Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” Movingly Flashmobbed in Spain

Flash­mob per­for­mances haven’t been a fresh con­cept for some time. And they’ve been some­what tak­en over by cor­po­ra­tions dur­ing recent years. But that does­n’t stop view­ers from enjoy­ing the per­for­mances, whether in per­son or on the web. Take this recent exam­ple orches­trat­ed by the finan­cial­ly-chal­lenged Span­ish bank, Ban­co Sabadell.

Ear­li­er this sum­mer, the bank brought togeth­er 100 musi­cians and singers from the Orches­tra Sim­fon­i­ca del Valles,Amics de l’Opera de Sabadell,Coral Belles Arts, and Cor Lieder Cam­era to per­form the anthem of the Euro­pean Union — Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from his Sym­pho­ny No. 9. It all hap­pens in the Plaça de Sant Roc in Sabadell, Spain, a lit­tle north of Barcelona. Per­haps this will put a smile on your face. Maybe you’ll even shed a tear. One way or anoth­er, make sure you turn up your speak­ers.…

For more flash­mob clas­si­cal per­for­mances see:

Copen­hagen Phil­har­mon­ic Plays Ravel’s Bolero at Train Sta­tion

Copen­hagen Phil­har­mon­ic Plays Grieg’s Peer Gynt in the Sub­way

Opera in the Fruit & Veg­gie Mar­ket


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Comments (40)
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  • joan says:

    so won­der­ful! the young curly-haired child clad in red, atop the pole, express­es what i imag­ine beethoven meant to con­vey, in a piece that he titled ‘ode to joy’. just love­ly.
    (the attrac­tive man in the turquoise but­ton down (whom i am imag­in­ing to be a univ. pro­fes­sor come upon the scene!) exclaims ‘wow’! my feel­ings exact­ly.
    thank you for this.

  • Myra says:

    Very beau­ti­ful! It was orga­nized by a bank, so maybe more of a cash mob? Nonethe­less very enjoy­able.

  • Jordi says:

    The Ode to joy orga­nized by a span­ish bank? I agree it’s very mov­ing, but it also takes some nerve, if you ask me.
    I think the one below depicts much bet­ter the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, and the feel­ings of the ter­mi­nal­ly mort­gaged span­ish cit­i­zen­ship towards their banks.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUzaeOEplnc

    (you don’t need to know span­ish to get that it’s not a very joy­ful song)

  • Karen says:

    Some­times you have to just relax and enjoy beau­ty where you find it, with­out search­ing for the moti­va­tion behind it. Look at the crowd’s faces. Look at the chil­dren’s reac­tions. Look at the musi­cians smil­ing. This was beau­ti­ful and I loved it. Thanks for post­ing it.

  • Christine says:

    Whether it’s cor­po­rate­ly orga­nized by a bank or a “true” flash mob, it does­n’t dimin­ish the beau­ty of the music or or the delight of the crowd. I thor­ough­ly enjoyed this; thank you for post­ing it and the oth­er links as well.

  • Jordi says:

    I don’t know if any of the pre­vi­ous two mes­sages have any­thing to do with mine (the third one), but in case I’ve been mes­sun­destood, let me acknowl­edge that I have also enjoyed this majes­tic piece of music and the people’s reac­tion to it, wich I believe to be gen­uine; yet, I thought it would be inter­est­ing to give an alter­na­tive per­spec­tive in the form of anoth­er heart­felt bank per­for­mance, this time from the point of view of the peo­ple.

    I didn’t want to be a par­ty poop­er: enjoy Beethoven, of course, but please, keep in mind “la Chu­na­mi” (the singer in the link)

  • Donn Dufford says:

    Many many years ago, my bank brought free con­certs to the locals in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties once a month. When the bank was bought, the music sad­ly stopped. To bring Beethoven or any clas­si­cal works to peo­ple is a gift I wish more com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als would do. This is tru­ly amaz­ing. And to see the hap­py faces on the very old and the very young, and those in between if price­less. Thank you for shar­ing this won­der­ful few min­utes.

