By now there will be few Catalans who haven't awkwardly tried to dance a sardana while enjoying the umpteenth reproduction of The Tyets' song Coti x Coti. The hit by the group from Mataró already has fifteen million streams in the online universe and is already a gold record (the second fact is really important, because the internet thing looks great but gives little money, and here the transcendent part of the success in question is to ensure that composers Xavier Coca and Oriol de Ramon can fill a plate of soup daily). Figures aside, Coti x Coti is a song that will endure beyond all possible summers, because it has had the grace to connect Catalan music lovers with a sound inseparable from their imaginary. It doesn't matter if you consider the sardana a bit of a queca drag or if the sound of the tenora gives you hives: identity is everything you cannot escape.
Making fun of one's own culture and building self-hatred is one of our national sports. This has happened for many years with local music and, especially, with the sardana genre. That's why it's hopeful that two capgrossos zentennials have revived the cobla in a song that has become genuinely popular. Let's avoid purism in all areas: Coti x Coti can help many young people become interested in the sardana and, by rebound, help those sick with the symphonic world and the cobla realize the splendid quality of modern music made in Catalonia. I know that in this little piece of the world, this win-win thing scares us, but, on the very rare occasions where everyone wins, let's do the damn favor of celebrating it. If the streams of Coti lead thousands of listeners to a sardana, however random Mr. Spotify's choice may be, let's sing a hallelujah.
I was thinking the day before yesterday about this everyday musical metaphysics while admiring the art of the Cobla Marinada in the Pati de la Casa de la Convalescència. The IEC has once again organized the cycle Música al claustre, which this year commemorates Albert Einstein's visit to Barcelona around 1923. The ensemble, directed by colleague Marc Timón, revives good sardanas by Robert de la Riba (1912-1999) and, in the second part of the concert, plays some musts of the cobla such as Juny, by our genius Garreta, or the splendid Puigneulós (Toldrà) and Evocació (Serra). Marc directs the Marinada as it should be done; voluntarily bringing the ensemble closer to the sound of a symphonic magma (our musician lives happily in the land of the free, but our programmers should hire him more often) and is about to give me an orgasm while leading Cassú's Akelarre, a true infantry anthem.
Coti x Coti will be able to help many young people become interested in the sardana and, by rebound, for those afflicted by the symphonic world and the cobla to realize the splendid quality of modern music made in CataloniaWhat does it matter if this is cultured music or balladora: they are first-division sound pieces. I especially like listening to them as we did at the IEC –in concert format– because, far from the natural terrain of the gathering, this music gains pomp and circumstance. If you still doubt the quality of our sardanas, read the sections that my dear Joan Magrané dedicates to the genre in his celebrated book Sentimental Anthology of Catalan Music (edited in Peu de Mosca). Coti x Coti is reached through all this sound imaginary, and we would do well to balance the millions of plays the Tyets have had with so many sardana scores still unknown to everyone. If this summer you come across a sardana dance, stay there for a while, listen to this music and take an interest in its performers. They are the parents of a planetary success.
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