The renewed commitment of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation each year to the promotion of organ music through concerts and recitals gives rise to a musical agenda based on a variety of activities revolving around the organ built by the German organ expert Gerhard Grenzing in 1991, on commission from the Foundation, for the chapel of the Hospital de los Venerables, considered a benchmark of excellence in the Spanish organ movement.

The decision to build a Baroque-style organ in the chapel was prompted not only by the need for it to blend in with the highly ornamented setting, but also by the need in Seville for an instrument on which the rich Central European repertoire of 16th-18th century music could be performed to perfection. The location of the organ in the tribune of the chapel required the choir beams to be reinforced to withstand its weight of thirteen tonnes and a matching organ case to be built in the same style and with the same precious materials and decoration as the rest of the chapel. The organ case was designed by architect Simon Platt and made by the Sevillian craftsman Antonio Díaz y Fernández, who succeeded in matching it perfectly to the style of the chapel.

The inaugural organ concert was held on 5 November 1991, coinciding with the completion of the work to restore the building, and was presided over by HM Queen Sofia. The concert was performed by the official organist of the Foundation and the Metropolitan Cathedral of Seville, José Enrique Ayarra Jarne.

Since that time, the Foundation’s programme of musical events has provided the opportunity to enjoy the talent of around fifty of the top organists and has promoted many young upcoming organists, who often find it difficult to make their way in the concert world.

The instrument, considered by all the most prestigious performers as a “miracle of the 20th century” and “one of the best organs built in Europe in the 20th century”, lives up to the highest expectations. All the concerts are recorded by RNE (Spanish National Radio) and broadcast on its classical music station, contributing, in this way, to disseminating the rich heritage of organ music.

The Foundation’s musical agenda features masters concerts and recitals by new talents, and much thought and enthusiasm goes into organising educational recitals aimed at the older students from those secondary schools in Seville wishing to take part in the scheme. These recitals are performed once a month throughout the academic year, giving around one thousand five hundred young people the chance to gain an insight into the organ and organ music, broadening the students’ cultural and artistic education. They also give organists studying at the Seville Conservatory of Music the opportunity to make their concert debut, as they undertake the practical part of these recitals. The theory sessions are given by the music teachers from the schools involved in the scheme.

The 2003 music programme kicked off in January with a masters concert by François H. Houbart, the organist of La Madeleine Church in Paris, who offered a programme based on French and German Baroque music, which was very well suited to the Foundation’s organ and very much appreciated by the audience.

A recital was given in February on Chorale, hymn and verse: musical forms in the liturgy, the common theme of all the recitals performed in the first half of the year. The duo formed by Sara Bishop, the cor anglais soloist with the Royal Symphonic Orchestra of Seville, and Susana García Lastra, a graduate of the Higher Music Conservatory of Seville, who feature regularly in our music programme, performed, on this occasion, a varied and interesting repertoire ranging from the Baroque period to the present day, making a tour of some of the most famous European schools of music, including the German, English, French and Spanish schools.

A particularly noteworthy event was the extraordinary recital given in February for children studying at Seville’s music conservatories in order to introduce them to the organ before they decide which musical instrument they wish to study. The theory was given by Carlos Navascués, and José Enrique Ayarra provided the musical excerpts

In the year under review, the Organ Master Course, held from 20 to 22 February, was conducted by Félix Friedrich, the acclaimed German player of the famous “Trost” organ at Altenburg Castle in Germany. The course, organised for current and former organ students from Andalusian conservatories and for organists from other Spanish regions, focused on the music of Bach and his sons and disciples. It was attended by thirty-two organists from all over Spain (Seville, Malaga, El Escorial, Bilbao, Madrid, etc.), who followed the course with great interest and learnt a great deal. The Higher Music Conservatory of Seville collaborated by presenting official certificates to all those who attended. The master lessons ended with a public concert given by Prof. Friedrich, who performed with great flair and masterful skill pieces by Bach and some of his sons and best students, the great masters of the German Baroque.

The concert traditionally held by the Foundation with the St Elizabeth of Hungary Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Real Academia de Bellas Artes de Santa Isabel de Hungría) took place on 25 February, with a performance by Father Ayarra, who is a permanent member of the academy.

The masters concert held in March was given by Karel Paukert, the organist of Czech origin, now a US citizen, who came all the way from Cleveland (USA) to give a magnificent concert, in which he performed works from the universal repertoire (Bach, Franck, Alain) and delighted the audience with pieces from his birthplace, Moravia, and a taste of music from his adopted homeland.

