Bertsolaristic movement History First bertsolari performance

First bertsolari performance

Fernando Amezketarra sang two memorable songs at a performance in Azpeitia in 1799, and a fine contest was held in Villabona two years later. 4,000 spectators gathered in the village square for the competition between Zabala and Txabalategi. There were five ounces of gold at stake; Txabalategi brought along the Aizarnazabal sacristan as a judge, Zabala presented his countryman Fernando Bengoetxea Amezketarra, and the mayor of Villabona chose a priest, Jose Mendizabal, to have the casting vote. There was much, however, they could not decide, leading to the first tie in a bertsolari competition (and this was what made the occasion so memorable). Most of the surviving metres from this performance are zortziko and bederatziko txikiak. The technical expertise and knowledge of the bertsolaris at this time was amazing. Tight metering was no problem to them – they were armed with many, many rhymes. Two stages were set up side by side in the centre of the square for the performance.

Bertsolari competitions became more popular over the first forty years of the 18th century. The local authorities had two very different attitudes – some villages in Gipuzkoa organised a number of contests, whereas the authorities in other villages punished and fined the performers. In fact, the situation varied considerably throughout the Basque Country: the oral tradition survived in Bizkaia and the north of Araba; Zuberoa province forged links between villages with pastoral symphonies; in Nafarroa and a large part of southern Araba the romance ballads absorbed all improvised expression, and it was between east Bizkaia and Lapurdi and Nafarroa, areas protected from foreign cultures, that bertsolaris found the best eco-system to develop their art.

Even so, the expansion of this eco-system was much more extensive than one might have thought. For example, Bautista de Gamiz has left us some written material from the 17th and 18th centuries, and some songs were also written by the Carlist Zeferino Lopez de Ilarraza in 1870, found alongside other anonymous material in Araia.

Fernando Amezketarra (1754-1823), Zabala, Txabalategi and Izuela (1780-1837) were the most noteworthy bertsolaris of the time. Among other abilities of improvisation, Pastor Izuela was reputed to have an astonishing memory. According to those who wrote the stories of history, in one contest against an opponent from Urdaneta, the contest ended in a tie. To decide the winner, the judges instructed the contestants to repeat the entire performance, and Pastor Izuela was able to repeat all 50 verses he had just improvised. It was also during this period that we find the first indications of bertsolaris in Nafarroa, with verses by Martin Olaetxea in 1830. In any case, bertsolaris were not “official” in Nafarroa until 1936, at the Basque Country Championships.

Bertsolari art was non-academic, and nobody studied it: reading and writing verses were both unheard of. The best-known bertsolaris were the product of Basque farmsteads, those who sang of the humbleness of their villages and their inhabitants with the local accent.

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