THE DARK NIGHT OF SPAIN

Anti-fascist Spanish songs CANTOVIVO 1975/1976

by Maurizio Benedetti

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of CANTOVIVO's first album dedicated to Spanish anti-fascist songs, we wanted to retrace that experience which, though distant in time, has remained alive and thrilling in the minds of those who lived it. We hope to convey, through the songs collected in the show A NEGRA NOITE DE ESPAÑA, a message that is still relevant today: let us therefore begin by telling how the idea was born to set up a show in that form that would later be defined as teatro-canzone (song-theatre). The precious testimony written in 1998 by Alberto Cesa, founder of CANTOVIVO along with Donata Pinti and Franco Lucà, states:

«In '75, I had met Jacinto, Luisa, Carlotta, and other Spanish comrades who had settled in Turin (effectively clandestine refugees) waiting for the still very vague end of 'Francoism'. One day they asked us to build together a theatrical-musical show of solidarity and denunciation. We set to work immediately. The material we already had was not enough: we had to cover forty years of dictatorship... Donata and I then began a long and arduous research task, helped by Jacinto, who at that time was working at the Centro Gobetti. The Centro Gobetti, notoriously of liberal-progressive tradition, consistent with its historical political openness (in the 1960s it had hosted none other than the legendary pre-1968 pioneers of the Quaderni Rossi), welcomed our comrades to work in its prestigious rooms. Its atmosphere was the rarefied and somewhat intimidating one of historical libraries. We flipped through books in silence, wrote, and exchanged ideas and thoughts, all in half-whispers, like in a nineteenth-century Carbonari basement. One day that atmosphere experienced a jolt. For some time, news, difficult to verify, had been arriving from Spain about an imminent death of the Caudillo. Our Spanish friends were in a flutter... The television hinted at a serious illness of the dictator and immediately denied it. Then it spoke of a stationary ailment... In reality, underground news reported his death as certain, having occurred a few days prior, but kept hidden to prepare for the 'aftermath'. 'Will they have embalmed him?', someone said, trying to joke about it. 'It's all bullshit, in a little while everything will go back to how it was before', someone else replied, less inclined to irony... The truth was that none of them had the courage to hope. That tension went on for more than a week. Every day, the Centre returned more and more to its usual monastic silence. A dark air of resignation to the Fierce Mockery had entered by then... when the news exploded: 'He's dead! Franco is dead! It's official!'. It wasn't shouted, of course. It was brought into the various rooms with the lightness of the 'finis' of the janitor-Fabrizi in his perhaps most moving film. [1] We came up from the basement, where we were translating yet another poem with Jacinto, and reached the central hall. Someone had prepared a bottle of sparkling wine. I think it was the first since the post-war period, or perhaps the only one ever... Anyway, it was the most beautiful bottle in the world! Arriba España, one of the ten or twelve extremely moved people present timidly tried to launch into the air, but the cork silenced him... With a tremendous boom!» [2].

A fundamental help in developing the project came from a direct witness, Anello Poma, the partisan Italo of the Garibaldi brigade, but already a Garibaldian of Spain: he left as a volunteer in 1937, fought in the Garibaldi brigade, was wounded several times, and finally interned for two years in French camps. Anello Poma 3rd from the left, seated. With these words, which are still relevant today, Nello accompanied the release of the album in 1976:

«The show about Spain presented by CANTOVIVO is a contribution to the political, social, and cultural struggle for the affirmation of one of the fundamental rights of man: freedom. Recalling episodes of today's struggle, alternating and linking them to those of yesterday, starting from the Civil War, shows that we are still far from the conclusion of a battle that knows victories and defeats and that continues with a single purpose: the reconquest of freedom. The theme of Spain is evocative for two reasons: first, because the first true open battle between democracy and fascism was fought in that country forty years ago; second, because that battle expressed a feeling and an action of solidarity such as history has never known. This is not an arbitrary statement when one considers that volunteers from no fewer than fifty-two countries rushed to Spain to fight alongside the Republican army in the International Brigades».

This is also why the recent struggles of that people find such a wide resonance and arouse emotion and solidarity. This show will contribute to keeping solidarity with the Spanish people alive and will be, at the same time, a cultural and artistic contribution to the struggle against fascism in Italy. Anello Poma Former combatant in the International Brigades" A rather heterogeneous working group had formed, comprising elderly veterans, young researchers, amateur musicians from the folk scene, and classically trained professionals. The collected musical repertoire was equally varied: it ranged from songs of the Civil War period to those of the struggle against the regime in the following years, from author tracks to anonymous reworkings of folk songs, such as the first track we propose for listening, EL TREN BLINDADO: it is the adaptation of a popular song, "Los Contrabandistas de Ronda". During the Spanish Civil War, as with all adaptations of folk songs, there were several versions. In this one, they talk about an armored train, like those of the Russian revolution, from which to shoot at the three most hated generals.

