Lully, Mozart and Strauss with the Spanish National Orchestra

On 29, 30 and 31 May 2026, Josep Pons returned to Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional de Música to conduct the Spanish National Orchestra, of which he is Honorary Conductor.

The programme offered a unique journey between the French musical tradition and Richard Strauss’s reinterpretation of it in the early twentieth century. The first half included Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, performed by violinist Valerie Steenken.

The second half was devoted to Richard Strauss’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, a work inspired by Molière’s comedy that engages with the aesthetics of the French court and remains one of the composer’s most elegant and refined scores.