Music of Catalonia
Encyclopedia
The music of Catalonia
comprises one of the oldest documented musical traditions in Europe, and has displayed a rich musical culture continuously for at least two thousand years.
s, the itinerant composer-musicians whose influence and aesthetics was decisive on the formation of late medieval
secular music, and who travelled into Italy
and Northern France after the destruction of Occitanian culture by the Albigensian Crusade
in the early 13th century. The so-called Llibre Vermell de Montserrat
(red book of Montserrat) stands as an important source for 14th century music.
Renaissance
polyphony
flourished in Catalunya, though local composers never attained the fame of either the Spanish composers to the South and West or the French composers to the North. Joan Pau Pujol
wrote four books of polyphonic masses
and motet
s for the patron saint of Barcelona, St. George.
Performances of opera
, mostly imported from Italy, began in the 18th century, but some native operas were written as well, including three by Isaac Albéniz
and seven by Enrique Granados
. The Barcelona opera house, Gran Teatre del Liceu, which opened in 1847, remains one of the most important in Spain; in addition, in the mid-19th century the first Barcelona Philharmonic Society was founded for the performance of orchestral music. Several symphonic orchestras exist in Catalunya today, including the Barcelona Orchestra.
Around the beginning of the 20th century, two Catalan composers--Enrique Granados
and Isaac Albéniz
--became the most famous composers in Spain. Francisco Tárrega
and Miguel Llobet
expanded the technical possibilities of guitar. Their music remains in the standard classical repertory today. Cellist Pau Casals
is admired as an outstanding player. Federico Mompou
(1893–1987) is known for his delicate piano works, which often have a Catalan flavor. He spent most of his life in Paris
, returning to his native Barcelona only during and after World War II
.
are popular dances, were especially widespread at the end of the nineteenth century. Currently, two main types, the original sardana curta (short sardana) style and more modern sardana llarga (long sardana), are very popular. Sardanas are danced in a circle dance
. Other more strange sardanes are sardana de lluïment and sardana revessa.
The sardana's music (música de cobla, in Catalan) is played by an 11-piece band called a cobla, that includes genuine folk instruments such as the flabiol
(tabor pipe) and tambori
, tenora, tible which are also used in other regions of Spain. Coblas also frequently play as concert bands without the dance.
Other popular music are the ball de bastons
(stick dances), galop
s, ball de gitanes and the music of gralla (music) (a kind of Catalan shawm)and drums used in cercaviles or by colles diableres
.
In areas around the river Ebre, the jota
is a popular dance.
Sung in both Catalan
and Spanish
, Havaneres
are very popular at parties since the end of the 19th century when sailors returned from the War of the Cuban Independence.
In the last half century the rumba catalana genre has spread in Catalunya, played mostly by Gypsies, including popular performers like Peret
and Gato Pérez.
During the end of the Franco period a movement known as Nova Cançó
emerged. Nova Cançó singers sang in Catalan, denouncing the official oppression of the language. The pioneering group of singer-songwriter
s Els Setze Jutges
was founded in 1961 in Barcelona and came to include several singers from Catalonia, including Joan Manuel Serrat
and Lluís Llach
, as well as members from the Balearic Islands
and Valencian Community
. Grup de Folk and Esquirols were other notable cançó groups.
In the last 20 years rock and roll
has become popular, and a Catalan scene called rock català
has appeared. Some very popular groups are Lax'n'Busto
, Sau
, Els Pets
or Sopa de Cabra
.
In the wake of Mano Negra
and Manu Chao
's success, Catalonia has also produced a number of popular fusion and world music bands, such as Dusminguet or Cheb Balowski
.
Ojos de Brujo
, a band from Barcelona merging traditional flamenco with hip-hop, has also become popular.
Singing in Catalan has received a boost in the 21st due to the success of lots of Catalan indie bands that are springing up in many genres, such as pop (Mazoni, Glissando*, Sanjosex, Mishima
, Manel
, Els Amics de les Arts
, Antònia Font
), hip-hop (At Versaris, Guillamino), and so on.
