Louve very heureuse

Perchance was invited to a very agreeable recital in a private garden in Brussels, a bit like a forest clearing in the middle of the city, on a warm summer evening which could have been somewhere along the coast of Chile... 

An intimate and heartfelt offering of works by Violetta Parra, fifty years hence, gone from us at fifty years of age... by none other than her granddaughter Felisa Cereceda in duo with Ylva Berg as ‘La Louve Heureuse’ ... a rare treat. Accompanied by only the barest essentials, an Arauco drum and a string of shells, they gave strong and emotionally laden interpretations which harked back to the original, raw and engaged style that Violetta Parra herself might have appreciated... Over the years her songs have gone through various phases of popularization in various senses of the term... 

I had arrived in Chile some ten years after her death, in the dark times of the Pinochet regime, but her music was still omnipresent – something the Junta could not silence... and as such they became anthems to the struggle for freedom... Even though Violetta Parra’s songs were pre-Allende (lastly the Frei presidency) and about the disenfranchisement of  the poor & indigenous peoples rather than the disaster still to take place, it was partially the origin and represented the sentiment of change in Allende’s Unidad Popular, and adopted by the persecuted, with Victor Jarra’s martyrdom as catalyst - and exported to Europe...via groups like Inti-Illimani, especially Quilapayun, in which recently departed Angél Parra (son of Violetta) played a key role.

It is due to these groups that I first heard songs by Violetta Parra, versions my sisters had in their university record collection... and was a bit surprised to find they could be heard in Chile, since the aforementioned groups were prohibited, but Parra herself seen as heritage even if grudgingly, by the military regime... (there were enough records of the more revolutionary songs floating around in private circles though- so undermining any censorship anyway...) 

At the close of the seventies awareness sort of ebbed and attention focused more on Central America (Nicaragua, El Salvador...) and discord in the aforementioned groups sort of had their toll also... resurgence (of ‘historico’ groups) in Chile itself with the restoration of democracy but also enshrining and in a way entombing the whole ‘folkloristic renewal’ while losing sight of the essentials...

Which is exactly what I felt one caught a glimpse of here in this small unpretentious garden-recital: back to the simple protestations and heartfelt concern for those less fortunate... the need for an emotional response rather than political machinations, the re-sourcing of self-worth in order to emphasize with others...  (...well,  with some socio-political aspects if you please,  especially the pre-colonial indigenous populations, befitting the recent trend of ‘decolonialization’ discourse...)

But the main appreciation is that of a personal warmth, the beautiful poetry, carried by well crafted voices, interchanging and mingling with the evening slowly descending on the small green oasis in the city...

Very much appreciated. Certainly to be looked out for (...venue mentioned on their blog....September 23, Antwerp?)