia Puskarz Thomas, Kieran Carrel, Laurence Kilsby and Huw Montague Rendall. The liturgical dimension runs through the whole programme, from the Christus factus est by Bruckner to the Da nobis pacem by Mendelssohn, an invocation to peace that connects especially with the guiding thread of the Palau season. A very own way for Pichon to approach Mozart, not as an isolated work, but as the point of confluence of a musical narrative built over the centuries.