Homenatge a Francesc Alió

This Homenatge a Francesc Alió by J. Lluís Guzman is a tribute to the two genuine sources of Catalan music: the popular song and the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat.
Francesc Alió could be considered the musical father of Catalonia being the author of Cançons populars catalanes (1981) and, specially, of the anthem of Els Segadors (The Reapers). In J. Lluís Guzman’s work we can find an invocation of the new spirit in the principal theme, in the melody that runs past the sardana’s rhythm and that becomes a new anthem that reminds of his passion for Catalan culture through the collection of songs that Alió past us on.
Montserrat is the musical mother, the religious root of the Catalan traditional music that we find in this Homenatge a Alió and it is also cited textually with the song of Stella Splendens that we recognise linked to the principal theme.
Guzman Antich has returned to his origins with both sources from which he has taken the sonorous spirit of Catalonia, made of repetitive harmonies and melody, of sea and mountain, of the seny i rauxa (sensibleness and impulse) which define us, that here it is said with a revealing forcefulness. It is the Homage with wings to become the singing of the future Catalonia.

Mònica Pagès