Raimon

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Raimon (2008)

Ramon Pelegero i Sanchis , stage name Raimon , (born December 2, 1940 in Xàtiva ), is a Valencian singer-songwriter from the Catalan Nova Cançó .

biography

Raimon was born on December 2nd, 1940 on Carrer Blanc Street in Xàtiva - a place he also often quotes in his songs. As a teenager he worked in the local radio station , where he took his first steps in the music world and met artists like Juliette Gréco , The Platters and Juanito Valderrama. In addition, he learned a lot about the works of classical musicians such as Vivaldi , Bach and Mozart .

1960s

At 16 he moved to Valencia to study history , graduating in 1962. It was then that he got to know the Catalan culture and read texts by Ausiàs March , Salvador Espriu , Josep Pla and others. Before that, he wrote his first song, Al vent , inspired by the experience of delivering packages on a motorcycle .

In 1962 Raimon first appeared publicly at a literary award ceremony; a little later he sang at a meeting in Castelló , in which the artist group Els Setze Jutges also took part. Josep Maria Espinàs was so impressed by him that he invited him to perform at the Fòrum Vergés in Barcelona . The new form and the new content of his songs surprised the audience. He moved away from the style of the Set Jutges, which was inspired by the chanson ; Raimon's songs were not about the world of the Barcelona bourgeoisie , but about the Valencian working class . With the end of his studies his first album appeared in collaboration with Joan Fuster , which contained the songs Al vent , Som , La Pedra and A cops . It was published by Edigsa and was very successful. He was then invited to the Festival de la Cançó Mediterrània, a music festival of Catalan songs. After initial hesitation, Raimon accepted "because of the duty to serve the land and the language." The piece won the first prize - chosen by the audience: from now on the Catalan song (previously regarded as a harmless phenomenon of a minority) was perceived as political and drew the attention of the Francoist regime in the form of bans and censorship .

After Raimon's second EP was released, which was very successful despite the censorship, the Catalan songs became hymns of the anti-French movement. In 1964 the third EP and an LP were released, including new versions of the previously released songs Al vent , Som , La Pedra .

1965 sang Raimon for the first time alone in the Aliança del Poble Nou in Barcelona, without the support of Set jutges or other singers with whom he the word "recital" ( recital brought) circulated to songs in this new style of music to call. In the same year his career also began abroad: he was appointed to the University of Leuven in Belgium and published an EP with four love songs, dedicated to Annalisa Corti, who married the following year. These songs included En tu estime el món , Treballaré el teu cos and No sé com .

In the same year his first big appearance took place in the open air at the Institut Químic de Sarrià. Before that he had had other concerts in Paris and Germany and released the album Cançons de la roda del temps , with a cover by Joan Miró, in which he wrote twelve poems after the course of the sun and man based on part of Esprius' book El caminant i el mur set to music.

An album was released in France that received the Francis Carco Prize , awarded by the Académie du Disque Français , for the best foreign singer. This album contained many uncensored and unedited versions of songs like Diguem No or Canço del que es queda , which dealt with the subject of emigration from Spain.

In 1967 Raimon gave the first evening of recitals by a Catalan singer at the Teatre Romea. After a concert on January 28th at the Palau de la Música Catalana , the album Raimon al Palau was released with recordings of twelve songs, many of them unprocessed. The special thing about the album is the intimate atmosphere that is conveyed, so that Raimon not only acts as a singer, but also as a transmitter of social and political dissatisfaction. In the same year his last EP was released, from which Petita cançó de la teva mort , a further adaptation Esprius by Raimon, and País Basc ( Basque Country ) emerged.

In 1968 he published his first CD with Discophon , with the poem Indesinenter by Espriu. In the same year he made two more important recitals - one at a festival of the labor movement, the other at the Faculty of Economics in Madrid . He also had other international appearances in Mexico, Germany, Cuba and Switzerland. A year later he released another LP exclusively in France, again with subjects that would have been banned by the censors in Spain.

