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LABOA – Txoria Txori, Basque song – SOLO CELLO

Other Identification:
Txoria Txori (“Bird, little bird”) is a Basque poem written by Joxean Artze in 1957. Mikel Laboa in 1968 created a tune adapted to this poem and successfully published the song in the 1974 album Bat-Hiru. The song is also known as “Hegoak” (“Les ailes” in French or “Wings” in Spanish) thanks to the version of Anne Etchegoyen. The young woman in 2014 got a Gold Record in France, selling more than 60,000 copies, and her CD was in the top 10 of the best sellers.
Artze was 25 years old when he wrote this poem about freedom and possession, dominance and respect between people and animals. There is a dilemma, when you want a person – or an animal – you have to choose between tying the person and possessing it as if it were a bird in a cage, in which case it ceases to be the bird that fascinates us, or to love the creature as he is, enjoying his way of being natural, and respecting it, so that if he wants to leave, he can leave at all times.
Meanwhile, Mikel Laboa and his wife Marisol Bastida in 1968 at the Aurrera restaurant in San Sebastián, saw the verses of Artze’s poem printed on the napkins. Mikel took one of them home and composed a melody for the poem. It is a song dedicated to freedom denied at that time. It could be interpreted as “an act of resistance against the laws of the Franco regime that prohibited the use of the Basque”. It is now one of the “all-time great” Basque themes!

Movements or sections:
One piece, set as a short song

Instrumentation:
Arranged for SOLO VIOLONCELLO by David Johnstone

Approximate difficulty:
medium – Johnstone’s version uses the melody gloriously set for ONE SOLO VIOLONCELLO and its highly expressive nature is not especially technically difficult.

Links (Audio – Visual), and known performances given by:
David Johnstone has performed this melody in an alternate version with classical guitar in You Tube

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Personal

David Johnstone lives near Pamplona (Navarre, Spain) with his wife Rosa and their two “Spanglish” children, close to the Atlantic Pyrenees. The nearest international airport is Bilbao.

He is interested in world affairs, politics, animal rights, and most sports (including being a lifelong suffering Reading FC fan!). Also passionate about Celtic culture and genealogy, he has traced his ‘English’ family back to 1280, although Scotland and Ireland have also shaped his background. And yes — he is half-ashamed to admit it, he loves silly jokes!

Social Work

David Johnstone supports animal rights, he is against any form of abuse towards them, and says a loud “NO” to bullfighting, foxhunting and any other animal cruelty.

TORTURE IS NOT CULTURE !