Tirant lo blanc per a cobla i timbales

The school-related fate of Catalan children born during the post-Civil War period after 1939 was to attend a school where classes were delivered in Spanish with the result that all Catalan language and literature was entirely overlooked.
It was not until well into the 1960s that the situation began to level off and we would once again be able to buy and read Catalan literature without the slightest difficulty.
By the 1980s, music composition for the cobla ensemble had witnessed a degree of impetus and incentives for its creation owing to the emergence of several composition competitions I decided to take part in as a young composer at the time.

Tirant lo Blanc – a fictional character from the historical era of Don Quixote, fortunately recovered from the cultural isolation imposed by the circumstances – appeared to me to be an interesting enough excuse to try to introduce him as a hero of Glose in a Catalan style.

— Wedding of the King of England
— Defeat and Death of the Great Turk
— Engagement of Tirant and Carmesina
— Dances and Celebrations for the Great Victory

These were the literary foundations chosen in order to set the Glose “to music” and lend it shape and consistency.
Moreover, since they were tools created and conceived in order to perform and create folk music, cobla instruments still embody a certain measure of simplicity in technical resources that brings them ever closer to the instruments of the Renaissance:
— The flabiol, akin to recorders between the Middle Ages and the 17th century.
— The tibles and the tenoras (types of Catalan shawms), similar to xeremies in general.
— The trumpets and horns, comparable to the French horns and buccinas of the time.
This enabled me to endow the whole work with a Renaissance, warrior and love-like embodiment at the same time, although always from a narrative, period-based perspective, a characteristic that is always palpable, especially throughout the final segment entitled “Dances and Celebrations”.

This Tirant secured the First Award in the Ceret-Banyoles 1986 Composition Competition.
It was subsequently choreographed in 1994 by Eduard Ventura of Rubí Esbart Dansaire traditional Catalan dance group.
The composer then went on to produce a version for ensemble for Barcelona Municipal Symphony Group and for orchestra composed specifically for the Barcelona Symphony and Catalonia National Orchestra.