Lluis Llach

Lluís Llach i Grande (Gerona, May 7, 1948) is a Catalan-speaking Spanish musician and singer-songwriter who belonged to the group Els Setze Jutges and who can be considered as one of the standard bearers of the Catalan Nova Cançó. His most popular and most committed song has been L'Estaca composed in 1968, which Jacek Kaczmarski adapted as the unofficial anthem of the Polish Solidarity union, and which became the official anthem in 1997. of the Union Sportive Arlequins Perpignan rugby club (Arlequin Sports Union of Perpignan) from Perpignan (France). It was also the song of the Tunisian Revolution in 2011. being able to interpret his songs during the Franco dictatorship had to go into exile for a time in Paris. In September 1979 he is the first non-operatic singer to perform for the first time at the Gran Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona to present Somniem.

In July 2015, it joined the pro-sovereignty project of Junts pel Sí (JxSí), a coalition created to participate in the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia on September 27 with the aim of contributing to the process of declaring independence, and participated in the elections leading the formation list for the Girona constituency. From October 26, 2015 to October 27, 2017, he was a deputy in the Parliament of Catalonia.

On November 14, 2017, it was announced that Lluís Llach would not be on any electoral list in the regional elections of Catalonia on December 21, 2017.

Biography

Childhood in Verges

He is the son of a village doctor, Josep Maria Llach, from a family of landowners, who after fighting in Requeté during the Spanish civil war got a place in the Empordà town of Verges (Girona province), from which he arrived to be mayor between 1950 and 1963; and from a mother a teacher, María Grande, born in Porrera (Tarragona), from a family from Extremadura, who had received a bourgeois education in Barcelona. Her paternal family was linked to Carlism, having been her great-grandfather Joaquín Llach, head of the Traditionalist Communion in the province of Gerona. He lived his childhood in this small town located in Bajo Ampurdán, a region with which he has always declared himself in love. He has never lost these roots and still today he participates every Holy Week in the famous procession of the Dance of Death and has a residence in the neighboring town of Parlabá.

Born into a deeply religious, traditional and Francoist family environment, Lluís himself would admit to having been attracted to these ideas during his childhood:

Yes, I was what we could call a fascist child, perhaps not directly in terms of ideology, but yes as fascism is based primarily on magnifying falsehood and I magnified everything that was false. Words like Empire, flag, homeland, nation, duty, order passionately exalted me.

According to Lluís Llach himself, the person who brought music into his house was his mother. Both Lluís and his brother Josep Maria began playing a guitar, until a piano appeared at the age of four, with which Lluís began to compose his first melodies approximately two years later. Observing the good ear of his son, the parents entrusted his musical education to Quim Gil, with respect to music theory, and to Lau Roure and his wife Montserrat Puigdemont.

In 1957, at the age of nine, he moved to Figueras (Gerona) to continue his studies, boarding at the La Salle school, where he took refuge in the world of music, spending hours and hours alone in front of the piano. He found the counterweight in this solitary world in the summers, going to his mother's town, Porrera (Tarragona), where he met Jorgina Domènech, who brought him closer to the music of the French chansonniers, and in a special way, to that of Jacques Brel. He dedicated the love song Per un tros del teu cos to her in 1968. However, his first song, Que feliç era, mare, with lyrics by his brother, is from around 1965.

The Setze Judges

In 1963, at the age of 16, he moved to Barcelona to study high school and later to study engineering. Two years later, he would enroll in the Faculty of Economics, studies that he abandoned to attend what, according to him, would be his university: he joined the Nova Cançó movement, joining the group Els Setze Jutges, of which it was the last component. Albert Mallofré, music critic for La Vanguardia commented as follows:

Lluís Llach is, of the three newcomers, the youngest. We do not know if in age, but artistically he is much younger than his two companions. Its texts and musical composition are typical youth products. They are tender and clean, but still innocent and primary. His interpretive style lacks a contrasted profile and is often seen as an accent (a stylistic accent) more of The Seco People than of Verges. And if we say "Poble-sec" it is not lightly, but to allude a well-known member of the current popular song. Lluís Llach is an artist who begins and his career will lead to one port or another and will be more or less long and fruitful as his personality is developing. For now it is very risky a prognosis, you can only welcome it and wish that your vocation does not lose the stimulus.

Albert Mallofré, La Vanguardia

Piano at Mas Pi in Verges, where Lluís Llach composed L'Estaca.

He made his debut on March 22, 1967 in Tarrasa (Barcelona), a concert in which, as he has often explained, he spent the whole time with his eyes closed and his legs shaking. In November of the same year, he performed with Raimon in the Arenas de Barcelona bullring.

In 1968, the year of the French May, of which he considers himself the son, Llach saw the arrival of popular success with L'Estaca (Concèntric). The censors approved this song the eighth time Llach submitted it, but, it was approved under another name, "Ahir". This hymn of vindication was banned the following year, but it was already a popular song. Joan Molas and Núria Batalla became their representatives, a contract that lasted until December 1990.

