Our Celtic Cousins
In August I took part in a concert with a flautist called Rosalía Rodríguez-Vázquez from Vigo in Galicia, Spain. The final item was a medley featuring the close links between Scottish, Irish & Galego music. Afterwards, a colleague asked me about the musical and linguistic links between Galicia and our nearer Celtic cousins. Coincidentally, Rosalía sent me a link to a website which explains the language, politics, culture, music etc. of the area. At any point, linguists can switch between English, Spanish & Galego versions of the site (the above link takes you to English). There are also tracks where you can hear evidence of a shared musical heritage.
Espido (you can hear the language clearly in this one)
Lunar na lubre (traditional)
Nova Galega de Danza (multicultural – interesting rhythmic features)
Pepe Vaamonde (Galician pipes)
Ruote (perfect mix of Moorish, Spanish and Celtic)
Susana Seivane (mix of Celtic and World)
Berrogüetto (a very popular traditional band in the region)
Dani Bellón e Diego Macieras (Galician pipes and accordion – also interesting rhythmic features)
Leilía (dynamic trio)
Treixadura (playing a muiñeira – a Galician jig – picture yourself doing Strip The Willow to this!)
Sondesueu (Celtic Rumba? - there are some striking contrasts here)
X. M. Budiño (Galician pipes with very unusual background)
You can also hear Rosalía’s own band Nao D’ire here
Hi Alan,
Thanks for this! We’re (Galicians and Scots) are definitely connected… Must be the rain! Seriously, I think it’s a shame that we don’t know more about each other.
Although our language, Galician, is not a direct sister of Gaelic (Galician is a Romance language, just like Spanish, Portuguese or Catalan), there are historic and cultural links between all the “corners” or “Finisterres” of Europe (Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, Brittany), and the musical similarities are obvious. I do think that Galician music is probably a bit more ecclectic than Scottish traditional music — after all, we live on the border with the rest of Spain and Portugal, and we’ve got loads of relatives in South America due to our massive emigration rates in the 50s and 60s and 70s… Hence the possibility of playing a Galician rumba
Next time we’ll have to do a monographic gig with traditional music, OK?
Comment by Rosalía — September 27, 2007 @ 5:36 pm