Of Bridges and Souls: Montiel and Estelrich Bring Songs to Castell de Bellver

Of Bridges and Souls: Montiel and Estelrich Bring Songs to Castell de Bellver

An evening for voices, piano and the balmy air over Palma

If you take the elevator from Passeig Mallorca up toward Castell de Bellver in the evening, you can often still smell the day's heat in the pines. Then the city's voices settle quietly: tourists looking for directions, a couple arguing about the right street corner, the clatter of cutlery from a tapas bar somewhere — and above it all lies music you hardly expect until it suddenly appears. Such an evening is set for August 25, when mezzo-soprano Maria José Montiel and pianist Miquel Estelrich present the programme “De puentes y almas” as part of the Nits a Bellver series.

The duo brings a repertoire that swings between Spain, France and Latin America. On the programme are songs by Xavier Montsalvatge and Manuel de Falla — the latter honoured in a year that commemorates his 150th birthday — as well as works by Joaquín Turina, Ernesto Halffter, Ernesto Lecuona and other composers whose music is present in many living rooms and concert halls across these language areas. Names such as Ravel, Debussy and Ginastera also find their place; it is a programme that makes musical connections visible without being weighed down by historical baggage.

Montiel is internationally known and has been awarded the Spanish National Music Prize. She now teaches voice at the Berlin University of the Arts. Estelrich has left traces on Mallorca as a pianist and educator: he founded the Conservatori Superior de Música de les Illes Balears and for years has appeared on stage as pianist and accompanist. Their long collaboration can be heard in small accents, in pauses, in the way voice and piano listen to one another. Such details turn a concert into an experience that you not only hear but feel.

Why is that good for Mallorca? Because it shows the island is more than beaches and parties. Castell de Bellver, with its circular walls and views over the bay, is a place where music and landscape connect. A concert there brings people from different walks of life together: locals who arrive by bike after work, concertgoers planning an evening out, and visitors surprised to hear such a carefully assembled song programme. That strengthens Palma's cultural life at a time when the island is in demand from many sides.

The event is organised by the Associació d’Amics de la Música de les Illes Balears (Aulos), the Ajuntament de Palma and the Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics; Daikin and Vivenda support the concert. Such collaborations are not an end in themselves: they make possible programmes that give space to smaller, special moments — for example a song evening in an intimate formation that nevertheless reaches a large audience.

It is worth securing a ticket in advance. A concert with this line-up fills up easily, not least because the sound of a voice-and-piano duo in a historic structure unfolds its own magic. For the island it also provides an impulse for young musicians: when students from the Conservatori hear across the walls what is possible on such a stage, it is inspiring.

I imagine the evening air slowly cooling, the cicadas falling silent and the first tones drifting across the terrace. A song begins, the audience holds its breath, and for a moment all the bridges music builds between countries and people are palpable. Such nights linger in the memory — and give everyday life in Mallorca a different colour.

Practical information: the concert starts at 21:00. Anyone who wants to trade the summer heat for a musical evening will find at Bellver a place where voice and piano converse and the audience listens. It is an appointment that belongs to the quiet, special experiences of late summer — exactly what Palma needs in these weeks.

Outlook: If the collaboration between Montiel and Estelrich continues to be given room in the island's programmes, it means more refined chamber evenings, more exchange between teachers and learners, and more opportunities to experience Mallorca as a place of serious music.