Equally anonymous is YA SABES MI PARADERO, which recalls the Battle of the Ebro River against the Italian fascist troops. CANTOVIVO’s version for a cappella male voices is particularly original. With A GALOPAR, we encounter two great artists: the poet Rafael Alberti and the musician Paco Ibañez, who made this song famous by performing it in their concerts on multiple occasions. [3] CANTOVIVO elaborates its own version here, reflecting the musical style of the collective. Lead vocals by Alberto Cesa. Regarding Alberti, we want to highlight a biographical detail: Garibaldian blood flowed in his veins, as his paternal grandfather, Tommaso Alberti Sanguinetti, was a Tuscan Garibaldian. [4] He is also the author of the poem A LAS BRIGADAS INTERNACIONALES, dedicated to the volunteers who fought in Spain during the Civil War. You come from far away... But what is this distance for your blood, which sings without borders? CANTOVIVO paired it with other songs of international brigades, such as YOUNG MAN FROM ALCALÁ of the Lincoln Brigade, FREIHEIT of the Thälmann Brigade, and with partisan songs from Bulgaria (BOLEN MI LEŽI MILE POP-JORDANOV), France (LE CHANT DE LA LIBERATION), our own BELLA CIAO, concluding with L'INTERNAZIONALE. A very varied and interesting musical blend, also from the standpoint of the variety of national musical styles juxtaposed to symbolize the vastness of the supranational contribution to the struggle against fascism. This is how it was presented in the show:

«Can peace have borders? In Spain, the decision is made for everyone... From every part of the Earth, free men come to fight for Spain. They are the international brigades. French, American, Polish, Italian workers, and men of poetry and science who share the little bread and the few weapons with Spain». In the script, news items taken from current events, testimonies, comments, and poetic texts alternated, among which we would like to recall Pablo Neruda's poem SPIEGO ALCUNE COSE (I Explain a Few Things), which we invite you to listen to through the voice of Arnoldo Foà. Among the folk songs by anonymous authors, CANTOVIVO revived many songs following the years of the civil war, which told of defeat and exile as in BOURG MADAME, or the condition of slavery of the people under the Franco regime as in DENDE QUE FRANCO Y FALANXE, a Galician song from which the line a negra noite de España is taken and used as the title of the show. Or songs that, set to a lively rhythm, used irony for satire against the clergy, such as SIN PAN SIN PAN. San Antonio pa' comer / San Antonio pa' cenar / y trabajar / Sin pan, sin pan, sin pan, / y trabajar. Songs of the struggle of workers and peasants against the injustices of the regime: REVOLUCIÓN AGRARIA,  FUEGO DE LOS ALTOS HORNOS, UNA CANCIÓN, performed by Maria Laura Della Croce. Maria Laura Della Croce Other songs were attributed to authors who are difficult to identify, such as A LA CALLE (A. Cesa) by Juan & José, while numerous songs are the work of the well-known Spanish singer-songwriter Chicho Sánchez Ferlosio, known as Chico: FUSILES CONTRA EL PATRON (F. Lucà), A LA HUELGA, PALOMA DE LA PAZ (D. Pinti), DICEN QUE LA PATRIA ES (original title CANCIÓN DE SOLDADOS). Chico's most poignant song is certainly CANCIÓN A GRIMAU (A. Cesa). In the description accompanying the video, we have included a short biography of Julián Grimau García, an opponent of the regime who was executed by firing squad in 1963. He was one of the many victims of Franco's dictatorship, which, just two months before his death, ordered the capital executions of five opponents. This episode triggered a wave of international indignation and protests and inspired CANTOVIVO's concluding piece: I CINQUE (The Five): music without words, only voices and instruments, and the reading of the names of those five young Spanish anti-fascists—José Luis Sánchez Bravo, Xosé Humberto Baena, Ramón García Sanz, Ángel Otaegi Otaegui, Juan Paredes—the last ones condemned to death by firing squad by the Franco regime. They died on September 27, 1975; the dictator died 50 days later.

In concluding this article, we would like to tell the story of the CANTOVIVO Collective, which developed from that first experience up to the present day, but due to space limitations in this article, which could not contain all of its "long adventure", we refer you to the website Alberto Cesa & CANTOVIVO. However, we would like to remember all the protagonists of that first album: Alberto Cesa (vocals and guitar), Donata Pinti (vocals), Franco Lucà (vocals and guitar), Giuliana De Ambrogio (vocals), Maria Laura Della Croce (vocals), Daniela Dragone (violin), Ivano Ciravegna (vocals, mandolin, and guitar), Leo Gambino (congas and bongos), Maurizio Benedetti (flute), Silvio Langella (classical guitar), Walter Bettini (guitar and banjo), Luisa Giorgi who managed the production for the TORINOUNO cooperative, the STUDIO G.V. recording studio in Turin, and the painter Luisa Pagano for the LP cover. And to give them a face, thanks to the vintage photos by Manuela Cerri, who was then beginning her brilliant career as a photographer, we propose this last video dedicated to that 1975/76 collective, to those atmospheres, and to that experience which was also a great opportunity for encounter and human and musical enrichment: CANTOVIVO FORMAZIONE 1975 -1976. Special thanks go to Donata Pinti, Maria Laura Della Croce, and photographer Manuela Cerri for their invaluable collaboration in researching the documents and audio materials. All the videos mentioned in the article are gathered in the PLAYLIST CANTOVIVO on the YouTube channel of Progetto Scriptorium Onlus, link to the YT channel @scriptoriumonlus.

[1]: Mio figlio professore, a neorealist masterpiece from 1946 directed by Renato Castellani.
[2]: ARRIBA ESPAÑA from the DISCOLIBRO “I FOGLI VOLANTI di Alberto Cesa - diario di un musicante” (IL MANIFESTO - 067).
[3]: See the concert at the Alcalà Theatre in Madrid in 1991.
[4]: Dario Puccini, Sergio Romano, Gli spagnoli e l'Italia, ed. Banco Ambrosiano Veneto, 1997, p. 159.