Let’s review the keys to the wonderful concert by Christian Löffler & Detect Ensemble at the La Paqui hall in Madrid.
Christian Löffler was the first concert I enjoyed after the pandemic, just over a year ago, at the Mon hall in Madrid. That night, masks were still worn, and on stage, and with a dedicated audience, the German gave a recital, mainly reviewing themes from his last work until that moment, the beautiful Lys (2020). It was a concert marked by the most danceable part of Löffler, but the one we experienced yesterday in the La Paqui room in Madrid was a little superior.
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In part, because the producer was accompanied on stage by Detect Ensemble, a female string quartet, who performed during the first hour of the concert, some of the compositions closest to classical music, without giving up, however, to the beats – which sounded enormously high – by Christian Löffler, which created a perfect synergy between two styles of music on paper, antagonistic, but which here were being the maximum positive expression of the eternal conflict between the old and the new.
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Most of the songs in this first part of the concert were part of the Parallels: Shellac Reworks by Christian Löffler (2021), which, it was quite a luxury, something that usually escapes from what the German offers in a solo concert. Being able to listen live to tracks such as Pastoral or Moldau was an incredible experience that was worth the ticket in itself.
But, to the surprise of friends and strangers alike, after this first hour of concert, Christian Löffler dismissed Detect Ensemble, to be alone on stage, and start to launch the most famous and danceable compositions. The energy in the room completely changed, and the audience, which until now had been quite sleepy and muted, reacted as the situation deserved: dancing, clapping harder than ever, and enjoying the subtlety of the melodies, the beauty of the harmonies, and the wild drops that mixed the fragile with the powerful. A delight for the senses.
The concert was coming to an end, and Löffler spliced together perhaps his three most iconic songs to date, Mt. Grace, Versailles (apoteotic live version) and as a closing, after leaving the stage for the audience to ask for the encore, with Haul, the track that has the collaboration of Mohna on the voice).
A religious experience, which ended with a fan going on stage, shaking hands with an excited Löffler, in a gesture that I think defined us all, and externalized, admiration that we felt for him.
To personally thank Houston Party Music for the good treatment received and the excellent organization of the event.