The Three Miquels Of Pollensa

The La Patrona fiestas start in Pollensa tomorrow. The first concert for this season's Pollensa Festival is staged on Sunday. The fiestas and festival commencement have coincided for many years, while they have also been events to cause the happy coincidence of the involvement of great names from Mallorca's literary and arts worlds and specifically Pollensa's literary and arts worlds. (I should point out that coincidence does not only imply chance occurrences. It can simply mean to happen at the same time or a drawing together of two things. Put an imaginary hyphen after the "co" and the stress and therefore meaning is quite different: co-incidence.)

Of those who have been party to this co-incidence, there is, as one example, Miquel Capllonch. For the generally uninitiated, he is the giver of his name to Puerto Pollensa's square, albeit no one really refers to the Plaça Miquel Capllonch, preferring the more mundane church or market square. Capllonch, a native of Pollensa, is and has been celebrated by both the festival and Patrona. His music has been performed at the festival, while he holds a very special place in the traditions of Patrona; one tradition in particular, the dawn chorus awakening of the "alborada" on the day of Mare de Déu dels Àngels, the day of La Patrona, the day of the Moors and Christians.

At 5am on the morning of 2 August, a silence is meant to descend on Pollensa. It is a silence to emphasise the reverence given to the playing of the alborada. Capllonch is typically associated with the alborada, and rightly so, but he was not the original composer. He was 21 in 1882 when it was performed for the first time; at the start, therefore, of his career as one of Mallorca's foremost musicians - composer, organist, pianist. He reinterpreted the original that had been the work of a Galician, Nicolas de Castro.

If the co-incidence of Capllonch with both festival and Patrona might be somewhat incidental, the same cannot be said of Miquel Bota Totxo. If at some point prior to his death at the age of 84 in 2005 the question had been asked who was the greatest living "pollencin", the answer almost certainly would have been Bota. He was a figure from the literary world who bears very great comparison with Alexandre Ballester in neighbouring Sa Pobla. Like Ballester, he became the town's chronicler, while he was also a poet, writer, journalist and dramatist.

When the festival was founded in 1962, Bota was made its vice-president. In 1971, the pregón oration was introduced to the Patrona fiestas for the first time. It was Bota who delivered it. The title was "the angels smile on our peace". Bota's extraordinary contribution to Pollensa life, society and culture touched so many aspects of the town (and also of Mallorca) that it is hard to do them justice. He ranks alongside Miquel Costa i Llobera in terms of his importance to Pollensa's literary tradition.

Costa i Llobera and Miquel Capllonch were the two figures who bequeathed to Pollensa its cultural tradition. Though this tradition was to be firmly established by non-Mallorcans, such as the artists of the "Pollensa school" and the violinist Philip Newman, these two pollencins were the ones who laid the foundations of what eventually became the festival, while Costa i Llobera is intimately associated with Patrona. At the closing of the fiestas, his "song of joys" features along with a further interpretation of the alborada and the singing of "Visca Pollença". It is fitting that this year's Patrona celebrations will include an open evening at the family home - Can Llobera - now restored and due to house the town's library, and among its documents and books will be works by Bota Totxo.

The three Miquels of Pollensa. Someone ought to write a book.

MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa Festival concert threatened by orchestra strike

The first concert of the Pollensa Festival on 3 August may not take place. As part of the ongoing protest against the uncertainties of finance for the Balearics Symphony Orchestra, and indeed of its whole future, members of the orchestra have announced a strike for that day. If the concert doesn't go ahead, the orchestra will still perform on 10 August at the festival. The 3 August concert is due to also feature the guitarist Gabriel Estarellas.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

The Honest Serving Men Of The Pollensa Festival

History cannot be defined purely by two points in time. Obsessing as to dates is an obsession with temporal factuality. An end date may denote a closing, as in someone dying, but it is never a true closing. The same is the case with a start date. One can apply only some of Kipling's six honest serving men to historical start and end points. Who, where, when and what can each apply. How and why, however, cannot be applied; they demand explanation.

