There had never been as much talk as now about the popular songbook transmitted by oral tradition, that body of tunes linked to the tasks of the field and other necessities of pre-industrial life, but the truth is that Maria del Mar Bonet He has paid attention to her since the beginning of her career. Pieces like ‘Cançó d’es collir olives’ (which is “un art perillós”, warns the lyrics) or ‘Cançó d’es segar’ have always accompanied her, and this Friday and Saturday, at the Center Artesà Tradicionàrius, he will give them life again in two recitals in homage to the one who brought them together and ordered them, the Franciscan Father Rafael Ginard (1899-1976).
These songs remained in the environment, barely preserved by the peasants, when Maria del Mar Bonet was a child, but the work of the Father Ginard with his ‘Cançoner popular de Mallorca’, edited in four volumes between 1966 and 1974. A work that represents the most extensive existing songbook in Catalan and which brings together some 15,000 lyrics. “Songs from the countryside, to make children sleep or ballads to dance, which in each town were sung in their own way, because no two people sing the same & rdquor ;, explains the artist. “Those interpreters were not professionals, but the songs were alive, and they came and went & rdquor ;.
yesterday’s world
Related news
She had the opportunity not only to meet Rafael Ginard, when she accompanied her father, Joan Bonet, a journalist, to interview him at the convent of Artà (Mallorca), but also to listen to those songs from the mouths of genuine singers of country tunes such as Biel. des Cantó and Madó Buades, although in those times “the songs no longer did their job”. Because that repertoire “tells us about a world that no longer exists”, she points out. “With the mechanization of agricultural work and the noise of the machinery, the singing stopped. The meaning of the songs was to accompany the work & rdquor ;.
In these recitals, entitled ‘Saba de terrer’ (like the traditional repertoire album she published in 1979) and programmed by the Tradicionàrius and Barnasants festivals, the troubadour will bring together these pieces and other supported by the piano and accordion of Dani Espasa and the guitar of Borja Penalba. Double appointment integrated into its active 2021-22 season, in which, after opening the Barcelona Jazz Festival at the Palau and going through the Mil lenni in Santa Maria del Mar, the appointment at the next Primavera Sound awaits.