In November he participated in the Barcelona Song Festival with the song A cara o creu, also performed by Dolors Lafitte and composed by Josep Maria Andreu and Lleó Borrell) and won second place. Among the attendees was a representative of CBS in Spain, who offered him to sign with the multinational to sing in Spanish. He rejected the offer and signed a contract with a small Catalan record label, Concèntric, whose sole objective was to keep the language alive and Catalan culture against the Franco dictatorship. With this label he recorded his first album with the songs Que feliç era mare , La barca , En Quitero and El Parc .

The following year, he recorded his first LP: Els èxits de Lluís Llach, later reissued under the title Les seves primeres cançons. The singer's popularity grew and with the song Irene, already with the Movieplay label and the musical production of Joan Molas, it reached 100,000 units sold. Irene was born from a heartbreak with a French girl who was spending the summer in La Escala and who opened the doors to all the changes that were taking place in France. If Irene constitutes a song with an undoubted commercial “hook”, it is also an interesting portrait of the concerns of the youth of that time, as are Despertar and Res has no acabat, while Temps i temps... was, possibly, the best of all the songs sung up to then by Lluís Llach. All the songs were written by the performer himself, except for the last one, with lyrics by Josep Maria Andreu and music by Llach.

On December 13, 1969, he performed solo at the Palau de la Música Catalana, where he established himself as one of the best singer-songwriters of the moment with growing popularity at all levels. In this recital L'Estaca was sung only by the public, since it was prohibited. The album Ara i aquí includes his performance live. On December 26, he sang for the first time with Laura Almerich, a fundamental part of his musical accompaniment throughout his career.

Exile in Paris

Lluís Llach began to have an extensive and varied repertoire with songs like Que feliç era, mare!, La meva terra, Res no ha acabat, Jo sé, Damunt d'una terra, El día, Cant miner, Cels trencats, Cal que neixin flors a cada instante, El bandolero, Per un tros del teu cos, Irene, I also slept at dawn, Tot sovint escolto històries que em parlen d'esclaus, Cop de destral , Aquell vaixell, Respon-me, Fifty stars, and with the interpretation of L'estaca with music alone.

Possessing a singular artistic personality, knowledgeable like few others of authentic popular sensibility and a man aware of his social role as author and performer of new popular songs, Lluís Llach was probably one of the most suggestive personalities of the most popular modern of those times.

From that moment on, Llach is the victim of prohibitions and intellectual persecution. In November 1970, he traveled to Cuba and participated in a recital where he criticized Franco's policies, which caused the Spanish ambassador to leave the room. On his return, and after being repeatedly postponed, on December 6, Lluís made his debut at the Teatro Monumental in Madrid, the first recital entirely in Catalan in a commercial venue. Both facts caused him harsh prohibitions: he could not sing in Spain for four years, except Catalonia. On December 12, he was banned from a recital in the final of the First Song Revelation Award in the Valencian Community, in Valencia, where he participated as a guest artist. His professional situation became untenable and he decided to go into exile^{[cita required]} to Paris together with their representatives. Teresa Rebull introduced him to Paco Ibáñez and Mikis Theodorakis.

In 1972 his third full-length album Com un arbre nu was published; In January 1973, TVE broadcast the musical program in Catalan Lluís Llach, filmed under the direction of Lluís Maria Güell in various places in the Catalan Ampurdán and including scenes from the recital that Llach gave in Girona during the festivities of San Narciso at the end of October 1972; in those years 1973 and 1974 he achieved his consecration outside of Catalonia with his performances at the Olympia in Paris. The album consisted of nine songs with a different texture but united by the same spirit and linked into a single homogeneous unit. It is, without a doubt, the most interesting volume due to its conception and one of the best achieved of those that had been created in the country recently. It is also a harmonious whole, since it is not strictly possible to highlight one song above the others in a qualitative estimation, nor is there the slightest imbalance in the overall work of Lluís Llach, both in the construction of the texts and in the compositions. sheet music.

Olympia debut

The Paris debut took place on January 21, 1973, and critics said it was one of his best performances so far. Although the public was predominantly Catalan, many French also attended, and it meant the definitive triumph for both Lluís Llach and the Nova Cançó in Paris.

Throughout almost two hours of performance, the young and enthusiastic singer-songwriter from Empordà offered a magnificent recital, all of it full of hits. Starting from an apparently minimal support, accompanying himself on guitar, on some occasions on piano, with the instrumental support of Laura Almerich on guitar, Rafael Ortiz on double bass and Jordi Enero on trombone, violin and percussion, it was a It is a very eloquent example of his extraordinary conditions as an author and interpreter along the lines that he had been cultivating for half a dozen years inside and outside Catalonia.

During his stay in France, he returned on very specific occasions and also sang in Switzerland, Germany and Mexico. Precisely during his stay in Mexico, the long-awaited album "long play" (produced by Joan Molas) which includes a good part of Luis Llach's performance at the famous Olympia. Although most of the songs on the album had already been recorded on previous albums, this volume contains a renewed interest, and not only as a sound document of an important event, but also for the same satisfaction that comes from listening to it intrinsically. Lluís Llach sings with nerve, with temper and with a deep power of conviction, and it is not simply the "how" but also the "what" -and we would say that very especially the "why"-, since in the songs there is like a contained force that, for the same reason, is unstoppable.

