Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Since 1880, Casa Beethoven has been a pilgrimage site
for musicians of every genre,
fans of classical, blues and pop.
But today we've come to look for something special.
This could be interesting because you've got this pile of music.
Yes, we're interested in anything...
from 1800,to Noucentisme, Modernism...
Those Catalan musicians we have to go back and discover.
Great, look at this!
There are folders full of mystery
which I haven't checked in years.
POPULAR CATALAN DANCES
How many forgotten stories are hidden in these folders,
which are so full of melodies yet sit here in silence?
Marina likes to come here to shuffle through papers.
She knows these works are more than just a legacy of another era.
It's like a magical tableau, like a catalogue of feelings.
We find all these scores,
which have survived the passing fashions and trends
and have left a written record of those four pillars of humanity:
life, death, love...
And they have survived that passage of time.
They're here, and if one wants, one can reconstruct them and read them,
one can bring them back to life.
Anyone who wants to.
Marina Rossell, apart from being a person who charms people
with her sweet madness, is a very intelligent woman.
And she knows a lot about the songs.
She knows what they are about.
She's looking into what the songs from her homeland are about.
The interesting thing to me
is that she restores them as if she's washed them with soap.
They become all clean, transparent, translucent.
That is helped by the voice Marina has, which is like pure water.
I think she's recovered them
and given them back a more personal and human dimension.
And I'm sure that's what the person that wrote them was thinking.
We've suddenly discovered
that there's a world full of intensity, beauty,
and suggestive force.
It's very important to be aware of the truths,
and why those songs have such an enigmatic spell.
And Marina has a very special sensitivity for these things.
She has a little antenna that comes out automatically.
Like a flower.
Days, ideas and love, that burn like fire,
days,ideas and love that pass like a game.
Blue days, of warm earth,
but cool is the rain knocking on your heart:
Blue days, of warm earth,
but cool is the rain knocking on your heart:
soul of the earth
soul of the earth
and life is: delicious.
The old scores are like a treasure map which we can discover.
We begin the treasure hunt.
The first leg of our quest takes us to Cabanes,
a village in Alt Empordà, where we're hope to learn something.
These songs from the 20th century, Noucentisme, and Modernism
that I've come across in the last ten years,
made me want to go deeper and really get inside the subject,
to get both hands dirty
and seize this material, these scores and versions,
in the places where they were created,
to see how they were structured and the atmosphere that inspired them.
And I felt a spontaneous but deliberate need
to be able to learn about them, to be able to revisit them,
by getting inside them in an almost irrational way.
When I've done that, I won't be able to do anything
but savour that period and these melodies.
Not many people know that this square in Cabanes
has a very significant place in the history in popular music.
Both Josep Pla and Victor Català
explain how one of the most magical and beautiful things
that can happen to you in this life
is to hear, of an evening, in any little village square,
"Per tu ploro".
I can invite you now to hear it where it was first heard
133 years ago.
At around five in the evening on the 25th of January 1875,
an old cobla musician arrived in this village square:
Josep Maria Ventura i Casas. Known as Pep Ventura,
he was 57 years old, a distinguished gentleman.
He came in a sprung cart, accompanied by his musicians.
About the same number of musicians
and the same instruments as used today by the boys and girls
of the Empordà Cobla from Castelló d'Empúries.
That's great. A beautiful instrument.
It's like a dulzaina.
Here on the back, if you look, it says who made it.
The manufacturer.
How long have you had it?
I've had it about eight years,
but this instrument is around 65 years old.
Ventura was considered the inventor of the modern cobla.
He was himself a renowned shawm player.
An instrument which had been redesigned
only 25 years earlier in Perpignan by the craftsman, Andreu Turon.
That winter afternoon in 1875,
the square in Cabanes was full of people.
They wanted Ventura to perform the latest sardana he had written.
He called it "L'enamorada".
But the reason behind the title was an enigma.
The piece enjoyed phenomenal success which Ventura never got to see.
He died exactly two months later.
But the fame of that melody was unstoppable.
Especially when Joan Maragall gave it lyrics and another title,
"Per tu ploro".
But what is hidden behind the original title "L'enamorada"?
The musicologist Anna Costal investigated.
There are various possibilities.
Maybe it was a cobla which Pep Ventura had to leave,
because of differences, they separated.
They say it was because of his son, that they didn't get on
and they had to break up the cobla.
Or it could have been the title of a zarzuela.
-This is a very lyrical melody. -It was the period.
And at that time, he was writing sardanas
about subjects from operas and zarzuelas.
Or it could be, because it was written in 1874
at the end of the First Republic and the subsequent Bourbon restoration,
that he was sad that the First Republic, his "enamorada",
should end after such a short time.