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
comprises one of the oldest documented musical traditions in Europe, and has displayed a rich musical culture continuously for at least two thousand years.
History
In the Middle Ages, Barcelona and the surrounding area were relatively prosperous, and both music and arts were cultivated actively. Catalonia and adjacent areas were the home for some troubadourTroubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
s, the itinerant composer-musicians whose influence and aesthetics was decisive on the formation of late medieval
Medieval music
Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...
secular music, and who travelled into Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Northern France after the destruction of Occitanian culture by the Albigensian Crusade
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Catholic Church to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc...
in the early 13th century. The so-called Llibre Vermell de Montserrat
Llibre Vermell de Montserrat
The Llibre Vermell de Montserrat is a manuscript collection of devotional texts, containing amongst others some late medieval songs. The 14th century manuscript was compiled in and is still located at the monastery of Montserrat outside Barcelona in Catalonia.-The manuscript:The manuscript was...
(red book of Montserrat) stands as an important source for 14th century music.
Renaissance
Renaissance music
Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...
polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
flourished in Catalunya, though local composers never attained the fame of either the Spanish composers to the South and West or the French composers to the North. Joan Pau Pujol
Joan Pau Pujol
Joan Pau Pujol was a Catalan and Spanish composer and organist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque. While best known for his sacred music, he also wrote popular secular music.-Life:Pujol was born in Mataró...
wrote four books of polyphonic masses
Mass (music)
The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...
and motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
s for the patron saint of Barcelona, St. George.
Performances of opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, mostly imported from Italy, began in the 18th century, but some native operas were written as well, including three by Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual was a Spanish Catalan pianist and composer best known for his piano works based on folk music idioms .-Life:Born in Camprodon, province of Girona, to Ángel Albéniz and his wife Dolors Pascual, Albéniz...
and seven by Enrique Granados
Enrique Granados
Enrique Granados y Campiña was a Spanish pianist and composer of classical music. His music is in a uniquely Spanish style and, as such, representative of musical nationalism...
. The Barcelona opera house, Gran Teatre del Liceu, which opened in 1847, remains one of the most important in Spain; in addition, in the mid-19th century the first Barcelona Philharmonic Society was founded for the performance of orchestral music. Several symphonic orchestras exist in Catalunya today, including the Barcelona Orchestra.
Around the beginning of the 20th century, two Catalan composers--Enrique Granados
Enrique Granados
Enrique Granados y Campiña was a Spanish pianist and composer of classical music. His music is in a uniquely Spanish style and, as such, representative of musical nationalism...
and Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual was a Spanish Catalan pianist and composer best known for his piano works based on folk music idioms .-Life:Born in Camprodon, province of Girona, to Ángel Albéniz and his wife Dolors Pascual, Albéniz...
--became the most famous composers in Spain. Francisco Tárrega
Francisco Tárrega
Francisco de Asís Tárrega y Eixea was an influential Spanish composer and guitarist of the Romantic period.-Biography:Tárrega was born on 21 November 1852, in Vila-real, Castelló, Spain...
and Miguel Llobet
Miguel Llobet
Miguel Llobet Solés was a classical guitarist, born in Barcelona . Llobet was a renowned virtuoso who toured Europe and America extensively. He made well known arrangements of Catalan folk songs for the solo guitar and is also the composer of original works.-Biography:Some details of Llobet's...
expanded the technical possibilities of guitar. Their music remains in the standard classical repertory today. Cellist Pau Casals
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló , known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time...
is admired as an outstanding player. Federico Mompou
Federico Mompou
Frederic Mompou i Dencausse was a Catalan Spanish composer and pianist. He is best known for his solo piano music and his songs.-Life:...
