Song to Freedom with Julius Drake, Günther Groissböck, Miquel Esquinas, and Elisa Scudeller
Barcelona, March 31, 2025
Next Friday, March 28, LIFE Victoria offers a double recital at the Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau with a clear common thread: the concept of freedom. It will be an opportunity to hear a dream duo formed by the Austrian bass Günther Groissböck and the British pianist Julius Drake (8 PM), which will be preceded by a recital by pianist Miquel Esquinas and violinist Elisa Scudeller (7 PM).
Under the title Freiheit? Freiheit! (Freedom? Freedom!), Groissböck and Drake propose a musical journey through the many faces of freedom: longing, struggle, transcendence, or liberation. From the mythical rebellion of Prometheus and Ganymede with Prometheus by Schubert to the redemption and spiritual freedom represented in Des Knaben Wunderhorn by Mahler and his iconic ‘Urlicht’, the program moves through landscapes of oppression and emancipation, of struggle and acceptance. Songs by Loewe and Strauss complete this exploration in which music becomes a space for reflection from different perspectives, places, and traditions on what it means to be truly free.
This program, which has triumphed in the main concert halls of Germany and the United Kingdom, is a personal proposal by Groissböck, who began to meditate on freedom shortly after the pandemic, a period that reactivated questions about the meaning of this fundamental right, so questioned and blurred today.
As is customary at the Festival, this recital will feature two LIFE New Artists as opening acts: soprano Maria Isart and pianist Quimey Urquiaga, who propose a musical dialogue in harmony with the concept of the program. Through pieces by Mozart, Reynaldo Hahn, and Carlos Guastavino, their performance will add new perspectives to the idea of freedom, from love and desire to the connection with nature and the human essence.
Advocacy and Freedom with Esquinas and Scudeller
In parallel, Miquel Esquinas and Elisa Scudeller offer a program that claims freedom from a historical and social perspective, giving a voice to those who have been silenced and those who have fought for their rights.
The first part revolves around the work of three women from different eras and places, reclaiming their role in history and the richness of their legacy. With the Three Romances for Violin and Piano by Clara Wieck Schumann, the Two Pieces for Violin and Piano by Lili Boulanger, and the Romance by Alicia de Larrocha, the performers recover works that have remained in the background compared to the male canon.
In the second part, freedom is addressed from its absence, through two deeply symbolic works. The Sonata for Violin and Piano by Francis Poulenc, dedicated to Federico García Lorca, evokes the tragedy of the murdered poet. “Louange à l’éternité de Jésus”, from the Quatuor pour la fin du temps by Olivier Messiaen, written and premiered in a Nazi concentration camp in 1941, transcends horror to find in music a space of resistance and hope.
Esquinas and Scudeller appear for the second time at LIFE Victoria as part of the Alicia de Larrocha Piano Cycle, dedicated to the excellent Spanish pianist and dear friend of Victoria de los Ángeles.
