Text, music and song formed the perfect triplet that yesterday afternoon served as a tribute prepared by the City Council of Ávila to the distinguished Castilian writer Miguel Delibes, on the centenary of his birth. A tribute that, as recognized by Ángel Sánchez Jiménez, Councilor for Culture of the City Hall of Avila, was a debt that they had pending with the Valladolid writer, which until now they had not been able to fulfill due to the problem of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even so, yesterday its organization was also in danger, because the San Francisco Auditorium, where it was held, lacked heating, as a necessary part for its engine had broken down and had not arrived yesterday afternoon. As a result, the large audience that gathered there, saving the safety distances set by the health authorities, was cold.
Text by Miguel Delibes himself, in one of his most unknown, but nevertheless more authentic Delibian books, ‘Viejas Histories de Castilla la Vieja’ written in 1964. Small stories that advance the rural soul of Castilla la Vieja. A total of 16 texts read by one of the best actors that the Spanish scene has and has had, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba.
The baritone Luis Santana accompanied him to the singing and the pianist Víctor Carbajo to the music, with traditional Castilian songs: ‘El agua’, ‘Las torre en guard’, caminito de Bembibre ‘,’ El pino ‘… Short stories that already contain all the rural feeling of Miguel Delibes’s literature. Stories whose titles already practically advanced their contents: ‘The people in the face’, with a phrase that the protagonist seems to discover the true meaning of being a people: «And I began to realize, then, that being a people was a gift of God and that being from the city was a bit like being inclusive “, as Isidoro, the protagonist, recounts.
Other stories belonging to this work were also interpreted by Emilio Gutiérrez Caba. Titles as suggestive as’ Aniano the corsair ‘,’ La pimpollada del páramo ‘,’ The Hernando brothers’, ‘El Teso mocho de Fuentetoba’, ‘The crabs of San Vito’, ‘La Siginia, martyr of purity’, ‘ The cloudy ones’, ‘In the shadow of lovers’,’ The matacán del majuelo ‘. ‘A chusco for each Castilian’, ‘Rooks and bustards’, ‘The black stones’, ‘The nuts, the scops owl and the bird’ and ‘El Regreso’. All of them make up this book, a small wonder since no one knew more than Delibes what Castilla was or write in a purer language and away from all rhetoric.
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