1970s

In 1970 the CD Per destruir aquell qui l'ha desert was released with arrangements of Catalan poems from the 15th century , including four by Ausiàs March and Desert d'amics , whose original title Presoner ("prisoner") was changed by the censors. The record also contains five songs with lyrics by Raimon himself.

After another LP was released in 1971, he published the book Poemes i cançons in 1974 and another album in collaboration with artists of the French avant-garde such as Michel Portal , which in turn contained many musical arrangements of Catalan poems. In the same year two more albums were released, one in France and the other after a performance at the University of Barcelona , on which many unedited songs can be found, all of which have a civil content, such as No em mou el crit (“Me moves the call does not ”).

In 1975, when the dictator Franco was dying, Raimon performed one of his classics, Jo vinc d'un silenci , for the first time at the Palau d'Esports de Montjuïc . The following year he sang, full of euphoria about the emerging democracy , in the Pabellón Deportivo del Real Madrid, although this was only the first of four concerts; the others, however, were banned. The atmosphere of this concert is preserved in the double album El recital de Madrid . During the performance of Sis Hores de Canço a Canet , a large Catalan flag was hoisted during his song performance , which has been described as the emotional highlight of the evening.

From then on, Raimon tried not only to go down in history as a resistance artist, but to go his own way. He played four concerts at the Palau d'esports in Barcelona, ​​which, however, became increasingly different from concerts of mass culture . He also began playing concerts with a double bass player before even performing with an entire group. Before that he had only performed alone with the guitar .

In 1979 a new album was released that included his concerts at the Palau de la Música, with poems by Espriu and March and his own texts. A poetic maturation process can be seen in this album.

1980s

In order to collect and regroup his entire work, he rewrote all of his songs in 1981 with new arrangements by Manel Camp and Antoni Ros-Marbà , which resulted in ten albums on which he grouped the songs according to themes, such as Orígens , Cançons d'amor or Testimonis , each of which is dedicated to the first works, love songs and live recordings.

In 1983 he published Les hores guanyades , a diary with thoughts on political events (including the attempted coup on February 23 ), but also on his artistic work. After that, Raimon withdrew from the public a little and recorded another album, which he released in 1984.

The next album in 1987 shows a short-term proximity to electronic music with instruments such as drums and synthesizers , whereby the guitar, which Raimon always accompanied, faded into the background.

1990s

In 1992 Raimon made a tour to Japan and made some appearances at universities in the United States. In the same year he surprised with the television show Literal on TVE-Catalunya , in which he dealt with literature and culture.

On Sant Jordi 1993 there was a big concert in Palau Sant Jordi in front of 18,000 spectators for the thirtieth anniversary of his first song Al Vent . With him appeared among others Joan Manuel Serrat and Ovidi Montllor as well as the US folk singer Pete Seeger . In the same year Raimon released a new CD with 121 songs on various topics.

At the beginning of 1997 another CD was released with arrangements by Manel Camp, songs by Ausiàs March and six of his own titles, among which Soliloqui solipsista stands out, not least because of his special music video . In the same year Raimon was awarded the Medalla d'Or de la Generalitat de Catalunya ; a few years earlier he had rejected the Creu de Sant Jordi award . He was also awarded the Premi Ondas jury prize for its importance for Catalan music. He made other appearances in the Catalan-speaking parts of Spain and France and also played in the UK. At one of the most notorious appearances of the year in the Plaza de las Ventas in Madrid - in homage to the politician Miguel Ángel Blanco (who was murdered by the terrorist organization ETA) - he was booed because some viewers refused to accept that he was in the Valencian variety of Catalan sang. The song in question was País Basc , which had been banned during the Franco dictatorship. The TVE broadcast had a great response.

At the end of the year the CD Recitals al Palau was released with a selection of the above-mentioned songs; an anthology , as it were , by Raimon, with which he portrayed the timelessness of his music. In 1999 he also published the compilation of his love songs Les cançons del amor .