Mallorca's history has been packaged into easily-digested nuggets that are in a constant state of regurgitation. These are small bags of mini-snackettes residing on an internet convenience-store shelf. They are history-lite for the searcher and surfer after factual-truth start, end or happened points in time that are of little more consequence than answers in a pub quiz. The honest serving men of who, where, when and what are not dishonest, but there is a dishonesty that stems from the all-too-often absence of the how and why honest serving men, the ones who reach beyond, behind and inside the polarities of the temporal factuality. 

We know, as examples, the happened points in time of the Romans coming and of King Jaume I coming. We therefore know the start and end points in time of Roman occupation and of Jaume's Mallorcan lineage. But what do we really know of the hows and whys? Or of the pre and post points in time?

The internet has given us these factoid nuggets. They are there for all to see on all sorts of sites. They are convenient and they are comfortable; comfortable because the surfer after factual truth can take comfort in a little knowledge not going very far. He doesn't really want any more. Normally.

I'll give another example, one that can be easily found, as it is so readily repeated in the web's convenience store. The Pollensa Festival. We know the where - Pollensa; we know the what - the festival; we know the when - September 1962; we know the who - Philip Newman. We know that Newman founded the festival and that its start point was September 1962. But then what? There are two missing questions. How did he come to found it and, more obviously, who the hell was Philip Newman?

There is a street in Pollensa town which bears Newman's name. Below the name of the street the sign reads "hijo adoptivo". Newman was an adoptive son of the town, thanks to the festival. But his adoption was the result of only a relatively short period in time. The pre point to the start point of the Pollensa Festival goes back only some months. The end point (where Newman was concerned) was a mere four years after the start point. He died in November 1966.

Newman was adopted because he became revered in Pollensa, and this reverence is reflected in the scant explanations that wrap themselves around the Newman-Festival factoid nugget. Oft repeated, they amount to little more than a declaration that he was a famous, esteemed, leading (choose whichever adjective you prefer) British violinist.

Newman was a leading violinist. Indeed, he has been described as having been one of the greatest of his time. But famous? Famous to whom? To the British? The answer is no. He was little known in his native country. His fame was cultivated primarily in Belgium (he was close to the royal family), then in Portugal and ultimately in Mallorca.

History is most definitely not the sterility of dates and points-in-time facts. But there is a semantic straightjacket in English which can bring about such sterility; the two separate words of history and story. The Spanish don't make a distinction. Nor, for instance, do the Germans. Stories are history, they are parts of the hows and whys. But of Newman, we know little of these as they apply to the Pollensa Festival.

It is important, beyond merely knowing more about this great man's founding of the festival, that there is an appreciation of the stories that have combined to make Pollensa the arts and cultural centre it has become. Important because the festival itself has widened its scope to embrace different elements of the arts. It is an international festival, and the cosmopolitan roots of the town's arts culture draw not just on a Briton, Newman, but also on artists from Argentina (Diehl and Cittadini).

This is all important because a tradition is threatened. The staggering ineptitude that has been displayed by some actors in the Pollensa Festival story could mean the curtain coming down once and for all. Were it to, then perhaps one might say that a definitive end point had been reached. It would be a fact of the when variety. But unlike the absence of how and why knowledge of Newman's founding of the festival, we will know only too well the hows and whys of its demise. And the whos.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.


Index for June 2013

Advertising words - 13 June 2013
Alcúdia's industrial estate - 6 June 2013
Alcúdia's mini-train - 2 June 2013, 8 June 2013
Balearics' green taxes' climbdown - 5 June 2013
Bild and Playa de Palma - 25 June 2013
Carlos Delgado and Radio Calvia affair - 29 June 2013
Catalan and 2015 elections - 3 June 2013
Cinema and illegal downloading - 24 June 2013
Education ministers - 23 June 2013
Espionage in the Balearics - 14 June 2013
Essex and Mallorca - 17 June 2013
Eurovegas and smoking - 1 June 2013
Haircuts on holiday - 10 June 2013
Hotel receptions' design - 26 June 2013
Hotels and illegal accommodation - 18 June 2013
Mallorca's safety and reliability - 28 June 2013
Management disrespect - 20 June 2013
Moors and Christians nominations - 19 June 2013
Party boats - 4 June 2013
Petitions - 22 June 2013
Philip Newman and the Pollensa Festival - 30 June 2013
Spain and the European Nations Cup - 15 June 2013
Spain.info - 27 June 2013
Summer music - 12 June 2013
Super-reduced rate of IVA - 7 June 2013
Tenancy Act reform and holiday lets - 11 June 2013
Tourism history article - 16 June 2013
Tourism logos - 21 June 2013
Town hall reform - 9 June 2013

Body Talk: Valent and the Pollensa Festival

Every picture tells a story. Every photo is loaded with body language. It's handy that it is. Without knowing precisely the verbal language, one relies on the visual language to tell the story.

