Songwriting malaise

The open air concert at Cafe Duex Baronnes in Valletta organised by PoezijaPlus on the last week of July was a huge success. It featured singers/songwriters Vince Fabri, Mario Debono, Mark Spiteri Lucas, Rita Pace, Walter Micallef and Tony Grimaud. It is particularly pleasing to know that Tony Grimaud's much talked about comeback was not just a one off. His Bob Dylan style song writing was an intrinsic part of the Maltese youth cultural scene until the early eighties, an era vividly portrayed on Mikiel Galea's blog and on a forthcoming project by Toni Sant.

I hardly recognised Grimaud with his thick beard when I bumped into him near Msida circus a few days after that concert. He told me that he was planning to follow it up with other appearances. I missed the July concert but I definitely plan to be at Cafe Duex Baronnes this Wednesday at 8.30pm beneath the Valletta bastions. Grimaud will be making a solo appearance and will play old favourites as well as new songs.

Two interviews published by the Malta Independent discuss the current state of Maltese songwriting. Walter Micallef, who is working on a second CD release, says that Maltese songwriters are “a dying breed”. He laments the fact that many radio stations neglect Maltese music. His promoter Steve Borg, in another interview, says that the lack of official support for Maltese songwriting is 'symptomatic of a national malaise'. He suggests that it is necessary to create a structure which can 'produce or facilitate the issue of albums in the Maltese language'. From Sandra Aquilina's conversation with Steve Borg:

What is the value of calling ourselves patriotic if then we do not have the war songs in Maltese?” asks Mr Borg. “Or, for instance, the songs of the 1960s, during the politico-religious struggle. For instance, the Labour supporters had a song called L-Ghanja tas-Suffara and at the beginning of the 1980s, there was the birth of a movement of songs in protest against government – which have never been released – just like Professor Manwel Mifsud’s L-Ghanja tal-Liberta’. ”

There are other songs, says Mr Borg, which have never been released and are therefore in danger of being forgotten. He mentions songs by Albert Friggieri, Marija ta’ Wied il-Ghajn, which was written in the late 1960s, Hondoq ir-Rummien by George Cassola, Ahjar Niskot by Dr Marco Galea and even Vassalli, by Manwel Mifsud, in honour of Mikiel Anton Vassalli..

Music is by its very nature a fleeting ephemeral art; notes are destined to fade. Much has already been lost, says Mr Borg. “A few years ago I wanted to acquire Zaghzugh by Jo Naudi and Tony Scott, which was issued by the Moviment Zghazagh Partit Nazzjonalista (MZPN) in 1985. This was the Nationalist Party’s (PN) answer to Labour’s massive 1982 hit, Gensna. When I went to the PN headquarters to ask for it, they told me that I was mistaken and said they had never released anything by that name. I was furious. So the very party that had commissioned it – not only did not have a copy but had actually forgotten about it. What I am saying is that the country cannot have amnesia in what forms part of its musical history. There should be a structure which will listen to everyone.”..

The reasons why Malta lacks the necessary mechanisms are various, says Mr. Borg. One of the reasons could be, he says, that people with influence might not feel the cultural void, they do not always feel the pulse of the people. “They may even prefer to speak in English and most of the attention is given to festivals in that language. But where is the live music scene in Maltese in Malta?” he asks. “Not even Bendu Muscat – the Maltese version of Sherlock Holmes – the private detective, will find it!”...