1.

I mentioned in a previous post that Series 3 of StoryLearning Spanish had introduced me to some wonderful Latin American music.

Here are a few more songs to note:

Joe Arroyo (1955-2011) was a Colombian salsa singer, born in Cartagena. His biggest hit was La Rebelion (1986). According to biographer Mauricio Silva, "It's the most important salsa tune the country has. In fact, it may well be Colombia's most important song. The music is fantastic and the whole country dances it and sings it." But, more than that: "It's how Joe condenses the history of the black population of Latin America... Joe is the embodiment of Africa in America."

Guzman speaks of the reach of its lyrics: "Slavery, abuse, the African diaspora, emancipation and freedom, along with many other interpretations, immortalized the song." Its refrain is famous: "No le pegue a la negra" (don’t beat the black woman).

Arroyo originally passed the song on to someone else, and in the course of his life gave various accounts of the text's inspiration. But Cartagena -- once Spanish America's biggest slave port -- factors into all of them. (The lyrics, in Spanish and English, can be found here.)


Vanuatu, 2008. I'm still waiting to get to South America... I haven't given up hope... But slavery, however it's named, is rarely far away: "Three of my four great-grandparents," writes Amanda Young, "were among the workers in the earliest shipments from the Vanuatu islands of Espiritu Santo, Aoba (now Ambae) and Emae [to Queensland, Australia]. In a bitter irony, this coincided with the end to the slave trade in America, as marked by the sailing from Africa to the US of the last slave vessel, the Clothilda, in 1859 [several years after the end of the trade in Cartagena]. But in the Antipodes, there was still plenty of life in the slave trade, far from the eyes of civilisation which was increasingly acknowledging its barbarity..."



I can't remember if La Rebelion is mentioned in the story (although if you look up Joe Arroyo, it's the first thing you come across). A couple of great songs definitely are specifically named, though. One is Tal para cual (Two of a Kind). Ah, another difficult love, although the music is upbeat:

You got me used to living your way
I who was never a conforming kind of person...
I tolerated your depressions and bad moods
At the end of it all there's a pathological love,
Another puppet you control...

The other is Noche de arreboles (Night of Red Clouds), which is kind of frantic, but nice:

There are nights of red clouds that stir up love, and ardour is kindled all around,
They are nights of illusion that name you, as they do today, and call you my sky: every day I love you more...



Moving on from Arroyo, there were three more songs that really struck me.

Delirio (Delirium) is a "yaravi" (a song type originating from the Peruvian Andes, the lyrics of which usually deal with unrequited love, sadness, solitude, and other tragic themes).

In the clip above it is sung by the Cerpa-Llosa duo, from Yanahuara (altitude 2,390 metres...):

I have always loved you, I never had a reward,
And received for my delicacy only your contempt...


High places... Tibet, 2018



Julio Jaramillo was an Ecuadorean singer. Perhaps his most famous song was Benito de Jesus's Nuestro juramento (Our Oath). It's a song with a gentle swing to it, but again there's this underlying sadness:

We've sworn to love each other until death
And if the dead can love,
after death to carry on loving each other...

(And Songlations, by the way, is a great site for translations and discussions of Spanish-language songs.)



And finally, Cardo o ceniza (Thistle or Ash), written and performed by Chabuca Granda, a Peruvian singer and composer.

This is just FABULOUS... The rhythms are incredibly intricate. Even with two hands and two feet tapping you just can't keep up with them.

Cardo o ceniza takes the form of a "lando", a music style from the Peruvian coast. But it's about Violeta Parra, a Chilean singer-songwriter, who committed suicide in 1967 after a tragic love affair with a much younger man, who eventually left her, and married someone else.

The song ends like this:

What will my awakenings be like
Every time that I wake up ashamed...
So much love,
and ashamed...

I've listened to a few versions, and like the original best. But this cover, performed by Peruvian singer Merian Eyzaguirre, is an interesting one. The accompanying video, which was put out by Imaginario Colectivo, uses the song to encourage tolerance of gender (and other kinds of) diversity.



Not mentioned in my StoryLearning tale, but also a lovely song (with a decent translation here), is Chabuca Granda's nostalgia-redolent La flor de la canela (Cinnamon Flower). Its inspiration was "Victoria Angulo Castillo, a distinguished woman of African descent who lived in the district of Rimac", and though its root is a vivacious waltz rhythm that is kind of addictive, it also demonstrates "Afro-Peruvian and Criollo influences" (not that I would really know):

Let me tell you, native of Lima,
Let me tell you the glory
Of the dream that evokes the memory
Of the old bridge, the river, and the promenade...



2.

Every summer (Northern hemisphere summer, that is), the Online Italian Club publishes a history series. This year they're covering the Renaissance, but previous summers have looked at the story of Rome and the Middle Ages.

Of course, the current series has included the Medici family. Now, I was aware that Lorenzo de’ Medici -- Lorenzo the Magnificent -- was an important patron of the arts (very much taking Michelangelo under his wing, but also helping Da Vinci, Botticelli, etc), but I was absolutely unaware that he himself was a gifted poet...


Milan, 2019. Lorenzo de' Medici introduced Leonardo da Vinci to the Duke of Milan, an ally

Among many other works, Lorenzo wrote Il Trionfo di Bacco e Arianna (the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne) for the Carnival of 1490. There's a -- poetic, and thus very free -- English translation by John Addington Symonds (1840-93) here, and a more modern, literal translation here.

This poem is all about time flying by, and the need to enjoy your life while you can... The phrase that is constantly repeated is this: "If you want to be happy, then be happy: there is no certainty of tomorrow." So true...

Here are the closing lines:

Women and young lovers,
Long live Bacchus and long live Love!
Let everyone play music, dance, and sing!
Let your hearts burn with sweetness!
No fatigue, no pain!
If it has to be, let it be.
If you want to be happy, be happy:
There is no certainty of tomorrow.

It's called a "song", so I went off to find out whether anyone had set it to music. And it turns out there are some really lovely versions out there:

First up, there's a very pleasing classical version by Doulce Memoire, a group of musicians that specializes in Renaissance music. Totally different, but very evocative of the style of the period, is the one by the Camerata Mediolanense, a Milan-based group of musicians. It's rhythmic, insistent, atmospheric -- I really liked it. There is also a version by D'Istruzione, a Tuscan-Ligurian trio whose aim is to set poetry to music for educational purposes. I found the percussion a bit intrusive here, but it's beaty, and has a catchy refrain. Finally, this contemporary version by Angelo Branduardi is gentle, lyrical, and contemplative. A joy to listen to.

I find it somehow amazing that the contemporary versions use the exact original words, just as they were written in the 15th century... I wonder how Lorenzo would feel if he could hear them...