The chaos surrounding this year's Pollensa Festival appears to be over. For appearance's sake, two of the main protagonists in this chaos were photographed side by side: Joan Valent, the mightily disgruntled director of last year's festival, next to Tomeu Cifre, Pollensa's mayor. Valent seems willing to accept an offer to be director for a further three years, a new report by the town hall seemingly having put an end to all the insinuations of "anomalies" that arose last year under Valent's directorship and which caused Valent, with good reason, to take considerable umbrage at suggestions, albeit they were only implied, that he had acted with less than total propriety.

Since the previous report was issued which raised these anomalies, the festival's organisation has been all but suspended. It appeared to be unlikely that Valent would return to the fold, so angry was he, and the town hall was saying that there would be a public tender for this year's festival management. For two months though, nothing had happened, until Friday.

Various opposition parties, including the two councillors who are no longer associated with any party, issued a joint statement criticising the inaction. It was perhaps curious to find that Malena Estrany, one of these two councillors, had put her name to this statement. It was, after all, she, as the town's councillor for culture, who had publicised the report which had alleged the anomalies.

Mayor Cifre, who has now taken on responsibility for so much in Pollensa that he is virtually running the town on his own (he has had to because he has been running out of councillors who support him), can't, as a consequence, be expected to do everything swiftly. One of the additional responsibilities that he has assumed is that for culture. Delay there may have been in sorting out the mess over the festival, but on the same day as the joint statement was issued, there was also a meeting at which the mess appeared to be sorted out.

But was everyone at the meeting really happy? Take a look at the photo of the meeting, and the body language speaks volumes. Mayor Cifre appears happy enough, but is this a genuinely happy smile or is it a pasted smile? No one else is smiling to the same extent that the mayor is. The mayor is also holding his wrist with one hand. Too much can of course be read into these things, but this can denote a sign of frustration. The mayor's smile looks as though he is trying too hard.

It is Valent and the member of his production team who really give the game away though. Valent is expressionless, his hand to his chin and mouth. Thoughtfulness combined with suppression. He is in the photo under sufferance, one fancies; there to be seen next to the mayor with the fixed smile. And what of the member of his production team? Arms folded, he doesn't look full of the joys of spring, and Friday was a lovely spring day.

The other three in the photo are Joan Mateu, who has no responsibility at the town hall, Martí Roca, who is now the mayor's right-hand man, and David Alonso, who looks after human resources and IT. Why are at least two of them there at all? Four against two. Mob-handed or safety in numbers or a display of contrition? Hard to say. But note also that Valent and his compatriot have no documents in front of them. They were not there to discuss the festival. They were probably not there to discuss anything, unless it was an apology.

The town hall needed Valent back on board. Its organisation was in a total mess without him. He had already gone some way down the line in contacting participants for events that are due to start in four months time. There could be no more delay.

The town hall has made a pig's ear of the Valent affair. A political climate that has suddenly made transparency, or the attempt at transparency, flavour of the month found Valent caught in the headlights. Wrongly caught. He was one of the last people who the town hall could afford to upset, but upset him is exactly what happened.

For the sake of the festival, one hopes that all is forgiven, but the photo suggests that it might not be. Valent will almost certainly resume his position, but the relationship may not be entirely harmonious.

