‘The memories of my childhood in Argentina always bring me back to the
singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat, synonymous with shared family
moments . . . Serrat’s poetry and music around a barbecue in Argentina;
“De vez en cuando la vida” made me cry as it has made millions of
people cry in Latin America, Spain and elsewhere . . . Joan Manuel
Serrat is part of our life, he is our Jacques Brel! . . . Or, if we
project ourselves back to the sixteenth century, he is in a sense our
little Camerata Fiorentina, that movement of Italian poets and musicians
in Florence. Serrat has allowed the whole of Latin America and Spain to
reappropriate the works of its poets . . . He has also been synonymous
with freedom and the struggle against dictatorial regimes.
‘His song “Mediterraneo” is one of the emblematic pieces of his career.
It is almost a hymn that has special resonance nowadays: “I was born in
the Mediterranean”!
‘I asked my good friend Quito Gato to arrange these songs for our
ensemble, Cappella Mediterranea. The orchestration retains typical
seventeenth-century instruments: recorders, cornett, violins, viola da
gamba, cellos, lutes, harp, harpsichord, organ, with some percussion and
a double bass.
‘These period instruments allow us to travel back in time and compare
Serrat’s romances with the Ensaladas of Mateo Flecha (1481-1553) – La
Bomba – or a piece by Francesco Valls, a Catalan who is now forgotten
yet was one of the greatest composers of seventeenth-century Spain, the
polyphony of Guillaume Dufay, a composition by Juan Cabanilles that
recalls a Bach Passion. The Xacaras, a satirical genre from the Spanish
Golden Age (Francisco Gómez de Quevedo, Pedro Calderón de la Barca)
dialogues with Serrat’s works. As does the Música callada of the Catalan
composer Frederic Mompou, transcribed here for the harp.’ (Leonardo García Alarcón)
thanks!
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