Unwritten Symphony: Mallorca's little known music

Yesterday evening at the Son Mas Castle in Andratx a new symphony received its world premiere. At the southern end of the mountain range, Andratx wsae the location for "La Serra de Tramuntana", a work by twenty-year-old composer Antoni Mairata that musically encapsulates the four seasons in the mountains. The symphony, choral and orchestral, was performed by the Coro Ciutat de Mallorca and the Balearic Youth Orchestra. It was its director, Joan Barceló, who suggested to Mairata that he might like to compose the symphony.

Mallorca and especially the Tramuntana have long benefited from the promotional value that the island has derived from the world of the arts in its general sense. One of the clearest examples of this was the contribution of the painters of the early twentieth century. They, with their mostly post-impressionist styles, captured the essence, the colours, the light and the landscape of the mountains. But while painters were to prove to be of enormous benefit to Mallorca, what about the musicians?

Going back in time, the most obvious musical association was with Frederic Chopin, whose troubled 1838 winter in Mallorca, along with his lady companion George Sand, was nonetheless sufficiently untroubled to allow him to be inspired to compose. Almost a hundred years later, the Chopin Festival was established by the Mallorcan composer Joan Maria Thomàs. In the years prior to the Civil War, Valldemossa was able to attract some of the most significant performers of the era. When the war came, that was to all stop.

Today, Mallorca displays a very strong musical tradition and culture. Outstanding orchestras, music festivals other than just that of Valldemossa - Deià, Pollensa, Santanyi, for instance - are evidence of this culture, and yet the history of this musical culture is somewhat mixed. Or at least, it is not quite as coherent as, for instance, the artistic culture of the painters of the last century.

Yet, if you go back into the nineteenth century, a tradition which most definitely survives and indeed thrives today really took hold in Mallorca. The local bands of music are described as a "phenomenon" of the nineteenth century. They partly came about because of military associations, but they could draw on a far earlier tradition, that of groups of minstrels from the fifteenth century. The bands of music, aided by Belgian Adolphe Sax's invention in 1840, sprung up across the island, the oldest of them being the Philharmonic of Porreres, which dates back to 1858.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Antoni Noguera Balaguer was to become one of the more important names in Mallorcan music. He it was who wrote the contemporary musical notation for the Sibil-la chant - now with its UNESCO declaration - and he was, like other composers, heavily influenced by Mallorcan folk traditions and music, such as that of the flabiol flute-whistlers of the Cossier dancers in Montuiri. Noguera died in 1904 - he was only 44 - but around this time there was a general artistic movement in Mallorca to which the painters who came from Catalonia, Argentina and elsewhere were to add. Indeed, the painters and the musicians and others from the arts world were to gather in places such as El Terreno in Palma at the house of one of these painters - Santiago Rusiñol. They also came together under the umbrella of the "Círculo Mallorquín", a society that had been founded in 1851 and which around the turn of the twentieth century attracted composers such as Miquel Capllonch. Born in 1861 in Pollensa, Capllonch, organist, pianist and composer, is one of the great names of Mallorca's music history. Or he would be if he were particularly well known. Even in his home town, the square in Puerto Pollensa that is named after him is rarely called by his name: it's the church or market square instead.

Today is the feast day of Sant Pere, Saint Peter. One of his works was "Càntic de la fe de Sant Pere" - song of Saint Peter's faith. It might be nice to think that this would be given greater recognition on the day of Saint Peter, not just in Puerto Pollensa, where the fiestas are celebrated, but also in the various other parts of the island where Peter is the patron. But it won't, which might be considered to be a missed opportunity to create greater awareness of Capllonch.

While Chopin gets most of Mallorca's music history plaudits, there were others. They are, though, barely known. In the twenty-first century, communications being as they are, perhaps the young composer of "La Serra de Tramuntana" will go on to achieve far greater acclaim.