* The photo can be seen with this article: http://ultimahora.es/mallorca/noticia/noticias/cultura/ajuntament-pollen-ofrece-valent-dirigir-festival-tres-anos.html


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Valent inclined to return as Pollensa Festival director

A joint statement that was issued by members of various opposition parties yesterday bemoaning an apparent lack of movement by Pollensa's mayor, Tomeu Cifre, in settling the organisation for this year's Pollensa Festival either did the trick or was not necessary. The mayor met yesterday with the director of last year's event, Joan Valent, in an attempt to smooth the relationship between Valent and the town hall, which had been damaged, seemingly beyond repair, by a report which had indicated certain anomalies in the running of last year's festival, a report and accusations to which Valent took considerable exception. A new report by the town hall's controller has endorsed Valent's appointment for a further three years and Valent is inclined to accept the offer. The fallout between Valent and the town hall had to do with the nature of financing from sponsors through a private association that Valent had set up. An arrangement for this year and for subsequent years will be made under the auspices of town hall representatives in order to avoid any potential conflicts or doubts in the future.

MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa Festival overtime payments queried

Pollensa town hall paid two employees overtime that amounted to nearly 7,500 euros during last year's Pollensa Festival, one of the employees getting 5,733 euros extra. While normal that there are payments for extra hours, it is not clear if the maximum number of hours of overtime permitted under law were exceeded.

See more: Ultima Hora

MALLORCA TODAY - Dismissal of Estrany in Pollensa called for

The Alternativa per Pollença party is leading the way in calling for Malena Estrany to either be sacked or to resign over the management of this year's Pollensa Festival, the consequence of the town hall's report into last year's festival and apparent criticism of its director (see previous article - http://alcudiapollensa.blogspot.com.es/2013/01/the-bravery-of-joan-valent.html).

See more: Diario de Mallorca

The Bravery Of Joan Valent

Pollensa's festival was able to go ahead last year thanks almost exclusively to the efforts and the contacts of its artistic director, Joan Valent. It was festival-lite as there wasn't any money. Valent is the Catalan word for brave. Joan Valent was brave to have taken on the task of organising the music and cultural festival. Indeed, he was more than that. If one can describe the organisation of a festival as heroic - and to be realistic, one can't - then brave Valent was a hero. So what does he get for his trouble? In his words, humiliation. 

In order to stage the festival, Valent called in favours from his many friends in the arts world, including the British composer and pianist Michael Nyman. He also needed to get substantial financial and sponsorship assistance from the private sector, which he did; from the Camper foundation, for example. However, there was one slight snag with this amassing of private sector funds. They couldn't, for bureaucratic reasons, be paid directly to Pollensa town hall under whose auspices the festival is organised. Instead, this private money went to an association that was set up by Valent expressly for the purpose of receiving the funds. It is this association that is now at the centre of a row that threatens not just Valent's future participation in the festival but possibly also the festival's continuation.

The town hall is going to open up the management of this year's festival, assuming it does happen, to tender. This is in response to "anomalies" that have arisen from the arrangements made for the 2012 festival. These anomalies do not mean any wrongdoing. They relate, so says the town hall's report, to a lack of detailed documentation and a problem with transparency and correct control of funds for public activities caused by the system that was put in place last year.

The trouble is that as soon as the word "anomalies" gets mentioned, it can be interpreted in a way that isn't intended. It is for this reason that Valent feels humiliated.

What is staggering about the whole affair is that Malena Estrany, ostensibly the number two to mayor Tomeu Cifre, despite the total current confusion at the town hall regarding councillor roles, was and maybe still is responsible for both culture and finance. The Pollensa festival clearly brings these two responsibilities together. Yet Sra. Estrany says that last year she and the town hall didn't know about the association until the festival was underway.

This beggars belief. How can the town hall not have known how the funds were being accounted for? If councillors genuinely didn't know, then questions must be raised as to, at minimum, their curiosity. Even if they did know, how else were the funds meant to have been organised, given, as Valent has pointed out, they couldn't go directly to the town hall?

The news of the report regarding the "anomalies" was badly managed. And to make matters worse, and so make Joan Valent even more upset, were remarks about the issuing of free tickets. Too many were given away, it has been alleged. Valent has come back on this one, referring specifically to the ten tickets (rather than the usual four) given to Sir Norman Foster, his family and friends. Foster was the guest of honour at the opening concert, one dedicated to him by Valent. Foster had paid for these people to come to Mallorca and for their stay. Valent, rightly enough, has queried how or why, under such circumstances, he should have refused the six additional free entrances.