  • Randy says:

    Any 20th-cen­tu­ry sci­ence fic­tion film fran­chise theme would have been a bet­ter choice, and cer­tain­ly as pop­u­lar. “Can you sense the Cre­ator, world?” Of course not.

  • Berolina says:

    So moving,yes I shed a tear and some more. Heav­en­ly music!Look at the faces!

  • Gaynor says:

    WOW! Have always loved this piece and espe­cial­ly when it’s played at either a Sol­heim Cup or Ryder Cup event when the Euros win! Won­der­ful adap­ta­tion!

  • Rachel says:

    I’ve watched this about 10 times now and cried every time. Absolute­ly won­der­ful. Now that’s a bank I want to leave my mon­ey in :)

  • Simon Brown says:

    The cyn­ic in me was count­ing the num­ber of instru­ments and mul­ti­ply­ing it by the num­ber of €200 fines and con­fis­ca­tions and denun­cios that there would be if that actu­al­ly WAS spon­ta­neous. If you’re a bank it seems you’re allowed to busk in the streets but not if you’re a cit­i­zen…

  • What a gift! Thank you for post­ing the link. One only has to look at the faces in the crowd to real­ize that music of this depth and mag­ni­tude cross­es all bound­aries. This same song was sung as I walked up the aisle with my father to get mar­ried and, of course, watch­ing the video brought back those mem­o­ries too:)

  • Through my tears I can only say.…thank you, Ban­co Sabadell. How can I give to you as you have giv­en to me.
    Expressed ear­li­er, I too, have watched this over ten times and not failed to weep. The expres­sions of the human soul exude in musi­cian and view­er alike. Can’t imag­ine how I would have felt by being there. There is a God.

  • One note to add here. How many of those peo­ple wit­ness­ing the event nev­er had the means to have pur­chased a tick­et to the palaces where only the well to do could be privy to view the tal­ent of both the musi­cians and the com­posers genius. Again, I believe we have all wit­nessed a moment in humankind. Ver­i­fied by the over eight mil­lion online views.

  • Brenda Wilkinson says:

    What a won­der­ful spon­ta­neous ren­der­ing of this mag­nif­i­cent piece of music. I was con­duct­ing it in my office and in tears at the same time.

  • Meredith says:

    Regard­less if this was “paid for” by a bank or not, I echo the sen­ti­ments expressed by most that this is more about the JOY that music brings — a way to tran­scend, for even a few min­utes, the real­i­ties of our chal­lenged times. It gives me a glim­mer of hope for the good­ness and tal­ent in humankind (despite the mess­es we make!), and shows how pow­er­ful a medi­um music can be to touch peo­ple. I, too, have watched and shared this many times and nev­er fail to have an emo­tion­al response — alter­nat­ing between chok­ing up and want­i­ng to jump up and applaud!
    Thank you for shar­ing…

  • Lucia says:

    I thought this was just mag­nif­i­cent!!! Fan­tas­tic!!! Supe­ri­or!!! Won­der­ful!!! Music such as this is the uni­ver­sal lan­guage! It brings peo­ple from all ages togeth­er!!! It gets 5 stars!

  • Joshua says:

    I won­der what text the cho­rus was singing. It’s not the Ger­man text by Schiller from Beethoven’s 9th Sym­pho­ny. Was it a Span­ish or Cata­lan trans­la­tion of the text?

  • Michael Moyer says:

    I just watched this on my phone in my car and I can’t go into my appt because I’m cry­ing. Thank you for post­ing.

  • anna says:

    It’s in Cata­lan, Joshua.I believe it’s a ver­sion by the poet Joan Mara­gall.

  • Jose Gosalvez says:

    To Myra, Jordi…Music is for the soul…Never ever Political…so close your eyes and enjoy the notes emma­nat­ing from all the instruments…It will soothe
    ones souls…THAT IS IF ONE HAS A SOUL!!!
    So close your eyes and LISTEN…Music is ones own freedom…liberation from sev­ery­days com­mon drudgery…ENJOY!!!