It lasted less than one year, just a few months.
So it could be the first ever protest sardana in history.
But the romantic myth paints Ventura as a mystical figure.
And the origins of the long sardana as a high level dance.
It seems the reality was different.
Pep Ventura is a name you see in many village squares
and there's a metro station in Barcelona.
Born in Andalusia, he became a mythical
and a legendary figure.
What can you tell us about Pep Ventura?
He was a federalist republican, like many of the people in Figueras
which was the federalist capital for the whole Iberian peninsular.
And the sardana was one more element of federalist republican propaganda
charged with...
There were sardanas with cannon fire, with bellicose sounds.
They reflected the sounds of the period.
Probably quite different from those very moral, composed sardanas
which Joan Maragall knew.
And those more bourgeois, early 20th century sardanas.
The 19th century sardanas were republican, industrial, working class...
Stained with blood.
Yes, because that was the period they came from.
Good-bye, April rose,
good-bye, red rose
tomorrow, far from your rose-tree,
of yearning I shall die,
When you are told about my end
cry for me since I cry for you,
cry for me more sweetly,
for your cry is not bitter.
Wipe your tears away. Do not cry much,
because the passing air would make you wither.
Do not cry at all, do not cry, do not.
For you and for me, I, who can cry much better.
Do not cry at all, do not cry, do not.
For you and for me, I, who already know, can cry
much better.
"L'emigrant" will always be relevant.
Because it let's us see what it means to have had to,
for different reasons, leave where you originally come from.
Farewell, brothers,
farewell my father,
I'll see you no more!
While Pep Ventura was composing "l'enamorada" in Figueras,
in the port of Barcelona, a young poet and priest
was boarding a ship which would take him to Cádiz
where he became chaplain on the steamer Guipúzcoa
for the Marquess of Comillas's transatlantic shipping company.
During two years, he made the journey to Cuba several times.
It was probably on that first trip that the poet Jacint Verdaguer
wrote the poem "L'emigrant".
But Verdaguer only provided the words.
Antoni Ros Marbà is an authority on the author of that music.
A lot of people don't know who composed "L'emigrant".
The composer was, obviously, Amadeu Vives.
And people might think:
"How can the composer of "L'emigrant"
then write pieces like "Doña Francisquita" and "Bohemios""?
That just goes to show the versatility of this compositor
who was also one of the creators of the Catalan Choral Society.
The men's choir from the Catalan Choral Society sang "L'emigrant"
for the first time on 8th of April, 1894
It was a success from its first night.
We know that Vives congratulated Verdaguer for the piece's success,
and the poet just said: "My part, the words, aren't important.
Words are just the coat hangers for the music."
It is true that both Verdaguer and Vives,
created this piece during diffilcult times in their lives.
Perhaps "L'emigrant" isn't only about missing your homeland.
When Verdaguer and Amadeu Vives composed "L'emigrant",
they had both just lost their mother.
I feel that it contains that feeling of the death of their mothers.
But there is also a farewell to childhood,
missing childhood, like you get homesick for your country.
Oh! I wish I could lay
in the grave where
my dear mother lies.
When you start a project or a journey,
you don't know where the wind will take you.
But what you do know, and want,
is that I twill blow in your favour and take you to a safe port.
I think the wind has been kind to me
but I've always had to raise the sails and use the wind.
Oh, sailors
the wind drives me to exile,
makes me suffer!
I am afflicted, alas!
Take me back ashore,
for there I want to die.
One of the pieces which Marina has rediscovered
is the sardana "El cavaller enamorat".
With words and music by Joan Manén.
Manén was a famous violinist and composer
who was writing operas by the age of 16.
There's a square named after him in Germany.
Not many people know him here.
This was unavailable until recently.
perhaps since that record...
- "Clàssics Catalans"? -Exactly.
The piece was re-released, but until very recently,
it wasn't easy to find, almost impossible.
-Hey, Marc! -Good morning.
How are you?
-I'm so pleased to see you! -Same here.
But the scores are only a routemap to get to the song.
You have to go via the kitchen and the study.
Marc Parrot produced the record "Clàssics Catalans"
which features 20 songs.
-We'll look on the hard drive. -No.
-We can do it directly. -Yes.
The songs are rebuilt again.
They grow again.
From a girl suffers the knight,
so sad and in love, that he loses his being.
He contemplates from a distance the sombre outline of her castle,
and night after night, he rides around it.
Finding the songs in this register means that,
to me at least, you want to get closer to them.
You want to rediscover them and feel them
as part of your history.
They say that when a song is good,
you can do different versions of it and it will always work.
