| Music As far as music is concerned in the Basque
Country, there are two main areas to be emphasised:
Dance music.
Dance has played an important role in Basque culture, and its music has always been
intimately bound to the evolution and development of dance. We have simple orchestral
formations, made up of one pipe and tabor player, for the more archaic types of dance,
many with special beats such as 5/8, and also much more complex formations such as brass
bands, which are used to accompany dances which were much more widespread throughout
Europe and therefore experimented a greater evolutional change.
We must also emphasize other orchestral formations that have survived to the present day:
Some are simple, for example, Alboka (double piped hornpipe) and Panderoa (tambourine),
Dultzaina (from the oboe family) and Atabala (snare drum) or Trikitrixa (two-row diatonic
accordion) and Panderoa (in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa), Xirula (three-holed flute) and
Ttun-ttuna (psalter) from Soule. Others are more elaborate, for example, duets of
Dultzaina or Gaita (bagpipe) with Atabala (in Araba and Navarre), Txistu (three-holed
flute) and Danboliña (small drum) bands in Gipuzkoa etc. We are also aware of the
presence, at various moments in the evolution of time, of instruments such as, accordions,
violins, horns etc.
Other forms of music and
song.
When studying forms of music that are not related to dance, two main factors have to be
taken into consideration:
A). The Road to Santiago crosses our Country and for centuries has attracted people from
many different European cultures.
B). The geographical and historical position of the Basque Country situated between the
two great cultural focal points of Europe: the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. On the
western side of the Country, therefore, we find melodies and rhythms common to Ireland,
Portugal, Brittany, Scotland and England, whereas on the eastern side they are closer to
Italy, Catalonia, and Sardinia. In the Pyrenean regions of Basse-Navarre and Soule, they
have preserved many songs that were popular in the Mediterranean during the XVIII century
and are typical of the era of Romanticism. |
Antonio Ayesta (Jitano),playing the Alboka and Balbino playing Panderoa