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.

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.

The Pianist - Miquel Capllonch

The square in Puerto Pollensa is referred to as the church or market square. In Spanish, it is called Plaza de la Iglesia or del Mercado. Rarely does anyone grant it its actual name - Plaça Miquel Capllonch (the proper Catalan title). In failing to use this name, the person honoured by the square's moniker is ignored. Who is or was Miquel Capllonch?

Capllonch was a native of Pollensa. Born in 1861, on the 14th of this month it will be the 149th anniversary of his birth. One trusts that the town hall is planning a celebration to coincide with his 150th next year. Capllonch is one of Pollensa's and Mallorca's most important figures in the history of music. Pianist and composer, he studied and played in Madrid, Berlin and Barcelona. He was responsible, among other things, for the arrangement for the Alborada of the Patrona fiesta. Schooled initially in organ music in Pollensa, Capllonch went on to be a significant composer of choral and religious works and others. Among the titles of his works are tributes to saints venerated locally, Sant Pere and Sant Vicenç.

Though not necessarily enjoying great international renown, Capllonch was a representative of the arts tradition that emerged in Pollensa around the turn of the twentieth century and which spawned the painting "school" and poetry. This tradition is still very much alive today, and wander around the old town on a quiet summer's day and you will often pass an open set of shutters and windows that allow the sound of piano music to drift into the street.

A mystery is quite why Capllonch remains so obscure to many, especially those not native themselves to Pollensa. Despite the best efforts locally in presenting exhibitions to historical figures, these too often fall into the category of the dull but worthy without an external focus that might attract a foreign or non-Catalan audience. The arts history of Pollensa is strong - Capllonch, Costa i Llobera (poetry), Anglada Camarasa (painting) - as are other aspects of local heritage, such as the philanthropy of Guillem Cifre. Yet it remains largely hidden. Only the art of Dionís Bennássar or the textiles of Martí Vicenç, thanks to the eponymous gallery and museum, might be said to shout out the names of cultural and historical figures from the town. But this, so we keep being told, is - or should be - all part of a different type of tourism.

At least there has been, for five years now, an attempt to honour Capllonch, and that is the "Nit Capllonch". Today, in the convent of Sant Domingo, there is a performance by the Spanish concert pianist David Gómez that will feature works by Capllonch as well as more familiar names such as Bach and Mozart. This annual event, organised by the Capllonch family and the town hall, is also worthy, while Gómez is not an insignificant name to be appearing in Pollensa. But where does it get publicised?

Poor old Capllonch. More people should say his name. More should know that when they're sitting in Bony or Cultural that the square is not so much that of the church or the market, but that of a local pianist. But they won't.


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