Marina Rossell decides to do very meticulous, faithful versions.
A time will come where you will yearn the one who only for you has been,
a knight in love,
-Very good- -It went well.
Fantastic, Marina. We've got it.
We all know the song "Rosó"
which, to me, is like "0 Sole mio", "Pel teu amor".
But we know very little about it.
We know the author, Josep Ribas, and the period, but little else.
Little by little we found out.
The 22nd of February 1923,
a very special visitor arrived in Barcelona.
Due to a misunderstanding, nobody collected him from the station.
It was Albert Einstein, and he was offered a dinner in his honour.
In his diary, he noted that his favourite part of the evening
was the soprano Andreua Fornells singing Catalan songs.
And one song in particular.
To know more about that song,
we're going to Torroella de Montgrí, in Baix Empordà.
A maid from the East Coast,
as the clear light exploded in the horizon...
In the Mediterranean museum they have preserved the piano
on which a local musician composed a sardana in 1921
which he dedicated to friend who was captain of a boat.
The title "Llevantina".
If there is a song which contains thelight of the Mediterranean,
that blue, transparent light, it's "Llevantina".
The author of "Llevantina" was Vicenç Bou i Geli.
He played the flabiol and led the cobla known as Els Montgrins.
Born in Torroella in 1885,
Bou was famous for the ease with which he invented melodies
and seduced the girls.
But his musical knowledge was very rudimentary.
The keyboard shows us
that he only needed a couple of octaves to compose his sardanas.
We can see that Bou only used these two octaves,
the middle section of the piano,
to compose those beautiful melodies.
Look, the most worn keys are these ones in the middle.
Look, Marina.
I wanted to show you what we keep here in the Mediterranean museum.
It is the archive of the maestro, Vicenç Bou.
These are photographs of different moments in Bou's life.
Here he is as a young man.
Here he's a little older, at the piano.
The piano on which he composed his...
-The one I just saw? -Yes.
The one we have in the museum.
His beret.
This is one of the personal items which went everywhere with him.
At that time, the mid 20th century...
-Our grand fathers. -They all wore berets.
Like young people now wear caps.
Exactly. It's a tradition which has died out now.
Here's another interesting object, a tuning fork.
For tuning the music.
It still works.
And we also have some other things.
These glasses are also interesting.
Spectacles which Bou wore towards the end of his life.
-They're like Lennon's. -Yes, John Lennon.
Ramon Ribera and Joan Serracant wrote the words for "Llevantina".
That and other sardanas by Bou like "El saltiró de la cardina"
were very popular on Avenue Paralelo in the 1920s
with the voice of Mercè Serós, Raquel Meller, Conxita Supervia
and Einstein's favourite, Andreua Fornells.
It's the feeling of being in front of an old piano
which contains an epic song.
And especially being so close to a space,
to such a small space, which the author breathed.
Bou was here and breathing in the same feelings we are now.
Listen, my beauty,
the most beloved maid,
Listen, my beauty,
never shall I forget you.
Do not forget, do not forget,
the most constant love,
do not forget, do not forget,
the holy and pure love,
Eastern Maid, Eastern Maid,
I will always be faithful and in my eyes you will see a heaven
which lives the joy of the divine peace again,
Albert Einstein was not the only celebrity to be seduced
by the songs and sardanas of the period.
Igor Stravinski, fascinated by Juli Garreta,
wrote a sardana which is now lost.
Thomas Mann spoke of "that strange circle dance, the sardana"
in "The Magic Mountain". And there were others.
But today, it's a little known repertoire.
There were two ruptures.
Francoism and modernisation.
And popular and traditional culture got left behind.
It began to start from scratch again in Catalan culture in the '60s.
There was a disrespect for tradition,
an unwillingness in intellectual circles to look at what we had.
It was very intelligent to rediscover that vision of...
what we might call the songs of the modernist period.
Because at the time, The Catalan bourgeoisie
was very open to inheriting the folkloric popular tradition.
But they were also trying to convey their level of education.
The level of musical knowledge
they acquired from the conservatory and the finest academies.
That kind of communicative flow that occurred in Catalonia
between the highbrow and the popular
created possibilities which later led to Catalan songs
which were healthy and vigorous and could absorb
the work of successive generations.
The majority of those songs have an author behind them,
perhaps someone like Amadeu Vives, in certain cases.
And I think that this rediscovery was very interesting
because there are so many people we don't know from our heritage
who were so important to our culture.
They say the most popular songs
are the ones whose authors we forget the fastest.
"Rosó" is a good example.
Many know the song, hardly anyone knows its history.
Our investigations take us
to the Historical Archives of Barcelona.
