By: Pedro Luis Landestoy Méndez
Photos: Helman Bejerano

To attend a Marcos Madrigal concert is to witness the miracle that ten fingers and eighty-eight keys can contain the universe. This Cuban prodigy offered, at the San Felipe Neri Oratory in the Historic Center of Old Havana, an evening that transcended the musical to verge on the mystical. Accompanied by the Orchestra of the Lyceum Mozartiano de La Habana, conducted with visionary precision by José A. Méndez, which continues to confirm its reign in the Cuban symphonic panorama, Madrigal unfolded a program where the interpretative mastery was only the means for a spiritual communion with the audience.

It all began with the "Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor" by Saint-Saëns, a somewhat pretentious and snobbish composer who, however, that afternoon found in Madrigal his redeemer. Where the Frenchman vacillates between impostured baroque and light effect, the Cuban weaved a unified discourse. The first movement, with its solemn intro, was transformed: the initial arpeggios, often mechanical, resounded like an intimate prayer, while the dialogue with the orchestra acquired an unparalleled dramatic tension. In the "Allegro scherzando," Madrigal unleashed lightning scales, but always with a wink of authentic elegance. The final "Presto," that unbridled tarantella, was a controlled hurricane: the leaps of register, the dizzying pace, all flowed with a naturalness that turned virtuosity into poetry. The orchestra was much more than a faithful accompanist; it mitigated the stylistic incoherence with a velvety sound in the strings and playful horns that almost justified the lightness of the "Scherzo".  

If in "Saint-Saëns" there was redemption, in Rimsky-Korsakov's "Capricho Español" there was revelation. The Lyceum Mozartian Orchestra unleashed a palette of emotions that made us forget the Russian origin of the work to embrace its latent Iberian soul. The strings, led by a magnificent first violin who embroidered each glissando with Andalusian fire, wove the "Alborada" with solar energy, while the woodwinds - especially the clarinet and flute - drew the mystery of the "Scena e canto gitano" with seductive whispers. The Spanish percussion, with castanets and tambourine, was not limited to folklore: it was the heart that marked the compass of a popular celebration, where even the most epic passages (the climax of the "Fandango asturiano") preserved an air of habanero freshness. Méndez, baton in hand, was an alchemist: he turned each tempo change into a collective sigh.  

The "Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini" was the pinnacle. Here, Madrigal was no longer interpreter, but oracle. In the dark variations (1-3, 7-9), his piano was lightning in the storm, with staccatos that cut through the air like arrows of fire. But when he reached variation 18, that inversion of the theme that Rakhmaninov turns into a lament of the soul, time stood still. The orchestral strings enveloped the theme like a mantle, while Madrigal unfurled a cantabile so heartbreaking that even the silence between notes seemed to scream. The final frenzy (variation 24) was a liberation: not only an impeccable technical display, but an absolution from the mundane. The piano and orchestra, fused in a whirlwind, took the audience's breath away.  

When it seemed that there was no more to come, and in response to the euphoric ovation of the standing room, Madrigal gave an encore that represented a whisper of beauty: Siloti's romantic arrangement of Bach's "Prelude in E minor". Where hours before titanic chords resounded, now there was only a bare piano, a dialogue between the deep bass and a high-pitched melody broken by almost imperceptible rubatos. Madrigal, leaning over the keyboard, transformed each note into an intimate confession. The audience, in ecstasy minutes before, held its breath: even the scrape of a page falling to the floor sounded heretical. As the last chord faded, a sacred silence preceded the final applause. It was the perfect contrast: minimal, fragile beauty as a reminder that true mastery does not need volume to move.  

Marcos Madrigal and the Lyceum Mozartiano did not offer a concert, but a ceremony. In a city where scarcity stalks even art, they demonstrated that excellence is not negotiable: it is cultivated with rigor, delivered with passion. Saint-Saëns, Rimsky, Rachmaninov and Bach -a quartet of periods and styles- were only pretexts to remind us that music, when it rises above the earthly, is the purest language of the divine. The Oratorio, witness of centuries, welcomed this miracle with its groined vaults: another afternoon in which Havana, against all odds, continues to be the capital of the impossible.