After four years of absence in Barcelona, except for small recitals in his regions, on February 2 and 3, 1974 he performed again at the Palau de la Música Catalana to present the songs from his new album live I do sing sad. This record bears the name of a song that Llach composed shortly after the death of Salvador Puig Antich. The recitals were very well received by both the public and critics, who recognized him as a great step forward in his artistic maturity, especially highlighting his transition from guitar to piano and for the first time he had chosen to set other people's texts to music (La casa que vull by Salvat-Papasseit and Cançó a Mahalta by Màrius Torres). The queues were exceptional and everyone agreed that the series of recitals could have been extended for another week.

The «Palau» was filled wide open with an enthusiastic and fervent crowd, who did not spare their applause. Civic poetry and contained lyricism with a clear expression of ideas and concepts manifested with the communicative force that intimate conviction gives. Conceived and elegantly presented, the stage and next to the protagonist, a reduced but effective instrumental ensemble, made up of three guitars (including the singer's), two double basses, a clarinet), a viola, a trombone), a flute and a drums, and piano, for Lluís Llach himself, with whom he accompanied himself on some of the songs.

A month later he performed again at the Olympia, this time sharing the stage with Francesc Pi de la Serra, again gaining a great echo in Catalonia due to the political circumstances that were being experienced. It is also during this period that she "sponsors" Ramon Muntaner, for whom Joan Molas would produce his first album.

TVE recorded a recital offered in the Teatre Grec campaign that year, but its broadcast was postponed at the last minute because the singer had addressed the public entirely in Catalan.

Trip to Ithaca

His new work from 1975, Viatge a Ítaca, based on texts by Kavafis, became his best-selling album up to then with 150,000 copies. With this album he began the collaboration in the arrangements with Manel Camp and with the drummer Santi Arisa, both from Manresa and former members of Fusioon. Its presentation was made on May 7 at the Palacio de la Música Catalana and twenty-four hours after the tickets went on sale they were already sold out. On Monday, May 12, the singer was taken by the police from the hotel where he was staying, to the "Superior Headquarters", where he had to make a statement and did not leave until two hours later. The interrogation focused on the first recital when the singer, who was forbidden to do any repetition of his songs, after the audience applauded for more than twenty minutes, came out again to say that he could not sing another one.

The event originally planned for six performances, ended in the fifth, when an encore was prohibited, he was arrested and taken to the Higher Police Command. Meanwhile, the public leaving the Palace sang in chorus L'Estaca . He is prohibited from continuing with the recitals, he is fined 100,000 pesetas, and for more than eight months all his performances in Spain were prohibited. The then civil governor of Barcelona, Rodolfo Martín Villa, justified it for the "repeated violations of the entertainment regulations, which strictly prohibit artists from addressing the public and establishing a dialogue with them, something that Mr. Llach did repeatedly, uttering expressions that the government authority has estimated as infringing on the institutions and current legislation. While the prohibitions persist in Spain (more than seventy-five), Llach once again takes refuge abroad. In August he performed in London, again at the Olympia, in Venezuela, and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris offered him a contract to perform for fifteen days. All of Paris was full of posters with the image of Llach. Coinciding with these actions, Franco dies. He sang on French TV alongside the legendary Georges Brassens in a New Year's Eve show in Avignon with a large audience.

January 1976

On January 15, 1976, almost two months after Franco's death, Lluís Llach reappeared after many years of prohibition, alone, in three great recitals at the Palacio de los Deportes de Barcelona in Montjuïc where he forcefully demonstrated its convening power with the attendance of some 30,000 people.

The long-awaited recital at the Palacio de los Deportes was developed with explosive success. Long before it started, the large venue was already full of expectant audiences, among which were many of the most relevant figures from the world of letters, arts, theater, cinema, sports, politics and, in particular, general, with a massive predominance of youth. In a heated and boisterous atmosphere, with the waving of flags, banners, matches, shouts, songs, cheers and applause, the singer appeared after eight months of not being able to perform in Barcelona. This forced silence was greeted with a thunderous ovation, the entire audience standing up, in an effervescent demonstration of emotional support.

Lluís Llach, moved but very serene at the same time, gave a perfect recital, often chanted by the audience, who successively ratified various phrases from his songs with applause. In the first part, the songs that had suffered restrictions in the not distant past for a long time were heard, and that, despite this limited diffusion, the public knew them well, since they faithfully followed their development. At the end of the concert, the applause did not stop, the audience stood up, until Lluís Llach, triumphant, had to repeat and kiss over and over again. Then, the cheers, the shouts and all their manifestations were changed into a tribute to the outstanding Catalan singer-songwriter, clothed in a clear halo of a popular hero.

Among the more than eight thousand attendees were the main representatives of the Council of Political Forces of Catalonia and Third Ways: Ramón Trías Fargas, Josep Solé, Josep Pallach, etc., as well as Jordi Carbonell, Agustí de Semir, Father Jordi Llimona, Doctor Trueta, the singers Pi de la Serra, Ovidi Montllor, Raimon and many more. Lluís Maria Xirinacs also attended. Throughout the recital, the attendees shouted "Llibertat, amnesty, statute of autonomy".

