Jonatan Carbó studied organ with Maria Nacy at the Barcelona Municipal Conservatoire and was awarded the Premi d'honor at intermediate level. He continued his studies on a number of international organ courses with Michael Radulescu, Daniel Roth and Andreas Schröder.

He has taken part as a soloist in the series of concerts held in Barcelona Cathedral and at the Santa Maria de Mar Festival in Minorca. He has also given solo concerts on the Blancafort organ in the Church of the Capuchins at Sarrià (Barcelona), and on organs such as those at Sitges, Vilafranca del Penedès and Santa Maria del Mar (Barcelona province).

He has broadcast on radio for Catalunya Música. At present he performs with several vocal and instrumental ensembles such as the Vilafranca Chamber Orchestra, the Garraf Chamber Orchestra

Christian mysteries incarnated in sound Oriol Pérez i Treviño, musicòleg i professor de l'escola Eina

In spite of the early Christian Church's initial resistance to the organ due mainly to the instrument's pagan origins which we find recorded in texts by Saint Augustine and Saint Ambrose over the centuries organ music gradually became a part of religious services. In the 6th. century, Saint Isidore of Seville relates that the "king of instruments" was usually to be found in churches at that time.

A close relationship was soon established between organ music and the rites of service, with the instrument being allocated a r"le which was much more than simple accompaniment. Its function was to cause the worshipper and/or believer to undergo a deep religious experience (Erfahrung) an experience which was to lead him to the source of revelation of the secrets and mysteries of all those truths which, while being an essential part of Christian belief, could in no way be understood to the full extent of their significance without an intimate personal experience such as that which could arise from listening to certain types of music, especially organ music.

Obviously the situation changed greatly between Saint Isidore's times and those of the musical movements and organ schools which have arisen in Europe between the 15th. century and the present day. But there is always the common denominator of a search for a means to establish intimate experience of some of the fundamental mysteries of Christian theology, which for the purposes of this text we will define by two of the best known verses of Saint John's Gospel "In the beginning was the Word" (St. John, 1, v. 1), and "I and my Father are one" (St. John, 10, v. 30). Our choice of these texts is no accident: Saint John and his Gospel were the sources chosen by Johannes Brahms when he explained to the American metaphysician Arthur A. Abell the mysteries surrounding the process of composition and the relationship between this process and God. In the same way, the musical-religious objectives of each of the two concerts in this Festival in which the organ has a part can be explained by reference to these two verses from the Gospel.

"In the beginning was the Word" Musicological study has indicated that music accompanied by bass continuo probably originated earlier in a secular context than in the religious sphere. However, the term "bass continuo" was made popular by the publication in 1602 of Lodovico Viadana's Cento concerti ecclesiastici ... con il basso continuo. Although Viadana's bass continuo was completely independent, in contrast to the basso seguente of Banchieri and Striggio, it was Si no m'equivoco, aqu¡ sobra un negatiu a l'original: he tradu‹t "...no va ser..." per "...va ser..." ("...it was..."). later composers who were to use the new accompaniment to give deeper expression to the meaning of the text, in accordance with the aims of the stile recitativo.

Soon composers like Claudio Monteverdi and subsequently Angelo Rossi and Maurizio Cazzati, leading on to the composers of the late Baroque, began to write religious works in a similar style to that which had become accepted in opera.

Opera had come into existence under the aegis of the Camerata de Bardi, when it became known that ancient Greek theatrical works had been sung, not declaimed. Operatic works adopted the stile recitativo or stile rappresentativo with the aim of imitating Greek classical theatre, and composers used this same style to bring the listener closer to the Word of which Saint John speaks at beginning the beginning of his Gospel.

Although we have not the space in this article to cover all aspects of this complex subject, we must mention that in many cosmogenies and religious or philosophical traditions, the essential nature of the original Word has been interpreted as a perfectly harmonic corpus between voice (text) and sound (music). The tragic rift between these two realities a rift which takes us to the problematical, mythical subject of original sin has in the majority of the world's civilisations and cultures been the cause of the text's quest for music and vice versa. Is it not often said that poetry seeks its musical nature, and was it not Brahms who said that the cello was the instrument closest to the human voice, or Marin Marais who said the same for the viola da gamba? Be that as it may, attempts to fuse words and music have been a constant throughout musical history. However, in the case of religious works with bass continuo, the aim seems to transcend the fusion of words and music in an attempt to make the listener live the truth and beauty of texts which, by means of the stilo ¨Hauria de ser "stile" com el de m‚s amunt? rappresentativo, seem to want to bring us closer to the nature of the beginning of all things as revealed in the Word a Word which makes voice and music into a harmonic whole.

"I and my Father are one" If, as we have said, the bass continuo in religious music seems to aim to recreate the Word, the beginning of a whole expressed as a single unity, solo organ music seems to wish to "unite the human soul of the believer with the almighty central Force, from which springs the beginning of life, and to which we all owe our existence". Although these important words by Richard Wagner were not spoken in the context of organ music, a complete, absolute organist such as J. S. Bach was convinced that "the organ was the most solid foundation of music, as its original cause and ultimate objective are to honour God and recreate the spirit". Honour God? Recreate the spirit? Are these no more than rhetorical turns of phrase, or do they really display a conviction that music as expression in sound, whose cause is the vibration of matter, is capable of activating the universal vibrating Force which according to Wagner unites the human soul with the almighty central Force that which from a Christian standpoint is God?

The feeling of total absorption into a musical architecture constructed from the sound texture of the organ may well be a way of feeling closer to God. Only thus can we understand why this instrument has always been a feature of Christian churches. The organ is not only a physical presence in the church, but a musical means of allowing the worshipper to establish his own special communication with God, making him aware of how his most profound "I" is a part of a Whole.

Over and above the different periods and styles which we will experience in the organ works performed at the Festival (from the masterly works of Bach to the profound mysticism of Olivier Messiaen, with an interesting selection from the Catalan School of the 18th. century, with works by Baguer, Gall‚s and Casanovas), all the music seems to corroborate the mystery expressed by Saint John recognition by means of a miraculous, centuries-old experience that we are all one with the Creator.