  • Brenda Blakeman says:

    IIt is beau­ti­ful and went right to my heart.I am. Addict­ed to that video .When I am feel­ing down it brings me up.It is a delight to watch.Very much loved. Thank you Bren­da Blake­man Wind­sor Ontario Cana­da.

  • DAVID LIEN says:

    Won­der­ful thing between nation

  • mari says:

    beau­ti­ful. gra­cias
    vaya con Dios

  • mari says:

    gra­cias
    beau­ti­ful
    vayan con Dios
    gra­cias

  • john says:

    I am from Amer­i­ca, so look at it through those eyes. A BANK did this. Impres­sive. Cor­po­rate? This is what a Euro­pean flash-mob looks like? Not skip­ping around to non-instru­ments bab­bling some inco­her­ence? I am no fan of banks, but this was sur­pris­ing and very nice.

  • Arty says:

    Bril­liant mar­ket­ing move! Also amaz­ing way to share how amaz­ing clas­si­cal music is.

  • Barbara says:

    This has to be my favourite flash mob. The music is great. I esoe­cial­ly loved the last part where every­one was singing/playing. The look on the one mans face toward the end said it all. He said. wow and it was a wow. What a won­der­ful thing the bank did by bring­ing every­one togeth­er for this mem­o­rable per­for­mance. Thanks!

  • Selena says:

    Absolute­ly inspir­ing. Even the audi­ence played a part in transmt­ting the joy of the per­for­mance.

  • Jim says:

    Banks lend mon­ey, house buy­ers bor­row it. What’s wrong about that?

    The wrong bit is that every­where, banks lend mon­ey they don’t have; it’s bogus mon­ey, cre­at­ed by gov­ern­ment out of thin air. There­fore, it’s too eas­i­ly avail­able and that great­ly increas­es the price of homes. If they loaned out only what they earned, mort­gages would be much hard­er to get and prices would be far low­er.

  • k w says:

    What joy after such a dev­as­tat­ing year which is still con­tin­u­ing
    it’s neg­a­tiv­i­ty into the New year/ This def­i­nite­ly lift­ed one’s
    spir­it & soul. Thank you to ALL THE MUSICIANS who lift­ed us all
    into a joy­ful New Year!!! Jan 1, 2021 — Van­cou­ver, B.C. Cana­da

  • Peggy hatfield says:

    Im from Amer­i­ca. Have watched it over and over. Amaz­ing. I felt the joy and you could see the joy on all present. Was man in the begin­ing part of the orches­tra? Bra­vo Bra­vo

  • Donna McCord says:

    Uplift­ing and inspir­ing at a time when we all need more of both. Thank you!

  • Martin Seebach says:

    It some­times brings a tear or three. It is a beau­ti­ful thing, “too beau­ti­ful to fail.” Most yanks may rec­og­nize our 2008 bank­ing deba­cle there. Bra­vo, an excel­lent piece and ENCORE! Vaya con Dios, a bien­tot.

  • Marshall Brown says:

    Who was the con­duc­tor for this great flash­mob per­for­mance of Ode to Joy? This per­for­mance is my favorite of all time for the great Beethoven clas­sic!

  • Marshall Brown says:

    Who was the con­duc­tor for this flash­mob per­for­mance of Ode to Joy? This per­for­mance is my favorite of all time for the great Beethoven clas­sic!

  • Aditi says:

    If you find out, do let me know!

  • AndyB says:

    They were singing in Cata­lan, in Joan Mara­gal­l’s excel­lent trans­la­tion.

    Joia, que ets del déus gus­pi­ra
    gen­er­a­da dalt del cel,
    vent de foc el pit res­pi­ra
    sota el plecs del teu gran vel.
    Si ajun­tar-se el cors dema­nen
    que un mal vent va sep­a­rant,
    tots els homes s’agermanen
    on les ales van tocant.
    Si for­tu­na gen­erosa
    ens ha donat un bon com­pa­ny
    o com­pa­nya gra­ciosa
    cantarem amb més afany.

  • Rose Valancy says:

    The con­duc­tor is Ruben Gimeno

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