Francisco Coll’s Hímnica appears in Spain in November 2025 with both the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, conducted by Thierry Fischer, (13 and 14 November) and La Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla, conducted Lucas Macías (6 and 7 November).
Hímnica received its world premiere at the KKL Lucerne in 2021, conducted by James Gaffigan. The 10½-minute work was the first piece Coll wrote for forces of its size – the same employed in Robert Schumann's 4th Symphony. He describes the piece as a “a kind of passacaglia, or chaconne, in which a hymnic theme develops in different ways within one adagio tempo”. He continues,
The work contains elements of grotesque humour – traces of a dream-like waltz, for example – but I did not intend to create a pessimistic work. Rather, I hope that it contains beauty and hope. Hímnica begins and ends ‘lontanissimo’, as if its span could be a fragment of something larger – or perhaps even something eternal.
In March 2024 Francisco Coll conducted the UK premiere of the work in his debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, alongside Aqua Cinerea (2005; rev. 2019) and music by Manuel de Falla and Jesús Guridi. In August 2022 he conducted the Finnish premiere of the piece at the Fiskars Summer Festival; it has also been performed by Gustavo Gimeno and the Concertgebouworkest Young at the Concertgebouw and Elbphilharmonie.
November also sees the world premiere of Coll’s Enemigo del pueblo, the composer’s first evening-length stage work, at Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía for a run of three performances, followed by four at the Teatro Real in February 2026, conducted by the composer. The Spanish-language work adapts Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, with a text by Àlex Rigola, who also directs the world premiere production.
The opera, cast in two acts and lasting around 80 minutes, tells the story of a local Doctor who discovers corruption and malfeasance in a spa town; his revelations have far-reaching personal and political consequences for his family and community – Coll discusses the opera here. Enemigo del pueblo was commissioned by Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía and Teatro Real – the first new opera ever commissioned by Valencia and marking their 25th anniversary.