These recitals are collected in the form of a disc under the title Barcelona, gener del 76, an entire sound document of the situation and feelings of historical moments. For the first time all his songs pass the censorship. The first rows are occupied by the representatives of all the political and trade union forces in opposition to Francoism. Initially planned for a single concert, and seeing that the tickets sold out quickly, the promoter Oriol Regàs got Rodolfo Martín Villa up to three sessions, already banning the fourth.

Fifteen days later, on March 31, Teresa Rebull, Pere Figueres and above all Lluís Llach managed to make the Perpignan Conference Center look small for the first time in its history, with more than 1,200 seats. Llach was known to the Roussillon public since he used to give at least one recital a year in this part of Catalonia. On the other hand, the singer had appeared several times on the screens of the different French television channels. The same thing would happen in the Loiola room in Manresa (Barcelona) the following weekend in two consecutive recitals and with the assistance of 1,200 people in each one who witnessed another musical success. This resounding success and the slogans that were shouted were surely the reason for the prohibition of the recitals of the following weekend in the Municipal Theater of Girona.

On Friday, February 27, Llach arrived in Santa Cruz de Tenerife to perform two recitals at the Guimerá theater. After they were banned once more, he was visited by a commission of professors from the University, who on behalf of the rector invited him to give a recital there, specifically on Sunday. Llach accepted the proposal. Meanwhile, the rector received an order from the superior chief of police, also prohibiting the performance on the university campus. The rector replied by saying that this was the exclusive responsibility of the academic authorities, to which the police chief warned him that, in the event that he tried to hold it, the forces of order would prevent it. Faced with this situation, both the rector and the governing body of the University of La Laguna decided to resign. On March 1, Llach was physically expelled from the Canary Island by the police, following a verbal order from the Minister of the Interior, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, founder of the Popular Party with a history of government in democratic Spain.

During the following two months, he was banned from all the recitals he had planned. Meanwhile, the Norwegian National Radio broadcast two programs dedicated to Lluís Llach. Both the presentation and the Norwegian versions of the singer's songs were given by Professor Laif Sletsjo of the University of Oslo. A short time ago this professor had made a publication in Norwegian about the figure of the philosopher Ramon Llull.

Finally, on May 7th, he starred in another massive recital with more than 10,000 students on the campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

On August 31, a Lluís Llach festival was held at the Teatre Grec, organized by the Assembly of Actors and Directors. A few days later, the organization received a fine of two hundred and fifty thousand pesetas, for considering it responsible for the events that had happened and that, according to a communication from the Fines Bureau of the Barcelona Police Headquarters, which explained that the reasons of the sanction, consisted of the fact that the recital was transformed into a public meeting of a political nature, in which "acts contrary to public order took place, such as repeated shouts of political significance, and a banner alluding to a political entity located outside the Law and several subversive flags", among other charges.

At the end of the year he composed music for the first play premiered at the Teatre Lliure Camí de nit, 1854, written and directed by Lluís Pasqual, a show about Josep Barceló and the progressive biennium (1854-1856).

However, the transition had only just begun and the bans followed. Labor conflicts also began, such as the general strike of March 3, 1976 in Vitoria caused by the dismissal of seventy workers (Sucesos de Vitoria), which ended with the police firing indiscriminately with the result of 5 deaths and 40 wounded, under the orders of of Minister Manuel Fraga. Aware of the fact, Llach set to work on a creation inspired by pain and despair, and Campanades a morts was born, premiered in the Basque Country at the end of the same year in a very emotional recital. Much of this oratorio or cantata shows distant echoes of Illeta by the San Sebastian composer Francisco Escudero.

Llach faced a new challenge with the recording of an album with the incorporation of a symphony orchestra conducted by Manel Camp and the Sant Jordi Choir conducted by Oriol Martorell. This funeral cantata is full of tension and tragedy, a reflection of the moment. On the second side, the most popular Laura stands out above all. Four months after appearing, 250,000 copies had already been sold.

He wrote the soundtrack for the film Borrasca directed by Miguel Ángel Rivas and partly shot in Torroella de Montgrí (Gerona). In a habanera she made herself sing to The fishermen of L & # 39; Escala .

Companies, it's not here

The political events that were taking place in 1977, the year of the first democratic elections, coincided with a period of reflection for Lluís helped by the rest of a journey. Even his father was forced to write the following letter to the director of La Vanguardia:

In the face of the insistent calls and letters asking about my son's state of health, Lluís Llach, I would be grateful if you would insert this letter into the paper of your worthy address. As a doctor, I can say that my child does not suffer or suffer any illness and that a recent medical examination has confirmed very satisfactorily what I say. I don't understand who's interested in spreading such rumors or why. I sincerely appreciate the interest of those who have been interested in him.

Josep M. Llach

After three recitals in Madrid, and several in other provinces, on May 20, 1978 he began a tour of America, including performances in Cuba -a country he had already visited in 1969-, Mexico and California. of the recitals was made up of the album El meu amic el mar that he had just released, loaded with resonances from Empordà, with a new tendency towards intimacy and «Mediterraneanness» in his work and which coincided with his thirty years of life and ten as a singer-songwriter. From October 27 to November 12, 1978, he presented it at the Teatro Romea (Barcelona). This record was important in Llach's career in the sense that it signifies a certain break in his status as a myth and spokesperson for a community. In fact, from that moment on, the singer only returned to perform in large public spaces on a few occasions, highlighting the San Juan recital in 1981 and especially the Campo del Barça recital in 1985.