And it wasn't only Norman Foster who was paying for his own travel. Valent himself says that he spent upwards of 30,000 euros of his own money in organising the festival, one which, in the end and despite the private-sector generosity of Camper, Barceló and others, was run on a shoestring.

Prior to the town hall's announcement of the tender for this year's festival and to the release of the critical report, Valent had been making progress in contacting various figures from the arts world to participate in this year's festival. One of these is the British author Ian McEwan. Now, arrangements for this year have been thrown into confusion.

There is one final point to make on this affair. Malena Estrany has been at pains to refer to "transparency" in connection with funding. Yet she is a councillor at a town hall which is consistently accused of a lack of transparency. Her argument smacks of expedience, the result of the current turmoil at the town hall, and perhaps it is one that is intended to deflect questions as to why she wasn't more aware of what was happening last year. 


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Problem At Pollensa Bay

"Parker Pyne." "Bath chair for Parker Pyne," the hotel concierge announced.

"What!? Where am I?" The one-time, lesser-known great mind of Agatha Christie's creations was roused from an afternoon snooze by the booming voice of the concierge.

"Pollensa, Pyne. Near the pine walk, Pyne," Wiggins said usefully.

"Did they name it after me? I am very famous, don't you know".

"I think it was named after some pines, Pyne. Pine trees, Pyne."

Wiggins, Pyne's faithful and long-suffering retainer, mopped the cream that had missed the old buffer's mouth and had deposited itself on his chin when he had fallen asleep in mid cream tea. "Dashed fine scones, Wiggins. What a home from home this is. Just like Eastbourne."

"And everyone is just as old as in Eastbourne," muttered Wiggins to himself.

"What? What was that?"

"Nothing, Pyne. Time for your walk. Along the pine walk, Pyne."

"Ah yes. I need to find some problems, Wiggins."

"Why is that, Pyne?"

"It's why I'm here. It's why I've always been here. In Pollensa. Solving a problem at Pollensa Bay. It's why I'm famous, you know."

"You're not really that famous, Pyne. Not like Miss Marple, for example."

"Miss Marple!" exclaimed Pyne, his face reddening with rage. "Ridiculous old trout. Whoever heard of an old maid solving murder mysteries. It's a total nonsense."

"The same person who made you, er, famous, Pyne. And at least Miss Marple did solve murder mysteries. The problem at Pollensa Bay wasn't actually a murder story, was it. All you did was to get a mother and son to see eye to eye when it came to the son's lady friend. Strange then that they should be using 'Problem At Pollensa Bay' to justify all this discussion of the crime novel at the Pollensa Festival. Don't you think, Pyne?"

"What? What are you talking about? It still shows I am famous. Now get this Bath chair moving. I have problems to find."

"Yes, Pyne."

Wiggins wheeled Pyne past the pines. It was a splendid summer's afternoon, but the idyll was shattered by a sudden squelching noise. "I think we may have found your problem, Pyne."

"Dog mess. Not the sort of problem to exercise the wizard mind of Parker Pyne, Wiggins. Wheel on. There must be other problems to unearth, like ... . Look, over there, Wiggins. A foreigner. Call the police immediately."

"I don't think merely being a foreigner is sufficient grounds to merit the attention of the forces of the law, Pyne."

"It would have been in my day, Wiggins. This modern world. It's not like 80 years ago. When things were more civilised, genteel and foreigners knew their place. And ... . Wiggins, what in the name of heaven is this thing coming towards us?"

"It's a mobility scooter, Pyne. A motorised Bath chair."

"And look at this frightful woman, Wiggins. Smoking a cigarette, sunburned to a leathery crisp. What does she look like?"

Pyne stared at the woman, and she stared back before shouting: "Who the frig are you looking at?"

"Oh no, Wiggins. I've been transported into a 21st century comedy series about British people on holiday in Spain. I've found the problem, Wiggins. My beloved Pollensa. Men with tattoos. Women with tattoos. Karaoke. Aaargh. Take me back, Wiggins. Take me back."
 
