Barcelona, Spain Day Five-"Palau Musica Catalana"~

The last morning in Barcelona we spent touring

The "Palau Musica Catalana"

It was an AMAZING concert hall.

Opening day for the hall was 1908.

The idea of building it began with those

in the community beginning a cultural 

movement to appreciate Catalana music.

 Unfortunately there is no picture taking inside the hall.

But it was so worth the tour we took to see first hand
it's beauty and to learn of it's history.

The highlights were the gorgeous glass ceiling in 

the performance hall.  This is the only facility in
Europe that has natural lighting of it's facility during day
time performances. The hall seats 2,200 people. When the
 guide asked our tour group to guess the number of seats-
Jim's number of 2,000 was the closest. :-)

I would strongly suggest googling this Music Hall

to see photos of this beautiful structure.

 On the performance stage are several three
dimentional ancient Muse's coming out of the wall
 holding various instruments, the lower parts of their
bodies are done in beautifully tiled mosiac patterns. 

The muses with their various instruments portrays
that all types of music are performed in the hall:
Contemporary, rock, folk, classic, etc.
The only music not heard is Opera,
maybe because of the glass ceiling.....

 The view of the double rows of pillars looking out
of a second story room, we see it from the outside,

is to give the perception of depth, or of being in
a forest.  The other window, in the same room,
only had one row of pillars and therefore it did not
give the same impression of depth as the view above.

Note that all the columns have a type of mosaic rose
in their designs.  There were rose designs throught
out the interior of the hall.  The reason is related to the
traditional holiday talked about in the last picture
below where Jim has given me a beautiful red rose.

 The hall is "owned by all who contribute to it's upkeep."

So even if you contribute heavily to maintain and
support this music hall and it's activities you still have
to purchase your own tickets for any performances.

 Some famous artists, orchestra's and groups have 

visited and performed in this Music Hall such as

Julian Lloyd Webber, Israel Pholharmonic, Chicago

Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Woody Allen,

Norah Jones and many, many others.
There are over 300 performances staged each year.

The traditional holiday for April 23rd each year in Barcelona is
"St. George's Day."  It is the day a woman receives a rose from
her husband, boyfriend or son.  It represents the day St. George
slayed the dragon to save the King's daughter.  When the dragon
was pierced the blood, from it's wound, sprouted a red rose.  In
1923 the holiday expanded to women giving books to a man of her
choosing.  We saw roses and books being sold all over the city.
After our tour of the music hall Jim surprised me with a rose.
He was okay with me not buying him a book...
 since they would all be in Spanish anyway :-)