(1893–1987) is known for his delicate piano works, which often have a Catalan flavor. He spent most of his life in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, returning to his native Barcelona only during and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Folk and popular music
Originally from the Northern areas, SardanesSardana
The sardana is a type of circle dance typical of Catalonia, Spain. The dance was originally from the Empordà region, but started gaining popularity throughout Catalonia during the 20th century....
are popular dances, were especially widespread at the end of the nineteenth century. Currently, two main types, the original sardana curta (short sardana) style and more modern sardana llarga (long sardana), are very popular. Sardanas are danced in a circle dance
Circle dance
"Circle dance" is the most common name for a style of traditional dance usually done in a circle without partners to musical accompaniment.-Description:...
. Other more strange sardanes are sardana de lluïment and sardana revessa.
The sardana's music (música de cobla, in Catalan) is played by an 11-piece band called a cobla, that includes genuine folk instruments such as the flabiol
Flabiol
The flabiol , also known as flaviol, flubiol or fabirol, is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes. It is one of the 12 instruments of the cobla...
(tabor pipe) and tambori
Tambori
The tambori is a percussion instrument of about 10 centimetres diameter, a small shallow cylinder formed of metal or wood with a drumhead of skin...
, tenora, tible which are also used in other regions of Spain. Coblas also frequently play as concert bands without the dance.
Other popular music are the ball de bastons
Ball de bastons
Ball de bastons is the name of a ritual weapon dance spread throughout Europe and the rest of the Iberian area . English and Welsh Morris dances are well-known relatives to these traditions. Most melodies are based on easy 2/4 rhythms...
(stick dances), galop
Galop
In dance, the galop, named after the fastest running gait of a horse , a shortened version of the original term galoppade, is a lively country dance, introduced in the late 1820s to Parisian society by the Duchesse de Berry and popular in Vienna, Berlin and London...
s, ball de gitanes and the music of gralla (music) (a kind of Catalan shawm)and drums used in cercaviles or by colles diableres
Correfoc
Correfocs ; literally in English "fire-runs") are among the most striking features present in Catalan festivals. In the correfoc, a group of individuals will dress as devils and light fireworks. While dancing to the drums of a traditional gralla, they will set off their fireworks among crowds of...
.
In areas around the river Ebre, the jota
Jota
Jota may refer to:*the name of J, the tenth letter of the Spanish alphabet and Portuguese alphabet*Jota , a type of Spanish music and dance*Jota, a bean-sauerkraut soup of Slovenian/Croatian origin*Laverda Jota, a motorcycle...
is a popular dance.
Sung in both Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Havaneres
Habanera (music)
The habanera is a genre of Cuban popular dance music of the 19th century. It is a creolized form which developed from the contradanza. It has a characteristic "Habanera rhythm", and is performed with sung lyrics...
are very popular at parties since the end of the 19th century when sailors returned from the War of the Cuban Independence.
In the last half century the rumba catalana genre has spread in Catalunya, played mostly by Gypsies, including popular performers like Peret
Peret
Pere Pubill Calaf , known as Peret, is a Catalan Spanish Romaní singer, guitar player and composer, and the main representative of Catalan Rumba. Peret is known for the song Borriquito, and he represented Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 and performed at the Olympic Games in Barcelona...
and Gato Pérez.
During the end of the Franco period a movement known as Nova Cançó
Nova Cançó
The Nova Cançó was an artistic movement that promoted Catalan music in Francoist Spain. The movement sought to normalize use of the Catalan language in popular music and denounced the injustices of the Franco regime. Musically, it created a new genre, with roots in the French Nouvelle Chanson...
emerged. Nova Cançó singers sang in Catalan, denouncing the official oppression of the language. The pioneering group of singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s Els Setze Jutges
Els Setze Jutges
Els Setze Jutges was a group of singers in the Catalan language founded in 1961 by Miquel Porter i Moix, Remei Margarit, and Josep Maria Espinàs...
was founded in 1961 in Barcelona and came to include several singers from Catalonia, including Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat i Teresa is a Catalan Spanish singer-songwriter.Serrat is considered one of the most important figures of modern, popular music in both the Spanish and Catalan languages...
and Lluís Llach
Lluís Llach
Lluís Llach i Grande is a Catalan composer and songwriter.Though partially dependent on arrangers, like Manel Camp or Carles Cases in his early works, Llach's songwriting has largely evolved from the more basic early compositions to a vastly more complex harmonic and melodic writing...
