fine albums: Maria del Mar Bonet

Showing posts with label Maria del Mar Bonet. Show all posts

2026/04/12

maria del mar bonet: miró

album rating: ★★★★☆

Genre

Catalan folk and Nova Cançó. Critics defined the album as essentially Mallorcan in character: Bonet sets poems by the Mallorcan poets Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel and Joan Alcover to music in a programme rooted in the island's lyrical tradition, alongside two of her own compositions, all delivered with the austere intimacy that defines her work.

Release

Released in 1974 by Ariola Eurodisc and the Palma art gallery Sala Pelaires. The cover painting was created expressly for the album by Joan Miró, and the liner notes were written by the poet Salvador Espriu.

Production

Produced by Joan Molas. Musical arrangements were by Jacques Denjean, Bonet's arranger from the Bocaccio Records period, here making his final collaboration with her. Bonet composed the music for most of the songs in close collaboration with the Madrid singer-songwriter Hilario Camacho. The album was recorded at the Fremontel Studios, Normandy, France.

Reception

The album was received as a landmark of Catalan song, praised for its interpretive maturity and the depth of its engagement with Mallorcan literary and musical heritage. Salvador Espriu's liner note described Bonet as having achieved "a definitive maturity" that had taken her "to the top, via the complex paths of her sensitivity."

Maria del Mar Bonet

Maria del Mar Bonet i Verdaguer (born April 27, 1947, Palma de Mallorca) is a Catalan singer-songwriter and composer, daughter of the writer and journalist Joan Bonet and sister of the singer-songwriter Joan Ramon Bonet. She studied ceramics at the Palma School of Arts and Crafts and at the Escola Massana in Barcelona before dedicating herself to music. In 1967 she moved to Barcelona, where she joined Els Setze Jutges and became a central figure of the Nova Cançó movement. Her first gold disc came in 1971. Since the 1980s she has extended her repertoire well beyond Catalonia, recording music rooted in North African, Ottoman, Andalusian, and Greek traditions — collaborating with Mikis Theodorakis and setting the songs of Zülfü Livaneli to Catalan. In 2007 she received the Medal of Honour of the Parliament of Catalonia.

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vigila al mar

2025/12/14

maria del mar bonet: saba de terrer

album rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: Catalan folk / cançó mallorquina / Mediterranean folk. Saba de Terrer ('Sap of the Earth') is one of the most deeply rooted and artistically singular albums in the discography of Maria del Mar Bonet (born Palma de Mallorca, 1947), the Mallorcan singer who is one of the central figures of the Nova Cançó — the Catalan song movement that used music as a vehicle for the defence of Catalan language and culture during and after the Franco dictatorship. Where many of her albums have explored the broader Mediterranean world (Greek folk, North African music, troubadour poetry), Saba de Terrer represents a full immersion in the traditional popular songs of Mallorca itself — the island where she was born and which remains the deepest source of her musical and emotional identity. The album was recorded in January and February of 1979 at the Moraleda studios, with all arrangements by Lautaro Rosas, who also played guitar and served as musical director. All songs are popular Mallorcan songs adapted by Bonet and Rosas. Notably, this album contained Bonet's first recording of El Cant de la Sibil·la — the medieval chant sung on Christmas Eve in the churches of Mallorca, one of the oldest living musical traditions in the Western world, inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The album's title derives from a poem by the Mallorcan poet Maria Antònia Salvà: 'Aquí té saba el terrer / la gent franques escomeses / i amors que esclaten enceses / com les flors del magraner.' The cover photographs were taken by the Mallorcan priest and photographer Tomàs Montserrat, rediscovered by the artist Toni Catany.

Label: Ariola (Spain), 1979.

Producer: Joan Molas. Sound engineer: Albert Moraleda.

Recording studio: Moraleda Studios, Spain. Recorded January–February 1979.

Critical reception: Saba de Terrer is considered one of the essential albums of Maria del Mar Bonet's long career and one of the most important documents of Mallorcan traditional music. Bonet dedicated the album to the singing teacher Maria del Carme Bustamante. Rate Your Music users give it an average of 4.25 out of 5. The album holds particular cultural significance for its first recording of El Cant de la Sibil·la, a tradition that in 2010 was inscribed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Commercial success: Saba de Terrer was well received in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and among the broader audience for Mediterranean and Catalan music. The album was reissued on CD by BMG Ariola in 1990, confirming its lasting significance. Maria del Mar Bonet received the Charles Cross Academy Award from the French Government in 1984 for the best foreign record released in France, and the Creu de Sant Jordi — the highest distinction of the Generalitat de Catalunya — in the same year.

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