Josep Castanyer Alonso had been told that winning a job in an orchestra would take years, if it ever happened. It would be the peak of his career.
He got it right after his studies, at 21. A permanent position. He could stay until he was 69.
His first reaction was not relief. It was: what am I going to do with my life now?
Who he is
Josep was born in Barcelona, into a family of non-musicians where classical music was always playing. He started on the cello early, studied in Germany and now lives in Stockholm. He plays cello in the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra at the Stockholm Concert Hall, where he was the youngest member of the orchestra when he joined.
He calls himself a hobby pianist who happens to be a professional musician.
Pop songs as fugues
Since the orchestra world had nothing more to offer him, Josep found his own project. He takes pop songs and internet melodies and rewrites them as baroque fugues, then explains the music with animated videos on his YouTube channel.
The first one to spread was a fugue on the jingle every Swede knows from the ice cream truck. It ended up on radio, TV and in the newspapers. A fugue on Barbie Girl took off a year later, when the trailer for the Barbie film came out.
The work is slow. Pop rhythms are syncopated, and baroque music has none of that. A four-voice fugue is, in his words, a very difficult sudoku. Some days he finishes exactly one second of music. As the composer, at least, he is allowed to change a note that is too hard to play. With Mozart, you break your fingers until it works.
Classical people find the result too commercial. Commercial people find it too classical. Josep finds that funny.
Perfectionism
Classical music is built on perfectionism, and Josep is open about what it does to him. A voice in his back tells him to give up because the piece isn't good enough. He has learned that this thought usually means the piece will turn out well.
He questions rules the same way. Don't tell him something is done because it's the rule. Tell him why the rule exists.
Lately I've tried to learn that sometimes it's also okay if things don't go as planned.
Why I made this film
I'm no expert on classical music. I watched one of Josep's videos and moved on. Then I showed it to a friend who is a classically trained pianist, and she refused to give my phone back until it was finished. I wanted to know why.
Josep's battle with perfectionism is one I recognise. Every film I make already looks a certain way in my head, and sometimes I have to accept that something different is just as good. Or better.
The film was recorded at the Stockholm Concert Hall, where I got to hold a 300-year-old Testore cello that rotates between the cellists of the section. Very carefully.
Read the original article about Josep.
The question this film answers: what happens if you don't follow the expected path?