IF YOU'RE in the Comunidad Valenciana any time between now and the early hours of March 20, you may notice an awful lot of noise and colour on the streets. It's the season for the region's biggest festival,...
'Virtual' Good Friday: Here's how you can catch the parades, despite the lockdown
10/04/2020
DEPENDING upon where you are in Spain, 2020 could be the second year running that the Good Friday parades were called off – many were unable to go ahead in 2019, either, due to heavy rain. But let's hope it's third time lucky in 2021, and if you've never watched this solemn, highly-emotional, haunting and somewhat eerie procession, next year you'll finally get the chance.
To find out what we're all missing out on, a full explanatory article and colourful photographs can be found right here, and will hopefully whet your appetite to plan a trip to Spain to see them in a year's time.
Meanwhile, the people of Spain have always had a knack of cheerfully adapting to adversity and making the best of a situation – rather than moping at home that the nationwide festival is off, they've been taking to their balconies and celebrating it there instead.
If you're based in a town, you may well have seen that for yourself this evening: Lately, entire streets of neighbours have been plotting in groups for ways to make the national quarantine a bit more fun, with a joint theme every evening during the 20.00 collective 'applause for the health service'. Everything from superhero costumes to emojis, rainbows to flowers, and palm leaves and olive branches for Palm Sunday have been the 'décor of the day' in windows and on balconies, and tonight saw practically everyone who is involved in an Easter brotherhood wearing their pointy hoods and cloaks, playing Easter marching band music from their stereos.
One local community in the far north-western region of Galicia opted to keep the usual Virgin Mary float alive, even though they could not go out on the street, and a video of their ingenious 'procession' has gone viral on social media.
Last night, tonight and tomorrow night (Saturday), residents in the As Lagoas neighbourhood of Ourense have been and will be passing what appears to be a giant basket on ropes, containing an image of Christ's grieving mother, from window to window.
The first 'parade' is at 20.15, just after the applause for the health service and other key workers, then again at 21.15 when, having just got dark, the lanterns surrounding Mary are lit up and give a more ghostly feel to it all, reflecting the 'real life' Good Friday or Viernes Santo processions, which start in the last half-hour or so of full daylight and end in the dark, which appears to symbolise – deliberately or not – the 'twilight' of Jesus' life.
If seeing the odd neighbour in capirote get-up doesn't do it for you – or if you're not living in a built-up area or none of the closest occupied homes is owned by a Spaniard, meaning you don't even get the window display – video footage of last year's parades in areas where they were not rained off have been published online, and you can take your pick.
You could watch them on a mobile phone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer or, if you're lucky enough to have a 'smart TV' and even luckier to have one with one of the largest screens on the market, you could really create a proper Spanish Good Friday atmosphere in your house. In fact, you could travel the country, watching one after the other, then pop abroad by searching for versions that normally take place elsewhere in the world (in Malta, the paraders dress up as Roman soldiers, for example), and then, finally, to lighten the mood, pop on a DVD of Monty Python's Life of Brian with Spanish subtitles to help you practice. Many Spaniards admit that La Vida de Brian, dubbed into Spanish, is their favourite Easter film.
Feel it on screen: How to make Good Friday in Spain 'real'
One of the most unusual Good Friday parades is the 'throning of Christ' with the Málaga Legion – search for Entronización de Cristo 2019, where you'll find the troops in full uniform, complete with drums, standing on guard for the 'disembarking' of the Messiah from the huge ship, Furor, in the port.
The first parade of this type was in 1930, according to the commentary on the video by a local historian.
Watch their fast-footed march, holding rifles, trombones and drums aloft, in a port thronged by spectators three or four deep.
If you weren't in Málaga port last year on Good Friday, you may well be feeling quite jealous about their clear, blue skies with not a drop of rain to put paid to the evening.
It didn't last, though: Umbrellas started to come out before nightfall, and the commentators said it was 'very worrying' – the sculpture of Christ could have been badly damaged if he'd had a soaking.
The good thing about watching all this on screen rather than from the pavement or your window is that you can fast-forward during the 'hanging around' bits – the 'throning of Christ' clip, which is filmed live, goes on for nearly two hours, during which the crowds waited patiently for the massive statue of Jesus to be lifted out the huge arched doorway of the Santo Domingo parish church atop a gold-leaf-decorated float, alongside the Virgin Mary in another, even more elaborate version, surrounded by candles.
Above the umbrellas, the Legionnaires' flag flew and the the brass and percussion accompanied the Messiah's exit, already on the cross and in his crown of thorns.
And the sight was more than worth the wait in the gathering drizzle (see second picture).
