Folk and Popular Music
Originally from the Northern areas, Sardanes are popular dances, were especially widespread at the end of the 19th 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), galops, 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-songwriters 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 (Antònia Font, Manel, Els Amics de les Arts, Mishima, Sanjosex), hip-hop (At Versaris, Guillamino), and so on.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Catalonia
Famous quotes containing the words folk, popular and/or music:
“An’ when the earth’s as cauld’s the mune
An’ a’ its folk are lang syne deid,
On coontless stars the Babe maun cry
An’ the Crucified maun bleed.”
—Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)
“If the Union is now dissolved it does not prove that the experiment of popular government is a failure.... But the experiment of uniting free states and slaveholding states in one nation is, perhaps, a failure.... There probably is an “irrepressible conflict” between freedom and slavery. It may as well be admitted, and our new relations may as be formed with that as an admitted fact.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Nearly all the bands are mustered out of service; ours therefore is a novelty. We marched a few miles yesterday on a road where troops have not before marched. It was funny to see the children. I saw our boys running after the music in many a group of clean, bright-looking, excited little fellows.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)