Barcelona is the kind of city that no matter how often you go there you still have something new to discover. This time I've visited the Palace of Catalan Music and I promised myself that one day I'll listen to a concert in its magnificent hall.
The palace was designed by the same architect who designed Casa Lleó Morera, the famous Lluis Domènech i Montaner and was built between 1905 and 1908. The owner of the building is the Catalan choir association "Orfeo Catala", founded in 1891.
The Concert Auditorium of the palace is one of the most eccentrically concert halls I have ever seen and gave me the feeling that I was inside of a real music box decorated with stained painted glass, sculptures, ceramics and mosaics. The big windows and the impressive curved glass dome fill the hall with a pleasant natural light. This is the only auditorium in Europe that is illuminated during daytime just with natural light.
In the pictures below you'll notice that the hall has plenty of beautiful ceramic roses reminding you of the legend of Saint George and the dragon. Every year on April 23 they celebrate Saint George's Day or the day of the book and the day of the rose. On this day women offer men a book as a gift and they give them back a rose. The legend says that St George slayed the dragon and from his blood grew a rose that he offered to the saved princess. The scene of the knight killing the dragon is very common and you can notice the representation of it on many buildings in Barcelona, carved in stone, painted on glass or paintings or suggested by symbols.
At the back of the stage there is a choir of 18 young women whose lower parts are made of glazed colored tile and their upper parts are coming out the wall. The figures that give you the impression of a perpetual movement were carved by Eusebi Arnau. The women are dressed differently and are playing with different historical musical instruments symbolizing that the stage is not open only for one kind of music but for all the people with different tastes in music, from classical music and opera to jazz, folk or gospel.
The Antoni Rigalt i Blanch's skylight dome of stained glass painted in shades of yellow and blue represent the sun and the sky.
At the end I want to give you a sample of the acoustics of the concert hall. Enjoy the organ playing Bach. The organ was the only foreign piece that was bought from Germany when the palace was built and decorated.
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