Josep Pons bids farewell to Liceu with Mahler's Eighth after 14-year tenure that rebuilt the orchestra

A farewell with Mahler's monumental Eighth

The Gran Teatre del Liceu was full on Friday evening for Josep Pons's last concert as music director. He chose Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, the so-called 'Symphony of a Thousand', a work that Pons described as containing 'a whole world' and the most fitting score to close a stage that had 'encompassed so much'. The performance drew on the Liceu's own Simfònica, the Coro Nacional de España, and eight vocal soloists: Elisabeth Teige, Jacquelyn Wagner, Elena Villalón, Beth Taylor, Mijoko Fujimura, Michael Spyres, Nicholas Brownlee and Albert Dohmen.

Every Mahler symphony contains a whole world. I cannot think of a more suitable score than the Eighth to close this stage in which we have covered so much.

The audience responded with an ovation that lasted 11 minutes, according to the theatre, with the entire hall on its feet. The concert was part of the symphonic season and Pons's own 'Universo Mahler' cycle, not the opera programme, underlining the broader musical remit he had fought to establish.

Fourteen years of rebuilding

When Pons took up the post in September 2012, the Liceu was in a delicate state. Budget cuts had forced the dismissal of 15 musicians, and morale was low. Pons made a promise that became a defining feature of his tenure. 'I committed to there not being one more dismissal, that I would defend every music stand like a lion,' he recalled. Over the following years the orchestra grew to 94 fixed positions, more than 30 vacancies were filled, and a new musical department was created, encompassing the orchestra, chorus, assistant conductors and the music archive.

I committed to there not being one more dismissal, that I would defend every music stand like a lion.

He also pushed for a revised labour agreement and insisted on chamber and symphonic cycles alongside opera, arguing that a first-rank musical institution could not rely on the lyric season alone. Salvador Alemany, the Liceu's president, acknowledged that transformation before the concert, presenting Pons with the gold pin of the house and screening a video tribute.

The 'constructor' of orchestras

Pons, now 69, arrived at the Liceu with a reputation as a builder of ensembles. In 1985 he founded the Orquestra de Cambra Teatre Lliure, which championed contemporary Catalan composers and reshaped the orchestral interpretation of Manuel de Falla. In the early 1990s he took over the young Orquesta Ciudad de Granada and raised it to a top European level. A nine-year stint at the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España followed, where he modernised an institution he later called 'very antiquated, with inertias from another era', while always stressing its republican origin and its first concert in 1938, given at the Liceu itself.

Unlike many of his generation who left Spain for international posts, Pons chose to stay. 'I received many offers, but I always thought: if we all leave, who will take care of building what is ours?' he said. His answer was to fill the country's new auditoriums with talent, drawing on the network of youth orchestras and conservatoires.

Recognition and what comes next

Among those attending the farewell were Spain's minister of culture, Ernest Urtasun, the writer Eduardo Mendoza, composers such as Benet Casablancas, and directors of the Palau de la Música, the Auditori and the Teatro Real. Pons will not sever ties with the Liceu entirely; from next season he will serve as Honorary Music Director. Looking ahead, he has signalled a desire to rethink the traditional concert format from scratch, though no specific project has been announced. For now, the 11-minute ovation and the orchestra he leaves in what he calls 'healthy' condition are the immediate legacy of a 14-year chapter.