Later, I listened to another version of the Baguala de Amaicha by the inimitable folk singer Jorge Cafrune. I have heard no other Argentinian singer to date who so encompasses and transmits the sense of a wide landscape through the voice. Don’t be deceived by the gentle start to the song.
After I had returned from Barcelona, Olga sent me this affecting summary of the copla (or couplet)and the caja (a type of drum associated with the copla). I learned that the tone of the copla changes according to the season. Here too, I learned that entregar does not just mean to give to, to submit, as when dancing tango, but to give yourself to a musical performance as in "la entrega y la expresión intensa del canto en la música folklórica".
Another friend sent me a short documentary which opens saying the baguala is a way for the mountain to speak through the caja and that the people, through the copla, can say what they feel. Olga sent another brief documentary on the same subject. I was puzzled at first. Atahualpa's baguala is not like the caja and the copla. Then I realised that while the music may be unalike, it is the idea in Atahualpa's song that is shared with the copla and the caja: that the land speaks through the music and with the people. It was in this film that I came across the vidala (a type of folk genre). Of the vidala and the baguala, perhaps the former is the slower, the more melodic, the more contemplative, more spiritual genre.
There, I found this haunting song in an unforgettable version by Mariana Carrizo.
The poem was written by Julio Santos Espinosa who was from Salta, in the far northwest of Argentina.
Los hombres y mujeres del norte argentino saben de historias y justamente una de ellas cuenta que el bueno de Manuel Castilla trataba entre vino y vino, que don Julio no le escribiera a la muerte. Que eso era muy peligroso porque la muerte se enamora de uno y entonces viene y se lo lleva. Y don Julio, que entraba y salía del hospital cada pocos días, seguía escribiéndole a la muy puta. Cuentan también, que cuando el poeta escuchó la grabación que realizara Atahualpa Yupanki de su vidala, bebió lentamente un sorbo de vino y dijo bajito: -No me convence la interpretación.- Y dijo esto sin saber que en la voz de Atahualpa, él también estaba entrando en la leyenda del folclore argentino. Al día de hoy, su "Vidala para mi sombra", es el segundo tema más grabado de la música argentina.
“The men and women of northern Argentina know about stories and in fact one of these tells that the good Manuel Castilla, in between glasses of wine, used to ask Don Julio not to write about death. It was very dangerous, because death could fall in love with someone and spirit them away. And Don Julio, who was in and out of hospital every few days, continued writing about that damned death. They tell also that when the poet heard Atahualpa Yupanqui’s recording of his vidala, he slowly took a sip of wine and said softly, “I’m not persuaded by the interpretation.” And he said this not knowing that, through Atahualpa’s voice, he too was entering the legend of Argentinian folklore. To this day, his “Vidala for my shadow” is the second more recorded piece in Argentinian folk music [after La Cumparsita].”
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