All that Barcelona owes to Montserrat Torrent

After several centuries, I return to the Conservatorio Municipal de Música de Barcelona (decades ago it was adjectivized "Superior" and —in the late 19th century, when people used namings somewhat more beautiful and without so much "polla en vinagre"— it was simply our "Escuela Municipal")— to attend the institution's tribute to the titanic organist Montserrat Torrent, who celebrates her centenary in the best possible way: still kicking, with her fingers on the keys, and with impressive mental clarity. When you gloss over an essential figure in our music, talking about yourself is something typical of gilipuás, but I can't help it because —before entering the Sala Vermella, where the event will take place— I walk through the corners of this magnificent pointed building by architect Antoni de Falguera (whom we called "el cónser" or "El Bruc") and I gorge myself on so many madeleines until I almost choke. Time is a splendid invention, but it has no mercy…

The underground library hasn't changed at all and the scores still slumber boxed in some horrible cardboard folders. The bar, where we had wasted so many afternoons acting like crazy idiots, is now a cemetery guarded by absurd vending machines. I snoop around the Auditori Eduard Toldrà, where some colleagues are whipping out the Presto agitato of Brahms' third violinera sonata, and I go up the stairs where I met a stuttering tenor who would become one of my brothers. Then I walk around the Espai Antoni Nicolau, with the light well nuanced by the trencadissa skylight, and I stop before the classroom where a professor almost beat me up because I called him lazy in a letter in La Vanguardia. Also in the corner where you played the D894 and I thought you were the most beautiful woman who had ever played Schubert, swearing to myself that I would love you forever.

But well, all this is just memories that are not worth much and now I must talk about the present. In the tribute hall I immediately see Mrs. Torrent, surrounded by the organ professor Jonatan Carbó, and some students to whom she has offered a master class that they will keep in their memory for many years. Also present is my dear musicologist friend Oriol Pérez Treviño, who reads a gloss of this universal interpreter of ours. Oriol speaks with the authority that unites head and heart; what is important today, he says, is not to show that Torrent is one of the most important musicians in our sonic history, one of the great organists of Europe, but to grasp the transcendence of a figure who goes beyond the limits of interpretation. Torrent is, he continues, a daughter of the uncivil war who discovers the organ by chance, becomes fascinated, and immerses herself in its tradition to end up turning it into a celebration of nuance and color. 

Whoever wants to know more about this gigantic music and its capital importance would do well to read La dama de l'orgue (Ficta Edicions), the remarkable book-biography by Albert Torrents, also commissioner of this anniversary. Among all the things cited there, there are especially relevant issues for the tribe of Barcelona residents, as our protagonist was the driving force behind the creation of the organ of the Church of Sant Felip Neri (which will now bear her name), an instrument conceived by artists Gabriel Blancafort and George Lhôte in 1967 and which can now be heard for the first time, finally and to our shame, during a concert in which the centenarian will also perform a piece, surrounded by her most illustrious students. I hope everyone from the city and beyond attends, because today at the Conservatory I don't see anyone from the Department of Culture or Education and here we are only about thirty attendees. Oh, what a country we have… 

The Montserrat Torrent organ of Sant Felip Neri will be one of the prides of Ciutat Vella, but it must be remembered that in the neighborhood we have those of the Cathedral, Sants Just i Pastor, Santa Maria del Mar and Sant Sever, a group of instruments that —apart from accompanying masses— should have a high-value patrimonial-musical sense for our city. Mrs. Torrent has played them all, as explained in the very brief and somewhat arid exhibition Cent anys, tota una vida that can be seen in the Diocesan Museum. You know I complain on principle... and I must say that Torrent would deserve a proper exhibition that goes beyond four ungainly panels. Let's hope that the future exhibition that the Museu de la Música will offer us surpasses it in depth and content, which is why we have such an infrastructure. Despite this small blemish, it must be put on record that Albert Torrents has designed a quite interesting centenary program, full of good concerts. 

Returning to the presence of organs in the city, and as Oriol recalled earlier, one of Torrent's milestones was the revaluation of our illustrious instruments and a repertoire, Catalan and Spanish (I'm thinking of Joan Baptista Cabanilles and Francisco Correa de Arauxo), which her hands have placed in the importance they deserve within the European tradition. The presence of these instruments is not just a museum milestone; strange as it may seem... they are made for someone to play them!!! Barcelona, my friend reminds me, was the home of ancestral groups like Ars Musicae, a hotbed of the historicist current from which artists like Torrent, Alicia de Larrocha, Victoria de los Ángeles or Jordi Savall emerged. This heritage, I insist ad nauseam, should be a jewel to tell the musical life of our city. If we want to move away from the paradigm of "city of paellas and sangria," someone should promote it as it should...

The party over, our protagonist intervenes. Torrent, as I said at the beginning, is a hundred-year-old lady with enviable energy and mental clarity. She tells us about her memories, about how (she says with that Catalan modesty that makes me so nervous) she has been weaving a musical career without thinking much about it, and she makes us laugh when she complains about the musical affectation of some performers who make too many gestures of pleasure, recalling, quoting a certain Brahms, that music should be interpreted with modesty. What a great lady! Let's celebrate her in life. The centenary, I say again, is overflowing with interesting events, concerts, and exhibitions. Let yourselves be seen at one, because Barcelona owes a myriad of things to Mrs. Montserrat Torrent, an excellent organist, a universal Barcelonian, a musician for ever and ever.