, as well as members from the Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
and Valencian Community
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
. Grup de Folk and Esquirols were other notable cançó groups.
In the last 20 years rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
has become popular, and a Catalan scene called rock català
Rock català
The term Rock català is used to describe those bands singing in Catalan of any music style, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s.The last years of Spain under Franco were shattered by a generation of singers that claimed and called for democracy...
has appeared. Some very popular groups are Lax'n'Busto
Lax'n'Busto
Lax'n'Busto are a pop-rock group formed in 1986 in El Vendrell, Catalonia.-Discography:* 1989: "Vas de punt ...o què!!!"* 1991: "Lax´N´Busto"* 1992: "Vas de punt ...o què!!!" without banned song "Carme Flavià".* 1993: "Qui ets tu?"...
, Sau
Sau
SAU may stand for:*Saint Ambrose University*Social Affairs Unit*Southern Adventist University*Southern Arkansas University*Southern Arkansas University Tech*Spring Arbor University*Sindh Agriculture UniversitySau is also the name of:...
, Els Pets
Els Pets
Els Pets is a Catalan pop rock band with lead singer, composer and guitarist Lluís Gavaldà from the village of Constantí . Joan Reig plays drums and Falin Cáceres bass. At present, the band has the collaboration of the musicians Joan-Pau Chaves , David Muñoz and Brad Jones...
or Sopa de Cabra
Sopa de Cabra
Sopa de Cabra was a musical group from Girona, Catalonia, Spain, active from 1986 to 2002. They are considered to be one of the leading representatives of the rock català movement, though the band preferred not to be placed in the same category as other Catalan-language groups, some of whom had...
.
In the wake of Mano Negra
Mano Negra
Mano Negra was a music band in France, during 1987–1995, fronted by Manu Chao.The band, founded in 1987 by Chao, his brother Antoine, and his cousin Santiago Casariego in Paris, France, was very influential in Europe during the early 1990s. Although it reached mainstream success in countries...
and Manu Chao
Manu Chao
Manu Chao , is a French singer of Spanish roots . He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Galician, Arabic and Portuguese and occasionally in other languages...
's success, Catalonia has also produced a number of popular fusion and world music bands, such as Dusminguet or Cheb Balowski
Cheb Balowski
Cheb Balowski is a Spanish musical group of ten singers in Spanish, Catalan, and Arabic. They formed in Barcelona, 2000.- Discography :*Bartzeloona *Potiner *Plou Plom ...
.
Ojos de Brujo
Ojos de Brujo
Ojos de Brujo is a nine-piece band from Barcelona, Spain, who describe their style as "jipjop flamenkillo"...
, a band from Barcelona merging traditional flamenco with hip-hop, has also become popular.
Singing in Catalan has received a boost in the 21st due to the success of lots of Catalan indie bands that are springing up in many genres, such as pop (Mazoni, Glissando*, Sanjosex, Mishima
Mishima (band)
Mishima is a Catalan Indie pop band created in 1999 in Barcelona. It is composed by David Carabén, Marc Lloret, Dani Vega, Xavi Caparrós snd Alfons Serra. The group takes the name of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima....
, Manel
Manel
Manel is an indie pop band from Barcelona who sing in Catalan. They released their first album in 2008. They describe their musical style as a synthesis of pop and folk music...
, Els Amics de les Arts
Els Amics de les Arts
Els Amics de les Arts is a Folk pop catalan band formed in Barcelona in 2005.Their first album Catalonautes was auto-edited in 2005. They woin the Best group award in the Sona 9, a contest for new Catalan bands...
, Antònia Font
Antònia Font
Antònia Font is a Majorcan band, formed in 1997. They are characterized by their festive music and their humorous and fantastic lyrics. The group's creative universe includes elements such as outer space and astronautics, combined with themes from everyday life...
), hip-hop (At Versaris, Guillamino), and so on.