Footnote: A course on the crime novel, from Agatha Christie to the current day, is currently taking place at the events hall of Colonya bank in Pollensa.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Symphony For The Absent

How many of you can say you've had a symphony named after you? Very few, I'd wager. To be eponymous in a symphonic way is a fair old honour, rather like having one's appellation attached to a newly discovered sexually transmitted disease or a boson. New symphonies are, I guess, rather less common than bosons (and presumably, there are enough bosons floating around for everyone on the planet to have millions named after them and not just Professor Higgs), but like models of car, symphonies tend to be given numbers rather than names: the 323i Overture, or some such.

Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, is quite a famous chap. There again, so is David Beckham. Unlike Becks though, Norman has given his name to a symphony (or maybe there is a Beckham Symphony, just that I've never heard of it). Not the Norman Symphony but the Foster's Symphony, and it was unveiled, if one can say that a symphony can be unveiled, on the opening night of the Pollensa Festival.

This is all fair enough, and as Norman Foster is well regarded enough in Spanish circles to have been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award, for a Spanish (Mallorcan) composer to have fostered a symphony also seems fair enough. Despite the prestigiousness, it would appear that it was all rather lost on senior politicians in Mallorca. Perhaps they mistook the name of the symphony for a sponsorship deal, though given that the regional government touts for private-sector support from wherever it can, you would have thought that all the political glitterati would have been flocking to Pollensa. Maybe this was why none of them turned up; when they realised it wasn't a symphony in the name of an Australian lager but some builder chap, they realised they had other engagements.

It is pretty poor form, though, that the regional government couldn't send at least one emissary to greet the world-famous architect. So thin on the ground were the politicos that Lord Foster had to make do with Pollensa's mayor and his number two, the lovely Malena. The absence of the island's rulers has not gone unnoticed, and criticism has been forthcoming, as also has criticism for the fact that music critics were shunted into a part of the Sant Domingo cloister where they couldn't see very well.

I could have been one of these music critics in that I could have taken advantage of an open freebie invitation to pitch up at any of the festival's events, but as I am not a music critic (not of the classical genre, at any rate), then this would have been a case of taking freeloading a bit too far. It's just as well. My review would probably have been along the more-enjoyment-from-watching-paint-dry variety line, but then I am a Philistine. What little I have been able to see and hear of the grand occasion is rather illuminating, however. Not the music, but all the empty seats in the front rows. Perhaps they had been reserved for members of the Balearic Government.

The criticism of the non-attendance is valid. Disrespect might be stretching it, but Norman Foster is an important figure, important enough for him to have received the honour from Crown-Prince Felipe. Perhaps the politicos are reserving a trip to the festival if Queen Sofia attends, which she often does, but it wasn't only Lord Foster who was being neglected, it was the composer and the artistic director of the festival, Joan Valent, and Lord Foster's wife, Elena Ochoa, who is a pretty serious name in her own right. Her involvement in the arts, which extends to a gallery in Madrid and to her having founded the Ivory Press and launched the highly regarded "C International Photo Magazine", made her as significant an attendee as her husband, given the broader arts basis of this year's festival.

There was some bad blood between the town hall and the government following last year's funding debacle for the festival, but it had seemed as though things had moved on, and moved on in the right direction with the government's involvement shifting from the tourism ministry to the culture ministry, and the government had been represented at the festival's press launch. It is a bit of a mystery, therefore, why no member of the government was there to greet Lord Foster.

It should have been an occasion on which to at least show some official support for the festival, but no, the government blew it. When Valent composes further symphonies, it is unlikely he will name any after Balearics politicians.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Norman Foster snubbed at Pollensa Festival

Sir Norman Foster, the British architect, after whom a new symphony to launch this year's Pollensa Festival was named, was not greeted by any members of the regional government when he appeared to hear the symphony at Pollensa's Sant Domingo yesterday. And as for the performance itself, well, if the video is anything to go by, it wasn't exactly packed. Maybe it's just because the expensive seats are at the front or maybe the festival is, after all, an exercise in elitism that has less than broad appeal: http://ultimahora.es/mallorca/video/sinfonia-foster-festival-pollen-a.html

See more: El Mundo