The 87th Episode : Sardana
[June, 1997 Barcelona, Spain]
After dinner on Saturday we went to the old city area. It was quite late time, since the dinner time was usually late as mentioned in the last column. Stone paved streets were spread originated from the castle built in the 14th century. Along the streets there were also some street musicians. Rock and pops musicians are not in my memory. Most of them were for classic music, playing slow and calm tunes like suitable to the view.
Among those musicians especially I was very impressed with a tune playing in the square in front of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia. The music was called Sardana, I knew after back to Japan. We couldn’t call them street performers because it was a big group like an orchestra.
About 10 – 15 people were playing the musical instruments on the tiered doll stand and many men and women from young to old were dancing hand in hand. I couldn’t see well due to the darkness as it was around 11:00 p.m., but a musical instrument like a small clarinet made the main melody. The unique minor tone drifted in sorrow to echoed in the square. The sound was similar to the hichiriki, a Japanese musical instrument used for Japanese court music. The dancing people looked so happy. It is a traditional dance in Catalan region and the usual scenery in Saturday nights.
This sound had not gone from my ears to made me look for a CD after I came back to Japan, and I got it. I told it to Toni, then he sent me another CD from Spain. Muchas gracias, Toni, mi amigo!
