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Written in fRoots issue 218/219, 2001


HENRIQUE OTERO
O Gaiteiro Do Fragoso
Boa Do Fol 10002026 (2001)

RODRIGO ROMANÍ
Albeida
Boa Do Fol 10002023 (2000)

OS CEMPÉS
Circo Montecuruto
Boa Do Fol 10002022 (2000)

It is, perhaps, a sign of potency in a musical tradition when those who have nurtured it through the thin times feel empowered and sufficiently confident of its health to cell-divide into new diversity. That’s what seems to be happening in the current phase of Galicia’s roots music boom. For example, here are three albums, wrought by some of those resolute musicians, differing widely in sound but all distinctively Galician.

      Henrique Otero, the Piper of Fragoso, now 71, hasn’t just been a key musician in the carrying of the Galician gaita tradition through its waning times during the second half of the 20th century as a very skilful gaiteiro playing in Vigo’s municipal band, founding the traditional gaita-and-percussion quintet Os Cruceiros, teaching including pioneering a gaita course at Vigo Conservatoire and writing a gaita tutor, but he has composed a lot of fine tunes. O Gaiteiro Do Fragoso consists some of them, written between 1971 and 1999, played with total authority and undiminished dexterity by Otero, energetically accompanied in traditional style by shells, tarrañolas, spoons, side drum and bass drum played by the group Noitarega, and, for a song performed by Beatriz Riobó, by harmonium.
      Otero’s tunes - muiñeiras, xotas, alboradas, a fandango, a rumba, an incorporation of the foreign form of a polka - are full of joyful exuberance, hummable snatches and interesting tricky corners. They’re classics, the raw data of the living Galician gaita tradition, exemplifying its difference in rhythmic and melodic shape from the musics of Ireland, Scotland or Brittany, and this is a splendid album of great playing and spirited music recommended to anyone who wants to get a sense of the heartbeat of Galician instrumental music’s current boom.

      A musician leaving a famous band after many years sometimes comes up with an over-manned, studio-tanned solo debut, but harpist, guitarist and citole-player Rodrigo Romaní’s first solo album since leaving Milladoiro, which he co-founded in the 1970s, is a relaxed, varied work full of the liveliness, shapes and textures but not necessarily the approaches of tradition, and of course he takes the opportunity to try some things that wouldn’t have fitted with Milladoiro.
      The melodic material is partly traditional and partly written by Romaní, and there are songs, settings of various writers’ lyrics sung by himself, Mercedes Arribe or Cuban Alain Pérez. He appears a modest, generous performer, welcoming musical friends, letting them do what they do best or bringing them together in combinations that interest him, but they are genuine musical friends, not star-studding. Among them are Susana Seivane, a musician who Romaní has helped a great deal and whose album he produced, Berrogüetto’s Anxo Pintos on hurdy-gurdy and sax, and the gaitas and traditional percussionists of Treixadura. The core line-up includes accordionist César Longa, former Milladoiro violinist Laura Quintillán with Kim García’s bass and Fernando Llorca’s drums. A couple of tracks involve the Vigo Chamber Orchestra in a non-slushy way, and for the finale he duets on harp with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra in a predominantly reflective piece built on Galician processional marches.

      Sometimes overlooked when leading Galician bands are mentioned is Os Cempés, from Ferrol, partly because they haven’t done much touring abroad. Their albums have the energy and pace of the traditional gaita bands while utilising voices, accordion, gaita, soprano sax, clarinet, hurdy-gurdy and drums rather like an updated version of the village dance bands that combined the likes of accordion and clarinet with gaita. For this one Serxo Cés, Antón Varela, Oscar Fernández Sanjurjo and Toni do Jaz are joined by guest bassists, a brass trio, string sextet, and others including violinist Pancho Álvarez, Chouteira singer Uxía Pedreira, and on harp Berrogüetto’s Quico Comesaña. Circo Montecuruto gets its name and design theme from the title of its opening tune, but there’s a circus-like exuberance throughout its mazurkas, pasodobles, jota, songs and other material, traditional and new-made. The final track contrasts with the preceding fun; musically it’s a lively pair of tunes led by hurdy-gurdy and clarinet, but they are preceded and followed by the disturbing sounds of an ugly confrontation in 1999 between Spanish law enforcers and people demonstrating for the right to earn a living from the sea in the fishing village of Cedeira.


© 2000 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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