Anybody visiting Catalonia, the northeast corner of Spain, is likely to see people gathered in squares or on promenades, espadrilles neatly tied, holding hands in circles and performing a sedate dance. Circles expand as more people join in and when they become too large, others are formed like replicating cells.
Visitors may be tempted to join in, but the sardana is not quite as simple as it looks. The serious demeanour of the dancers who hop and step first in one direction and then the other, is caused by meticulous counting of the bars that will ensure that their long and short steps are synchronised and that they reach the end on the correct foot.
Church Origins
The sardana, which is danced every Sunday outside Barcelona Cathedral, originates in the Empordà region of Catalonia. It is not known when it began but it used to be played outside churches after certain services, presided over by a priest and accompanied by a trio playing bagpipes, cornet and pipe and drum.
Change came in the 19th century, largely through the work of Pep Ventura (1819-75), who grew up in Roses and Figueres where he learnt to play simple reed flutes. As his influence grew, he started experimenting with the local cobla or band. In this, he was greatly influenced by Antoni Turon, a native of Perpignon just over the border in French Catalonia, who had been developing an oboe-like instrument called the tenora.
The City Museum in Girona shows how these instruments evolved, from large recorder-like pipes of the shepherds to the silver-plated tenores of the great players.
National Identity
Ventura lived at the time of the Renaixença, when Catalonia was rediscovering its identity, and he was vehemently opposed to using any music outside the region. Instead he adopted popular Catalan songs (some sardanes are sung) as well as composing many tunes of his own. Among his most famous is El Cant dels Ocells (Birdsong), which the cellist Pau Casals often played.
Complementing the line-up of innovators was Miquel Pardas from Torroella de Montgrí who choreographed the music. A plaque in Torroella’s main square commemorates the first sardana, which was danced there in 1844.
The Cobla Band
Today’s cobla is made up of 11 players. The leader, seated, plays the fabiol, a three-holed pipe, and taps out the rhythm on a tabal, a small drum attached to his elbow. The players of the woodwind tenoras and smaller tibles are also seated. Standing behind them are the brass players on on trompeta, fiscorn and trombó. A contrabiax, or double bass, completes the band.
The idea is that the woodwind instruments assume a kind of soprano role and the brass takes the tenor in a continual dialogue, with the woodwind asking the questions and the brass replying. Each tube lasts just over ten minutes, and in an audació, which is a nirnak performance, there will be half a dozen tunes. An aplec involves three or four cobles and lasts all day.
La Principat de Bisbal, from La Bisbal d’Empordà is one of the top cobles. They are the official band for the regional government, the Generalitat de Catalunya.
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