2000s

In 2000, various previously unpublished songs and new adaptations of poems from the 15th century by authors such as Jaume Roig and Francí Guerau were released .

On 21 March 2007 Raimon received the top prize of the Spanish Academy of Music and took in the same year with other artists in the action Volem tots els papers in part that for the reprocessing began the Franco dictatorship.

In the following years he had various other appearances, for example at a memorial concert for 40 years of the recital or at universities.

2010s

At the beginning of 2011 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Alicante and in the same year released another CD, which he presented at national concerts. In 2012 he celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his first concert with an exhibition in the Center d'Art Santa Mònica in Barcelona, ​​which offered insight into Raimon's life, including through private letters, collections of his albums, but also contributions from other artists. In addition, concerts took place at five European universities, including Berlin , which underlined the interest in Raimon's work and the importance of his songs. The concerts were also preceded by discussions that placed the singer in the socio-political context of the history of Spain . The highlight of the tour was the concert at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

In 2012 he received the Medalla d'Or of the Barcelona City Council and in 2013 the Enderrock Prize . In 2014 he was awarded the 46th Honorary Prize in Catalan Literature, the first singer to receive an award of this magnitude. In the same year he was awarded the Medalla de Oro des Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid. In October 2015 he also received the Honorary Dignity of the Generalitat Valenciana and the Great Cross of the Order of Jacob I.

Also in 2015, Raimon donated the audiovisual collection of his works, called El Fons Raimon , to the Filmoteca de Catalunya in order to enable permanent research on his songs. This collection consists of 176 recordings from his entire artistic career. It contains reports, interviews and concerts from all over the world, for example his tour in Tokyo and Hiroshima in 1992 or his concert in Palau Sant Jordi in 1993.

Discography

• 1964: Disc antològic de les seues cançons
• 1966: Raimon a l'Olympia
• 1966: Cançons de la roda del temps
• 1967: Raimon al Palau
• 1967: Raimon música sola
• 1968: Raimon en directe
• 1969: Raimon a Montserrat
• 1969: Sobre la pau. Contra la por (Olympia 2)
• 1970: Per destruir aquell qui l'ha desert
• 1971: Raimon
• 1971: Raimon en Montevideo
• 1971: Raimon. Catalonian protest songs
• 1972: En vivo
• 1972: Diguem no
• 1972: La noche
• 1974: A Víctor Jara
• 1974: Campus de Bellaterra
• 1974: T'adones amic ...?
• 1976: El recital de Madrid
• 1977: Lliurament del cant
• 1979: Quan l'aigua es queixa
• 1981: Totes les cançons
• 1984: Entre la nota i el so
• 1985: Raimon canta
• 1987: Presències i oblit
• 1989: Canta Ausiàs March
• 1993: Integral
• 1993: Cançons
• 1995: I després de creure tant
• 1997: Ausiàs March / Raimon
• 1997: Cançons de May
• 1997: Recitals al Palau
• 1999: Dotze cançons
• 1999: Les cançons d'amor
• 2000: Nova Integral 2000
• 2003: Classics i no
• 2003: Raimon-Espriu Poesia cantada
• 2006: Raimon a l'Olympia (1966-2006)
• 2011: Rellotge d'emocions

literature

• Antoni Batista: Raimon. La construcció d'un cant. Edicions La Magrana. RBA, 2005.
• Joan Fuster : Raimon. Alcides, Barcelona 1964.
• Joan Ramon Mainat: Tretze que canten. Editorial Mediterránea, 1982.
• Josep Pla : Raimon com a poeta. Retrats de passaport. Vol.XVII Obra Completa Edicions Destino Barcelona, ​​1970.
• Jaume Pomar: Raimon. Ediciones Jucar. Madrid-Gijón, 1983.
• Tilbert D. Stegman: Diguem no: Songs from Catalonia. Rotbuch, Berlin 1979.

Web links

Commons : Raimon  - collection of images, videos and audio files