Albert Mallofré wrote this about the album in La Vanguardia:

Lluís Llach has done a deeply authentic, impressively sincere, intimately reflective, expressively introverted, frank, free and spontaneous work. It is a long-lasting album edited with typographical magnificence by "Ariola", which includes eight original compositions, seven of which have the sea as the background of the thematic action. The rest, Companys, not aixòIt was added for obvious reasons of opportunity.

Albert Mallofré, La Vanguardia))

Once again, Mallofré did not understand Llach, Companys, no és aixo opened the doors of the next most demanding album Somniem, and that it would bother some sectors that considered that the Nova Cançó had already fulfilled its function and politics should be left in the hands of politicians. Lluís Llach, like the rest of the components of the Nova Cançó movement, found himself sidelined in the race to recover the lost rights. They went from being the spearhead to getting in the way. It was the beginning of the end of the artistic movement. Everything changed very quickly, even the image of him now presenting himself bare-fronted, and Llach began to think about withdrawing from him. It is the beginning of the end of the artistic movement. For these recitals, Lluís Llach accompanied himself on the piano (at some stage on the guitar) and benefits from the help of a luxurious instrumental team made up of Manel Camp (electric keyboards), Laura Almerich and Gabriel Rosales (guitars), Manuel Rabinat (flute) and Albert Moraleda (double bass). Anecdotally, from this recital Lluís Llach appeared without a wig.

The appearance of this album coincided with his reappearance in Madrid, after eight years of prohibition, and in Barcelona, after three years of not performing. The recitals were given at the Romea theater which, after several extensions, were a total of thirty performances with the theater full to overflowing. It was the first time that among the public there is neither crying, nor banners, nor the symbology that for so many years fed their concerts.

At the Lyceum

In September 1979, he performed for the first time at the Gran Teatro del Liceo to present Somniem and was the first non-operatic singer to perform in two historic recitals. He included a calculatedly ambiguous poem set to music, Criatura dolcíssima by Joan Fuster, with whom he had a friendly relationship. The content of the disc means the return to the fight, in the reaffirmation of his human principles. One of the singer's strangest and most uneven albums, which he was convinced was his musical testament, since he planned to retire once the recording was finished. For many years it was one of the productions that Llach loved the most. Lluís Llach appeared on stage wearing jeans and a white shirt and surrounded by his musicians who were dressed accordingly except for Laura Almerich, who wore an elegant and austere yellow suit. The rest of the ensemble was the same one that had performed at the Teatro Romea. Lluís Llach himself accompanied himself on the piano in most of the pieces in the repertoire.

Between 1978 and 1979, Llach felt dissatisfied with his artistic results as he was unable to carry out his work in good technical conditions. In fact, Llach communicates his decision to retire to his representatives, Joan Molas and Núria Batalla, who advise him not to say so publicly. It was good advice, because after 8 months he rethinks it, and he decides to sing again.

One of the main reasons for his return is the international recognition that in 1979 he received the Tenco Award, awarded by a jury of Italian music critics to the best foreign singer and considered the most prestigious among singer-songwriters, having received it also Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Pablo Milanés or Elvis Costello, among others. The jury estimated that Llach had "contributed, with tenacious and constant activity, to the birth and evolution of the nova cançó Catalana, claiming a cultural identity". of September.

In March 1980 he presented his book Catalunya viure in Paris, written in French with the collaboration of two French journalists, the Occitan Marc Legras and Breton Jacques Erwan.

This same year is a transition year both in terms of the number of concerts and new publications. He sang in Germany, Belgium, Italy and France. It is also the year of the first elections in the Parliament of Catalonia, since the Republic, and Llach anecdotally presented himself for number 17 in Gerona for Nacionalistes d'Esquerra.

During a short tour of France and Belgium at the end of March 1981, Lluís Llach presented at the matinées of the Théâtre de la Ville, in Paris, the new poetic work and above all musical by Verges 50, in which he distills the essence of the memories and fantasies of his childhood in Empordà, on a fully instrumental first side where Manel Camp's arrangements stand out, and on a second side that ends with one of his best songs País petit. He was also featured in various concerts held at the Teatre Grec and at the Palau de la Música Catalana with the collaboration of the Barcelona Municipal Band directed by Albert Argudo.

This year, 1981, was once again a year of great activity. With the addition of Marina Rossell, he returned in March with three concerts at the Théâtre de la Ville. For San Juan she participated in the great recital of the Camp Nou. And, despite six years having passed since the dictator's death, he once again had problems with TVE when he was banned from a special program. Llach claimed damages from Spanish television, finally won the trial and was compensated. In fact, the singer's ethical commitment continued, despite the reluctance of the political class, and in an act on January 8, 1982 at the Nau del Clot he stated: "... those of us who are Radical nationalists, we are by principle, by obligation and with pride».

