Video celebrating the 50th anniversary of 'Tubular Bells' reaches one million views

Performer and musicologist Xavier Alern conducted the orchestra and more than 4,500 people followed his live performance, which took place on the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Oldfield's first solo album, on 25 May 1973. The British musician was only 19 years old when he recorded it and played most of the instruments himself. Tubular Bells became a great musical success-the first, moreover, for Virgin Records, a label that had been created only a year earlier-and won the Grammy for best instrumental composition. It is estimated to have sold nearly fifteen million copies worldwide and has had, in addition to numerous reissues, three sequels composed by Oldfield between 1992 and 1999.

Opus One is an orchestra of contemporary instruments created by Alern to pay tribute to Oldfield. It adopts the name with which the musician himself considered naming the work before opting for Tubular Bells, and also performs a selection of themes from the albums Five Miles Out, Crises, Discovery, Islands and Earth Moving. So far, Opus One has performed, in addition to the Alba Synchrotron, at the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Teatre Coliseum in Barcelona, the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, and other venues in Girona, Seville, Castellterçol, Puig-Reig and Toloriu.