The organ sounded once again in honour of Javier Benjumea Puigcerver in the academic ceremony held in the Los Venerables chapel on 4 March to celebrate the memory of the Foundation’s first president. The organ closed the event on a solemn, but pleasant, note.

The concert given by the organ and the Chamber Orchestra of the Royal Symphonic Orchestra of Seville, which traditionally brings the season’s musical agenda to a close each year, was held on Sunday, 25 May. The concert always features the performance of one of the concerts for organ and orchestra composed by the immortal G.F. Handel. On this occasion, it was the turn of concerto no. 10, belonging to the second series and undoubtedly one of the most polished and balanced concertos. The programme was brought to a close with a symphony by Benjamin Britten and a piece by Josef Suk, which was highly acclaimed by the audience. The orchestra was conducted by Biao Xue, the concertmaster of the Royal Symphonic Orchestra of Seville, and the organ was played, as is customary at these concerts, by the Foundation’s official organist, José Enrique Ayarra.

In the previous year’s music programme, it was announced that preparations were in progress to make a recording featuring the Los Venerables organ, with a view to introducing a wider public to the tonal excellence of this superb instrument and the piece composed specially for it on commission from the Foundation in 1993 by the Sevillian composer Manuel Castillo Aguilera, probably the best and most prolific Spanish organ music composer of the latter half of the 20th century. The recording of the CD, completed in May by the Spanish national television company RTVE, also features pieces by Correa de Arauxo, Buxtehude and Bach, which showcase the organ’s rich Baroque tones, and a concerto for organ and orchestra by G. F. Handel, with the collaboration of the Chamber Orchestra of the Royal Symphonic Orchestra of Seville. The release of the CD is eagerly awaited and will undoubtedly add a new dimension to the acclaim and recognition of the Los Venerables Grenzing organ and the work by Manuel Castillo, which form part of the Foundation’s heritage.

Following the tradition of previous years, the feast of St Ferdinand, the chapel’s patron was celebrated on 30 May with a holy mass, solemnised by music on the organ, accompanied this year by Enrique Rioja, trumpet soloist with the RTVE Symphonic Orchestra. The performance was extended into a brief concert at the end of the religious ceremony, with pieces by H. Purcell, G.F. Handel and J.S. Bach and two pieces on the organ dedicated to Father Ayarra by the composers J.M. Benavente and J.A. Pedrosa.

In the second half of the year, the musical agenda was largely centred on a series of three recitals by upcoming organists under the title European organ music in the times of Don Quixote given as part of the activities organised by the Foundation in the run-up to the commemoration of the fourth centenary of the classic by Miguel de Cervantes. The series, which was a resounding success, provided an opportunity to hear a wide range of pieces from different European schools of organ music, including the German, Flemish, Italian, French and Iberian schools, performed by young Spanish organists.

Susana García Lastra, a graduate of the Higher Music Conservatory of Seville and winner of its Extraordinary Organ Music Award, started off the series, performing works by Frescobaldi, Sweelink, Froberger, Kerckhoven, Rodrígues-Coelho and Correa de Arauxo. Silvia Márquez, an organ music teacher at the Music Conservatory of Murcia, gave the second concert, playing pieces by Bull, Rossi, Weckmann, Tunder and Bruna.

The series was brought to a close with an original organ and sackbut concert performed by Miguel Ángel García (organ) and Daniel Alberola (slide trombone professor), who are teachers at the Music Conservatory of Seville. Featuring works by Titelanze, Bassano, Scheiidt and Fontana, among others, the concert provided a grand finale to a series that stood out for the great interest it generated, the large audiences it drew and the musical excellence of the performances. It also provided an insight into the different European schools, comparing and highlighting the differences in musical forms, composition techniques, harmonic language, sound coloration, musical taste and instrument characteristics. It should not be forgotten that this was a period in which instruments took on distinctive forms in the different schools. In Spain, for example, this period saw the introduction of divided stops, which would remain a feature of the Iberian organ over the following centuries and extend throughout the New World from the Port of Seville, a fact that is extensively documented in the records preserved in the Archives of the Indies.

One of the most tenderly cultivated activities carried out by the Foundation is the educational recital scheme for upper secondary-school students, because it is an interesting and rewarding initiative that contributes to broadening the cultural and artistic horizons of young people.

The organ music was provided by Ángel Justo Estebaranz, Jesús Justo Estebaranz, Emilio Francisco Bautista Florido and Pedro Manuel Luengo, all students at the Higher Music Conservatory of Seville, while Carlos Navascués Nocito and Susana García Lastra, both secondaryschool music teachers, provided the theoretical part of these recitals, which were held in January, February, March, April, November and December of 2003.