With I el somriure, la revolta (1982) he began his collaboration with Miquel Martí i Pol, with a first part singing his verses. The album was presented over twenty performances at the Poliorama theater in Barcelona, and the proceeds from the first one were delivered to Amnesty International in Catalonia. On this album, Llach used synthesizers for the first time. That same year, the Generalitat of Catalonia awarded him the Creu de Sant Jordi, which his mother collected, for whom he represented a great gift from her son two years before her death. The prize was awarded "for having served Catalonia with dignity and fidelity in the Nova Cançó Catalana movement, and for having enriched it with compositions of great emotional tenderness and a great epic air, always, however, at the service of an obsessive idea of freedom, love and fraternity and justice».

In January 1983, in a concert at the Palacio de los Deportes pro-damaged by the floods, Raimon, Joan Manuel Serrat and Lluís Llach performed together for the first time. In 1984 the album T'estimo was released, which included an ambiguous song of great strength: Amor particular. The French Record Academy awarded him the Best Composer of the Year Award.

In 1985 he began again with a series of concerts at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, where he received the greatest echo from the French press for his performances. And after a year of work, her mother and the sea come together in the title track of the next album: Maremar (1985). The entire album is marked by the recent absence of her mother. The Cant de l'enyor has the vocal collaboration of Maria del Mar Bonet and Marina Rossell. It includes Un núvol blanc, a mixture of longing and melancholy with great interpretative tenderness. From this album, he had the collaboration of Carles Cases. As a curious and representative fact at the time of its popularity throughout Europe, the Polish Solidarity union adopted L'Estaca as its own anthem.

On July 6 of the same year, Lluís Llach gives the most massive and unusual recital of his life at the Camp Nou, with more than 100,000 people, and with an orchestra conducted by Manel Camp. The memorable spectacle is recorded in a fifteen-track double album called Camp del Barça. July 6, 1985. Sociologically, the recital had a great impact in Catalonia. Unlike in 1976, however, the front row was no longer packed with politicians. Lluís Llach affirmed: «... at the moment, we are going through a few years in which it seems that the fact of having maintained cultural resistance attitudes is almost a kind of shameful heritage».

In 1986 he signed for the multinational CBS and recorded Astres trying to unite man and the universe. In this case, a man from Manresa replaces another in terms of arrangements, Carles Cases to Manel Camp. The presentation was made on January 25, 1987 at the Mercado de las Flores in Barcelona with a total of twenty-one recitals. It is necessary to emphasize the use of a very considerable technical infrastructure with synthesizers, videos, and many watts of light and sound. Obviously it was a show of breaking with the past and of evident musical innovation. Also for the first time, Llach finished the concert without singing L'estaca, despite the public's insistence. The same year he participated in a collective album in tribute to Federico García Lorca with artists from various languages like Leonard Cohen, Angelo Branduardi, Moustaki, Donovan, Chico Buarque and others.

In 1988 he made his debut as a baritone under the baton of Jean-Claude Casadesus at the Palace of Congresses and Music in Lille to interpret the Requiem by Gabriel Fauré. The same year he premiered at the Palacio de la Música Catalana, a very heterogeneous album: Geografia , which, after many years of absence, represented him on the stage of the Olympia in Paris.

He participated in the six hours against the entry to NATO in Barcelona, and later, together with other historical representatives of Nova Cançó, he took part in a two-day lockdown organized by the Association of Professional Singers and Performers in Language Catalana (ACIC), at the offices of the Generalitat's Ministry of Culture, against the discriminatory treatment they received from the radio stations that belonged to the Generalitat and from Catalonia's television, TV3.

Miquel Martí i Pol

Lluís Llach Olympia of Paris, November 2006

In 1991, he closed his contract with CBS with the release of the album Torna aviat, a mixed bag of his compositions from the last five years, recorded entirely at his farmhouse in Parlabá. The album includes Roda, dedicated to Miquel Martí i Pol and Au blanca with the collaboration of soprano Victoria de los Ángeles. There is also the song La forja, an instrumental song written for the TVE production La forja de un rebelde. That year, the doctors diagnosed him with cancer, which he defeated with willpower and the help of his friend Martí i Pol, who was also in very fragile health. With enthusiasm and passion they began to work together on the texts of Un pont de mar blava that would be published two years later.

From that moment on, he worked with Picap, with whom he published a double compilation album of recent performances in 1992 under the name Ara, 25 anys en directe. To celebrate his 25-year career, she brought back old songs with modernized versions, plus a couple of previously unreleased songs. It is an album that goes in search of the everyday Llach, of his habitual relationship, day by day, with the most varied public. For this reason it was recorded in small recitals in small villages.

With the aforementioned collaboration of Miquel Martí i Pol, in 1993 he made a synthesis of Mediterranean cultures in the work entitled Un port de mar blava. Where it is necessary to highlight the interventions of the singers Amina Alaoui and Nena Venetsanou, who interpret in Arabic and Greek respectively, the songs Tanta llum de mar and Lentament comença el cant, which It is found in the resolutive fragment of the work.

He once again composed a soundtrack for the film Le voleur d'enfants which he reflects on the album A Bigi, perquè el ballis. That same year she rejected the nomination for the Prince of Asturias Award.

In 1994 the album Rar appeared that brought together live recordings from the previous year, of various materials that Llach had kept in the drawer, with two unpublished songs, one of them, White Roses, written by Martí i Pol.

