Modern Times

The birth of Basque nationalism was accompanied at the beginning of the 20th century with a new awareness of what could be called "Basque identity". In the Southern Basque Country, poets like Lizardi, Lauaxeta and Orixe brought a new dynamic to literature in Euskara, while in the North, the figure of Jules Moulier "Oxobi", took up the Basque language, giving it the brilliance and freshness of a poetic renaissance. Their writings will sooner or later become songs.

In this country, any popular poetry is eventually sung. In 1936, the Franquist coup d'Etat and the subsequent war in Spain, crystallised nationalist sentiment. And poets also fell victim to ferocious repression: Federico Garcia Lorca, in 1936 in Grenada, Lauaxeta and Aitzol (the driving force behind the magazine Yakintza), were executed in 1937 in the Basque Country. In memory of the resistance of Basque combatants, one song of struggle, Eusko Gudariak (The Basque Combatants) is still sung today.

The Second World War and the installation of Franco’s dictatorship were to momentarily halt the rebirth of Basque culture. But in the sixties, the Basque Country was to experience the same social and cultural boom as the rest of Europe.

THE NEW BASQUE SONG

A Guipuzcoan priest, Nemesio Etxaniz (1899-1982) can be considered, according to the historian and researcher Xabier Itzaina, as "the real precursor of the new politically committed Basque song". After him, Mixel Labéguerie (1921-1980), a political figure and an artist, was to assert himself as the man of transition. His texts innovated with their politically and socially orientated messages, offering a veritable vision of the Basque Country identity. No-one before him, in the Basque Country, ever accompanied himself on the guitar. He even introduced the so-called zortziko rhythm (in 5/8) into his songs. Gu gira Euzkadiko gazteri berria (We are the New Youth of the Basque Country) was a song that rapidly became the symbol of a whole new generation of abertzale (Basque patriots). Mixel Labéguerie certainly opened a new path, taken shortly after in the Northern Basque Country, by new composer-songwriters, influenced by the international protest song and particularly by the politically committed French song: Manex Pagola, Peio Ospital and Pantxoa Carrère, Beñat Sarasola or Eñaut Etxamendi and Eñaut Larralde. "All inherited the legacy of Labéguerie, investing it with a new social and political dimension", states Xabier Itzaina.

In the South, where the Franquist dictatorship banned any form of political expression, especially in Basque, a new artistic cultural underground prospered, notably with the experience of the Ez Dok Amairu collective (1965-1972) which united artists later to become famous like Benito Lertxundi, Xabier Lete, Lurdes Iriondo, Mikel Laboa, Jose Angel Irigarai, the sculptor Jorge Oteiza or Jesus and Josean Artze. In the 70s, kantaldi (concerts given by Basque artists) played to ever-expanding publics. Concert halls, fired with white heat, would fervently sing refrains that demanded Basque sovereignty, amnesty for political prisoners, or liberty of expression in Euskara.

Telesforo de Monzon, a political figure and a poet, the author of a great number of songs performed by the duo Peio eta Pantxoa, symbolised the link uniting, during this period, Basques from both sides of the Pyrenees. After the death of Franco (1975) Basque gradually came out of hiding as its song began to translate the hopes and aspirations of Basque society. On June 17th, 1978, 40,000 people filled the San Mames Stadium in Bilbao for the closing concert of the Bai Euskarari campaign (Yes to the Basque language), in support of the Academy of the Basque language. All the exponents of new Basque song were there for this event, the unique dimension of which marked both the apogee and the beginning of the decline of the movement sparked off by the kantaldi phenomenon. Soon these artists would be relayed by others who would also enrich the musical currents of their time.

BASQUE ROCK

They were twenty years old in the 70s. One was born in Aussurucq, in Soule, and grew up in Paris. The other, born on the banks of the Nive, in Ustaritz, never left his native Basque Country. Both avid fans of Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, they were to create a veritable "culture-shock" by deciding to form a Basque rock group, in the Basque Country. Niko Etxart, with his group Minxoriak, and Anje Duhalde, who founded with guitarist Mixel Ducau the group Errobi, were unquestionably the precursors of this phenomenon which eventually became a musical genre in its own right: Basque rock.

Still solo performers today, these two paved the way for musicians like the group Itoiz, which would leave its "symphonic rock" stamp on Basque song in the 80s, and for a new generation which, with groups like Kortatu, Hertzainak, Negu Gorriak or Su Ta Gar, would give rock a ring of radical urban revolt, the echoes of which still resound today.

Basque rock was then endlessly transformed, going wherever possible to meet its public, notably to the festival Euskal Herria Zuzenean (the “live” Basque Country Festival) which, since 1996, attracts thousands of people to the Basque interior each year for a huge line-up of artists from the Basque scene and elsewhere.

THE NEW MILLENNIUM

"A people that lives is a people that sings", declared Father Donostia in 1922. For sure, the Basque Country no longer sings as it once used to. Voices sing more discreetly, in churches and cafés, in public squares and in the countryside. But they can still be heard at celebrations, during meal-times, or in choral concerts, the popularity of which has never let up in this country. Popular repertoire is still alive and well. It belongs to one and all. The message has reached those active in Basque culture today: for years, associations have been working remarkably well with children, forming choral groups, improvisation schools, or organising singing competitions on the scale of the whole Basque Country.

The Kantuketan programme, initiated by the Basque Cultural Institute, has allowed a very wide cross-section of the public to rediscover the historical, social, literary and pedagogical dimensions of Basque singing, thereby regaining their ceaselessly renewed versions of these songs, their re-inventing of the repertoire with new sonorities, their cries of revolt in words and sounds of today, they explore every creative path.