Encuentro Ibèric | Menorca, el cant i el temps

Menorca, song and time

In these sessions we will journey through those song forms that time and the people have gradually shaped into what we now call popular repertoire.

What we call tradition is, in reality, the result of different historical and sociological stages linked to a specific territory. In Menorca, the countryside was for centuries the main means of survival before the sea; hence work songs are among the earliest preserved musical forms. To these were added ballads, linked to serenades and to the transition between rural life and urban centres.

The first music intended for dancing and associated with special dates—such as the porquetjades—included the fandango, the jota and the bolero. Later, during the 1970s and 1980s, sea songs and habaneras became an essential part of the popular repertoire.