Cheerleader

Having moved his habitual residence to Porrera (Tarragona), in 1995 he released an album with new and unitary material that bears the name of the town: Porrera. As in Verges 50, Lluís Llach recreated the past to understand the present, using the small town of Porrera, where he feels physically rooted since his summer stays when he was little. The texts were prepared again with the collaboration of Miquel Martí i Pol, with whom Lluís Llach carried out a true symbiosis.

He celebrated his thirtieth anniversary, with a tour accompanied only by his piano and guitar, the result was the show Nu, which will be the basis of his new album of the year 1997 with the same name and with songs from all eras. There are again signs of withdrawal that fade with the appearance at the end of 1998 of his new work 9, which marks a new musical stage with nine songs dedicated to nine stories totally different, with themes of love, politics and social criticism. Musically, the hand of the producer of the record, the rock guitarist Jordi Armengol, is noticeable.

In May 1999, at the height of the Kosovo war, he published a CD with only two tracks, to dedicate all the profits to the Ajuda per Kòsovo association, and on July 2 he performed at the Palau Sant Jordi at the macro-concert Catalunya X Kosovo. On November 5, UNESCO names Llach Artist for Peace. At the end of the summer of 2000, he would include these two songs on the new album Temps de revoltes, accompanied by the cantata Germanies, a reflection on the future of the Catalan Countries, created in collaboration with Miquel Martí i Pol. The show with the same name opens in Valencia with the accompaniment of a band made up of fifteen musicians, the participation of the Cuban singer Lucrecia, the countertenor Xavier Torra and a choir made up of two hundred children. of different choral groups.

On December 30, 2000, he performed at the Palacio de la Música Catalana together with the bailaora Cristina Hoyos in a dance and music show where very different cultures complement each other. On December 17 of the following year, Llach and Hoyos would once again share the stage, this time, at the Teatro Real in Madrid. She appeared again in 2002 at the festivals of Cap Roig, in Ampurdán, and in Benalmádena (Málaga).

Llach incorporated the theme Campanades a morts into his performances in 2001 as a demonstration against the murder of Ernest Lluch at the hands of ETA on November 21 of the previous year.

On December 29, 2002, an extraordinary concert took place at the Palau Sant Jordi in front of 12,000 spectators, where Lluís Llach and José Carreras joined their voices to sing for peace in a memorable recital that took the name Together and from which an album would come out a few months later. The two artists performed popular Catalan songs and some of the most emblematic songs by the singer-songwriter from Verges.

The 2003 season is one of the most prolific in performances to present his new album released on November 3 of the previous year at the Liceo after 23 years: Jocs. Themes for missing friends stand out, and above all Vell és tan bell , dedicated to the also recent disappearance of her father. On September 6, Lluís Llach performed the work Verges 50 for the first time in the Plaza Mayor in Verges.

At the end of the year, he presented a new recital, Poetes, in which he wants to pay tribute to the Catalan poets and writers who have been decisive in his musical career, and especially to his great friend Miquel Martí i Pol, who had died on November 11. The recording of the concerts of this recital in the Apolo room, led to the release of a new CD-DVD, in spring. On June 26, Porrera (Tarragona) organized a tribute event to the poet Miquel Martí i Pol, including a concert by Lluís Llach and a literary evening with the participation of different guests.

During 2005 he made the Que no s'apague la llum tour together with the Valencian singer Feliu Ventura, which entailed the recording of a joint live album with songs by the two singers, recorded at the Gran Teatre de Játiva (Valencia).

In January 2006, Lluís Danés presented the theater show Tranuites Circus with a live performance by Lluís Llach. With his songs, the singer-songwriter gave voice to the unspeakable desires of characters who spend the night without sleep: the "Tranuites".

Preparing the farewell

Lluís Llach presented his last show i. on February 17, 2006, which served as the basis for the last album the artist released before his announced withdrawal in March 2007. The quote is at the Sala Apolo in Barcelona in a week-long series of concerts, with three later dates added by great popular demand. On November 22, 2006, he performed an emotional farewell concert at the Olympia in Paris.

On February 12, 2007, the feature film in the form of a documentary entitled Llach, the permanent revolt, directed by Lluís Danés and produced by Mediapro, was officially presented at the Liceo. The material comes from a camera team from this production company that monitors Lluís Llach throughout 2005, both in his private and professional life.

In 2007 he was awarded the Medal of Honor of the Parliament of Catalonia in recognition of his work carried out for "Els Setze Jutges" and he retired from the song with his tour & # 34;i. & # 34; (period) that ends with two emotional final concerts in the town of Verges.

Verges 2007

One moment of the last concert.

Lluís Llach decided to end his 40-year career, at least with the accompaniment of musicians, on March 24 in Verges in a tent with a capacity for five thousand people. However, given the great demand to attend this concert, as evidenced by the fact that the tickets sold out in half an hour, Llach extended the farewell with a second concert for the day before. The concerts were organized by the Verges City Council, the coordinator of town entities and the NGOs Salvem l'Empordà and Médicos Sin Fronteras, beneficiaries of the proceeds from the concert by express decision of Lluís Llach himself.

