Topic: Seminal Influences - Tribute
The immediate impact of seminal arrangements of songs is imitation. Later, once artists have absorbed their innovations and created their own styles, they pay tribute to those who influenced them. In 1967 the Orfeó Enric Morera recorded some songs popularized by Joan Baez.
Manuel Oltra’s a capella arrangement of "Kumbaya" alternated a burden sung by the entire group with verses sung by a soprano accompanied by the group. During the first verse, the group hummed while a few men sang a rhythm. In the second verse, the tenors took over the melody and the women sang another part. In the final stanza the group sang a counter melody with "oh oh" to the female solo. The burdens relied upon parallel harmony that diverged toward the ends of each line.
Baez’s influence was less in the way the song was sung, than in the mere fact it was sung at all. Catalonia had been invaded by Francisco Franco’s troops toward the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. After the war, "thousands of Republicans were imprisoned and at least 30,000 executed." Others fled to France or Chile. [1]
The chorale group was organized in a small town near Barcelona in 1951. Leonardo Balada remembered:
"I was a member with my friends, a group of idealistic individuals, of an amateur chorus, the Orfeó Enric Morera, where classical music and folk-inspired Catalan compositions were sung. Belonging to that choral group was also for us a defiant expression against the repressive regime of the dictator Francisco Franco, who had prohibited any free press or liberal expression. Franco, a shrewd politician, did not forbid the existence of those musical organizations which were harmless to his regime and worked as a release valve to minimise political upheaval." [2]
The other three songs on the Baez album included a joyous "Battle Hymn of the Republic," disguised as a traditional Irish "Himne" or hymn. [3] The Child ballad "Geordie" narrated a woman’s failure to save her lover from being hung for poaching the king’s deer, while "Once I Had a Sweetheart," translated as "Un Amor Tenía," was a lament for a lover who never returned.
If "Kumbaya" contained any political connotations, they must have come from the association of the song with the Civil Rights and peace movements in the United States. The verses were sung in Catalan with senyor for Lord. [4] I’m fairly sure the last verse was "cántame" or "sing to me." Another may have been "I sing of God" or "Canto de Déu." The other may also have begun with the word "sing." They were not straight translations of Baez’s "crying" and "praying."
Performers
Vocal Soloists: soprano and group of tenors
Vocal Group: Orfeó Enric Morera
Vocal Director: Antoni Coll
Instrumental Accompaniment: none
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
(C) 1967 Picap [5]
Cant Espiritual Negre
Arrangement: Manuel Oltra [6]
Notes on Lyrics
Language: Catalan
Term for Deity: senyor
Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Repetition Pattern: AxAxAxA
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: alternated strophic repetitions of the burden with harmonic variations in the verses.
Singing Style: simple harmony with no ornamentation; when a syllable was sung on several notes it was sung by the entire group.
Notes on Performers
The chorale group was organized in Sant Just Desvern and named for Enric Morera i Viura, a friend of one of the organizers. [7] Morera was born in Barcelona in 1865 and became "prominent in the movement Catalan Musical Modernism." [8]
Antoni Coll i Cruells, the director when the recording was made, came from the Catalan village of Centelles. He studied in Barcelona and Rome, before becoming a music teacher. Simultaneously, he directed several choral groups.[9]
The album’s chorale arranger was born in Valencia to parents who moved to Barcelona when he was young. Manuel Oltra i Ferrer became a professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatori Superior de Música. He also was active in folklore organizations and "developed a remarkable work in which popular influence predominates, in the form of harmonization of traditional songs (interpreted by most Catalan choral formations)." [10]
Leonardo Balada Ibáñez studied piano at the Conservatori Superior de Música, before immigrating to the United States in 1956. He now teaches at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Balada wrote Guernica for orchestra in 1966, and since has combined folk dance rhythms and folk harmonies with atonality. [11]
As mentioned in the post for 9 October 2017, Baez did not perform in Barcelona until after Franco died in 1975.
Availability
EP 45: Els Èxits De Joan Baez. Edigsa CM 182. 1967. [12]
YouTube: uploaded by Altafonte Music Distribution S.L. on 23 June 2015.
End Notes
1. Wikipedia. "Spanish Civil War." Quotation from Giles Tremlett. "Spain Torn on Tribute to Victims of Franco." The Guardian, 1 December 2003.
2. Leonardo Balada. Note on a recording of "No-res" and "Ebony Fantasies." Translated by Susannah Howe. Naxos Records website.
3. "Orfeó Enric Morera - Els Èxits De Joan Baez." Discogs website.
4. Catalan spelling and translations from Google Translate.
5. YouTube notes.
6. Discogs.
7. "Orfeó Enric Morera." Sant Just website.
8. Wikipedia. "Enric Morera i Viura."
9. "Antoni Coll i Cruells." Sant Just website.
10. "Manuel Oltra i Ferrer." Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana website. Quotation translated by Google Translate.
11. Wikipedia. "Leonardo Balada."
12. Discogs.
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