Look. Here we've found that "Pel teu amor (Rosó)"
was first performed at the Tívoli Theatre.
On a Thursday night.
The 21st of December, 1922.
It was part of a sainete.
And that was the last sainete performed that evening.
None of the other songs survived But "Pel teu amor (Rosó)"
is still with us today.
The author of the words was Miquel Poal Aragall.
We know little about the composer, Josep Ribas i Gabriel,
born in Gracia, Barcelona, in 1884.
As well as danceable music,
he composed six other sainetes like the one with the famous aria.
Thursday was the premiere of "Rosó"
and on the Saturday the review "The Voice of Catalonia" came out,
but the critic at the time didn't like it much.
He said it lacked personality and imitated Puccini.
Although he does state that the singers, a Mrs Bugatto
and Emili Vendrell, were great
and that they repeated thes ong and it was a hit.
That was 86 years ago.
The mythical tenor, Emili Vendrell, performed the piece.
He was a builder discovered by the Catalan Choral Society.
We know that Lluís Millet, the society's director, was angry
because he thought it was frivolous to perform a zarzuela at the Tívoli.
But no other piece brought Emili as much popularity as "Rosó".
Painting a picture of patches of light and shade in the courtyard gardens
or the covered balconies of the Eixample district,
that is what "Rosó" and the songs of that period sound like to me.
A light of the urban bourgeoisie of Barcelona,
but which conveys a love for the simplicity of popular songs
and can make it accessible to everyone
with musical knowledge.
Held enthralled at all times
by your voice so clear
that drives away evil thoughts
and on goodness only calls
for it is fresh and it is gentle
and a boundless source of poetry
and it seems under the blue sky
that our hearts are gladdened.
So, now that you hold me enthralled
one day and then another
and it feels so fine
Rose, oh my Rose,
would you want to be mine,
Rose, Rose,
light of my life!
Rose, Rose,
do not destroy my dream!
But the music of our roots is not a language of the past.
It's a language for today, for explaining things to people today.
An art which is constantly re-inventing itself.
Taking tunes from these old songs, Marina has written new ones.
"Mother of God of the World" was because I wanted
to bring something personal from my contemporary world,
from my everyday life, to all those religious songs from that time.
And it's a song which aims to be
an ecumenical religious song for all religions.
Mother of God of the World
let life give us a little, a little of all
Let it make us better, let it cleanse our hearts.
Mother of God of the World.
Mother of God of the World Let the sky be blue
and comfort us for all.
In our hearts let love overcome all.
Mother of God of the World.
And I will have a prayer close, close to my heart.
Close, close to my heart.
Close, close to my heart.
And I will have a prayer close, close to my heart.
Close, close to my heart.
Close, close to my heart.
And I will have a prayer close, close to my heart.
Close, close to my heart.
And a candle as well.
We've been on a journey to find the soundtrack
to a period which has survived through its art.
Because good songs never go away.
Borges said that once books have been written, if they're good,
they no longer belong to the author.
The same is true of these songs which belong to the people.
good-bye, red rose...
We don't sing the songs,
the songs sing to us.
"Per tu ploro" is one of my favourites.
Because the melody is very beautiful.
And the "Llevantina" because of the story,
apart from having a gorgeous melody, it's very dramatic.
And as I said, I would never have stopped to think what it was saying.
So all of a sudden it's like a kind of rediscovery.
Rose of April,
Dark-skinned Madonna of the hills,
Star of Montserrat:
The magic in these songs is their simplicity.
The fact that they're pieces of music which don't have.
pretensions to highbrow music,
makes it music which tries to connect.
Listen, my beauty,
the most beloved maid,
Listen, my beauty,
Shall I never forget you.
I love "Llevantina" because my grandma used to sing it at home,
and it's one of those things you remember from childhood.
WheneverI hear it, it sends me back to being little.
That's what music can do, like Proust's madeleine.
It's immeasurably important
to recover the truths of the past and the songs.
So that they can exist in the future.
So that our languages have possibilities
to enchant ears, our own and other people's.
We've been following the trail of a whole series of songs
which we want to live on.
And I'm standing next to a tree, a ginkgo biloba,
which existed on the planet with the dinosaurs.
People say it has a vocation for eternity.
It's a sacred tree.
I've found them in Brazil, lraq, lsrael, Palestine...
I've found them in Mexico, Frankfurt and La Plata in Argentina.
And here are a few seeds ready to be planted,
as if they were a new song.
I'd like the wind to carry me to the placidity of living,
to the recognition that we have to enjoy things now
while we're living life, not once it's over,
so we don't regret things we weren't able to do.