He put the final point with all his faculties, at the peak of his artistic career, in a concert of about three hours preceded by a resounding whistle for the entrance of President José Montilla. Llach was forceful with the ideological and political comments that he made between songs. Before almost the entire government of Catalonia, he criticized the mediocre attitude of the politicians with the statute and said that twenty years ago the European social left had given up on transforming society.

The concert was a review of the first part of his latest album i. to continue with a compilation of classic songs from his entire career. Finally, the audience said goodbye to Llach singing L'Estaca , Laura and Els Segadors, while he left the stage walking between the attendees and greeting everyone who was there. The concert, broadcast by TV3 and which had an audience of over half a million people, was released on CD and DVD and became Llach's last work, although he leaves the door open to performances with his piano in small theaters and collaborations. punctual.

At the end of 2007 the tribute album Homenatge a Lluís Llach was released. Si véns amb mi (Picap, 2007) in which prominent figures of international song participated.

After the farewell

Two years after retiring from the stage, the singer-songwriter Lluís Llach sat down again at the piano to compose the music for Llits, a new show by Lluís Danés, which would premiere on December 17 2009 at the National Theater of Catalonia (TNC).

After the success of Tranuites Circus, which also featured the music as well as the voice, the singer from Verges (Gerona), Lluís Danés found himself with a multidisciplinary show at Llits, to which he gave a musical structure, where the performers sang songs as the guiding thread of the work. Mixing circus, theatre, dance and music, the playwright's new project reflects on the great themes of life, such as birth, sex, loneliness, illness or death, through all imaginable beds, where the human being spends a third of its existence, according to the same director.

For Lluís Llach it is not a return to music, but only an "outstanding debt" with Lluís Danés. Without dispensing with the inevitable mark of his melodies, Llach has created "surprising" music, in the opinion of Lluís Danés, who feels it is close to the slums, cabaret and the fair, but also with soundtrack melodies a bit « sinister». Although he has made 80% of the music, Lluís Llach transfers the musical merits to Borja Penalba, who is in charge of the arrangements and final production.

Foray into politics

On July 24, 2015, it was announced that Lluís Llach, a firm supporter of the independence of Catalonia, would be the candidate of the pro-independence coalition Junts pel Sí (JxSí) for the Girona constituency in the regional elections of Catalonia on 27 July September 2015. He was elected deputy of the Parliament of Catalonia, a position he held until October 28, 2017.

On October 23, 2018, he was appointed by the government of the Generalitat as president of the Advisory Council for the Promotion of the Civic and Social Forum for the Constituent Debate, a consultative body dedicated to promoting the debate on the self-determination process and organizing a constituent forum to lay the foundations of a hypothetical Catalan Republic.

Style and influences

Although slightly dependent on arrangements by Manel Camp or Carles Cases in its early days, Llach has evolved from basic songs to pieces of great harmonic and melodic complexity. Self-taught, he uses simple open chords when he accompanies himself on the guitar. As a pianist, he demonstrates a solid knowledge of the European tradition of cultured song from Schubert to Hahn with touches by Satie (Nounou) and his Catalan contemporaries such as Mompou and Manuel Blancafort (A la taverna del mar ). Llach uses salsa patterns (Terra), block modulations of one tone (El jorn dels miserables) and jazzy progressions (Cançó d'amor a la freedom). Several songs show influence from the Baroque dance suite (Laura, Jo sé, Vinyes verdes vora el mar) and ostinato phrases accompanied by a powerful theatrical recitation (Non, Somniem). Among his influences as a singer, Llach has cited Mahalia Jackson and Jacques Brel. In his two longest songs ("Viatge a Itaca" and "Campanades a morts") the influence of symphonic rock is evident, although Llach makes an extraordinarily personal mix between this influence and his own singer-songwriter style

Her lyrics have also evolved from calls to action and romantic themes to song cycles around a concept or political ironies of considerable finesse. The sea and a brave attitude in the face of inevitable death are two of her recurring themes. Llach stands out as musicalizer of poems by Constantino Cavafis, Màrius Torres, Josep Maria de Sagarra, Pere Quart and, especially, by Miquel Martí i Pol.

Discography

Groups

• 1984 - La mémoire blackée de Régine Mellac

Literary work

Novels

• Memòria d'uns ulls pintats (Editorial Empúries, 2012)
  • Memory of painted eyes (Seix Barral)
• The gifts of the Principal (Editorial Empúries, 2014)
  • Women of the Principal (Seix Barral)
• The Noi of Wonders (Editorial Empúries, 2017)
  • The Wonder Boy (Destiny Editions)
• Escac al destí (Univers Llibres, 2020)
  • Check fate (Cathedral)

Nonfiction

• Estimat Miquel (Editorial Empúries, 2014).

Awards and recognitions

• 1982: Creu de Sant Jordi
• 2013: Euskadi Silver Prize for Spanish version Memòria d'uns ulls pintats (Memory of painted eyes).
• 2013: Maria Àngels Anglada per Narrativa Award Memòria d'uns ulls pintats.
• 2016: Prix Méditerranée by French version Memòria d'uns ulls pintats (Les yeux fardés)
• 2017: Doctor Honoris Causa per la Universitat de Girona
• 2020: Medalla d'Or de la Generalidad de Catalunya