The Christmas Concert Of 1933

Andratx, Cala Millor, Inca, Manacor, Porreres. Just a few of the places in Majorca where there have been Christmas concerts this week. These concerts have become as much a part of the festive season tradition as the Christmas markets and the lights. But as with other traditions, it isn't easy to detect when the Christmas concerts' tradition started, or indeed if there was any particular starting-point. Over the past forty or so years, the growth of municipal schools and bands of music and of choirs has meant that mostly everywhere in Majorca has one or all of these. And if you have them, you may as well put them to good use, such as by staging Christmas concerts, occasions when the citizens can generally be assured of accessing a concert for free.

In terms of Christmas musical tradition, in its broadest sense, there is an obvious starting-point - the mediaeval Cant de la Sibil·la, the Song of the Sybil, declared Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. But the Sibil·la, one of Majorca's most cherished possessions, even if it is an intangible one, hardly qualifies as a concert. But oddly enough, the chant may well have been responsible for establishing the Christmas concert tradition.

The festive season in Majorca, as most of us appreciate, isn't what you would describe as short. The actual season may only be a couple of weeks, but there is also the build-up, and in musical terms there would appear to have once been an initiative to start this build-up in November. And this was all because of Saint Cecilia, the patroness of musicians, whose feast day is the 22nd of November.

The concerts for Saint Cecilia aren't as numerous as those for Christmas, but they do in a sense herald the Christmas concert season. And this was how it was at the turn of the twentieth century. There was a "festa de Santa Cecilia" - a music festival. In 1901, for example, the festival had gone on that long that there was a concert and event six days before Christmas; the Catalan composer Felipe Pedrell was involved with this, although it's not entirely clear where this was. It was probably at the one-time Saló Beethoven, which was in the same building as that which housed the original La Última Hora newspaper.

With the death in 1904 of one of its driving forces, composer Antoni Noguera, the Cecilia/Christmas festival came to an end. And it was seemingly to be a number of years before there was something of an official establishment (or re-establishment) of the festive-time concerts. In 1931 and with the start of the Second Republic, the Capella Clàssica de Mallorca was founded. This was a choral group that was directed by the composer Joan Maria Thomàs i Sabater. It was a choir which, in Thomas's words, was the "artistic inheritance" of a previous choir, the Capella de Manacor, which had been associated with the one-time Cecilia festival.

The Capella Clàssica performed its first concert at the Second Chopin Festival in Valldemossa in May 1932. At the time, it was arguably the most important concert ever staged in Majorca in terms of international exposure. This was because of the pianist who took part - Arthur Rubinstein, the Polish American who was awarded a KBE and was considered to have been the greatest interpreter of Chopin of his era. But as for Christmas concerts, and where one might argue that they all genuinely started, there was one on Christmas Day 1933 in the Royal Chapel at the Almudaina Palace in Palma. And if Rubenstein had caused a sensation, it was matched by the concert for the Capella Clàssica under the title of Festes Nadalenques de la Sibil·la.

Chopin's stay in Majorca almost one hundred previously had created a legacy in terms both of music and tourism. Everyone knows about that stay, but what is less known is the stay in Majorca over the 1933-1934 winter of composer Manuel de Falla, who at the time was Spain's most important musician. Falla was director of honour for that Christmas Day concert at the Almudaina. He responded to this title having been given to him by composing a special piece for the Capella Clàssica, Balada de Mallorca, which had been inspired by Chopin's Ballade No. 2 in F Major.

What took place on Christmas Day 1933 was a drawing-together of elements - the choral tradition in Majorca, the memory of Chopin, the association with the Sibil·la, the participation of Spain's premier composer, and the concerts for Saint Cecilia. The venue was also important. Way back in 1734, the musicians of the Saint Cecilia Brotherhood had been granted a significant privilege, and that was to perform in the Almudaina Royal Chapel. The 1933 concert was in itself a revival of that one-time tradition. Everything collided harmoniously, therefore. The Christmas concert was well and truly established.

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