The Gran Teatre del Liceu joins the Millennium of Montserrat with an exceptional concert of Mahler’s monumental Second Symphony, conducted by Josep Pons, to be held on Saturday, September 6, at the Basilica of Santa Maria. The Liceu Orchestra and Chorus, with the participation of the Orfeó Català, will perform The Resurrection, a majestic work that symbolizes the journey from death to life and reaffirms the Abbey’s cultural and musical dimension in its thousand years of history.
Before the season’s opening, the Liceu will return to Montserrat with an exceptional proposal: on Saturday, September 6, at 9 p.m., the Liceu Orchestra and Chorus, together with the Orfeó Català and under the direction of Josep Pons, will perform Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Auferstehung (Resurrection) at the Millennium Music Festival, in the Basilica of Santa Maria of Montserrat. This new musical event will take the audience on an intense and moving journey of the soul, from death to resurrection, with one of the most monumental scores in the history of music, where Mahler combines soloists, chorus, and orchestra with exceptional dramatic force.
To bring this to life, Josep Pons will lead the Chorus and Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, joined by the Orfeó Català, Kai Glausteen (concertmaster), and the voices of Katharina Konradi (soprano) and Ekaterina Gubanova (mezzo-soprano), a musical cast worthy of the demands of a work that can be defined as monumental, blending intimacy and choral grandeur at their finest.
With his Second Symphony (1894), Mahler signed an expansive work, full of contrasts and with an unprecedented dramatic scale. The combination of soloists, chorus, and orchestra becomes a journey of the soul from death to resurrection, a musical experience of extraordinary power. It is a symphonic work steeped in spirituality, evoking resurrection, renewal, rebirth, resilience, hope, and the future.
Mahler combines soloists, chorus, and orchestra in a score of unprecedented dramatic scale. After Beethoven’s death, many composers felt intimidated by the master’s shadow and avoided the symphonic genre, but Mahler dared to take it further with a gigantic Second Symphony: eighty minutes divided into five movements, an orchestration of unusual dimensions, and a palette of colors that weaves a deeply moving narrative.
Josep Pons, a former Montserrat chorister and a devoted advocate of Mahler, has been one of the few conductors invited by Universal Edition, the publishing house of Gustav Mahler’s music, to review the new editions, identifying more than five hundred errors—alongside Abbado, Mehta, Barenboim, Boulez, Dudamel, Gergiev, Jansons, and Rattle.
The Liceu and Montserrat share a very special bond. Emerging from the pandemic, on September 20, 2020, a concert entitled From Pain to Hope was held, symbolizing the power of music as a path to collective resilience.
As a musical metaphor, Josep Pons, at the helm of the permanent musical ensembles of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, has chosen to include Mahler’s Resurrection in the Millennium celebrations of the Monastery of Montserrat. A thousand years of history have turned the Benedictine monastery into much more than an abbey on the mountain: a cultural and spiritual symbol embracing devotion to Our Lady of Montserrat, patron saint of Catalonia, and one that has made crucial contributions to culture, language, and, above all, music.
The concert will culminate with the fifth movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony, with chorus and orchestra performing Klopstock’s hymn, an apotheosis that celebrates resurrection and confronts mortality in a profound and moving way.
The concert will also be broadcast outside the basilica in the Plaça de Santa Maria, which will be fitted with chairs, a screen, and sound so that attendees can share in the experience.
Concert Information:
When: September 6, 2025
Time: 9:00 p.m.
Where: Basilica of Montserrat
Tickets: Access to the concert inside the basilica is by invitation only. Outside, in Plaça Santa Maria, the general public can book free tickets at this link to enjoy the concert with seating, screen, and sound system.
| 
|