About halfway between Madrid and Valencia, the quaint city of Cuenca – capital of the ultra-rural province of the same name and famous for its 'hanging houses' – is famous for its Camino del Calvario, or he 'stations of the cross' parade, which is one of the most multitudinous of its type in Spain (see third picture). It is also famous for the more colloquial name given to it – the Procesión de los Borrachos, or the 'Procession of the Drunk', and where the pointy-hooded paraders are known as turbas, or 'mobs'. Roman soldiers are among them here, too, in a parade that first hit the streets exactly 403 years ago, in the year 1617.
Despite being in the middle of open countryside with up to 20 kilometres between villages, and among Spain's most 'empty' provinces, Cuenca city is home to nearly 200,000 people – and in the 'Drunks' Parade' last year it seemed as though every single one of them was either marching in pointed hats as one of the 'mob', or was lined along the pavement. So, if you've ever travelled across the province of Cuenca – and you will have done if ever you've driven between Madrid and Valencia – and wondered, where is everybody? Well, now you know.
You can find it on YouTube by searching Las Turbas – EspecialCamino del Calvario 2019, and see for yourself.
No doubt if you're not familiar with Easter week in Spain, you'll have been led to believe that to see the parades for Semana Santa means you have to be in Sevilla. This isn't necessarily the case, since almost every town and even very small villages hold their own Good Friday processions and Sunday morning resurrection ceremonies, although those in Sevilla are probably among the largest nationwide, or at least the most famous. The 'top' Good Friday parade is the La Macarena (see fourth picture), in the neighbourhood of the same name in the land-locked southern city, with some of the most elaborate floats in Spain. If you haven't time to watch the 29-minute video of last year's (found by searching YouTube for Salida Esperanza Macarena 2019), you could just play the music instead – Marcha Madrugá Macarena, composed by Pablo Ojeda Jiménez for marching bands.
At the opposite end of the country, the centre-northern province of Valladolid – reputed to be where the purest 'received Spanish' is spoken – calls its Good Friday parade the 'General Procession of the Sacred Passion of the Redeemer'. And the live footage of it passing through the provincial capital city, complete with marquées and a market and trade fair set up in the Plaza José Zorrilla, is one of the longest of last year's live coverage videos, at two hours and 48 minutes, but is worth watching or at least playing in the background; having first hit the streets on April 20, 1810, it is somewhat less haunting than many of the others – the capirotes that start the procession in daylight are entirely dressed in white (see fifth picture), and flanked by police horses. The statues range from relatively modern, built in 1946, through to Baroque, created in 1612, making the parade something of an art gallery spanning several eras in cultural history and often featuring complete scenes with several characters, not just Christ himself or his grieving mother.
Costumes go through red and purple after the white, and become darker as the sky does – and as the figurines on the floats do.
Madrid's 'Christ of the Medinaceli' parade – which also escaped being rained off last year – is a little more manageable, with its live footage being just 36 minutes long. No running commentary is given, but the spectacular gold-leaf float with its red roses and bright, gold lanterns paraded through the Plaza de Neptuno – on the Paseo del Prado, right in the heart of the capital near the museum of the same name – is a stunning display of light and colour against a backdrop of an illuminated night cityscape (see first picture).
Put some music to it
Otherwise, you could just put some Semana Santa music on. Although you might expect the marches to be centuries old, some of them are as recent as the 1990s – such as Caridad Para Mi Hijo, by José Ribera Tordera (1993) and Cristo Rey en La Salle (Miguel Ángel Román García, 1994), or at least the 1970s (Agripino Lozano's La Oración en el Huerto).
La Saeta by Joan Manuel Serrat, and Al Jesús Nazareno de Ponferrada by Abel Moreno are examples of regional marches – in fact, most provinces and even some towns have their own, very recognisable ones, meaning you won't necessarily hear the same tunes with every Good Friday parade in the country.
For Sevilla, you could make an entire playlist with Mektub, Conversión del Buen Ladrón (literally, 'The Good Thief's Conversion'), Sentimiento Gitano ('Gypsy Feeling'), El Cachorro, La Carretería, Aquella Virgen and Pedro Morales Muñoz's Señorita de Triana and Virgen de Montserrat; for Málaga, try Perfecto Artola Prats' 1958 number, Llanto y Dolor ('Tears and Pain'), known as the 'symphonic poem of Málaga Easter week', or Abel Moreno Gómez's 1980s' and 1990s' numbers Cristo de la Agonía, La Madrugá, Hermanos Costaleros, Macarena, or Pablo Toribio Gil's and Eugenio Gómez García's Santísimo Cristo de las Mercedes (that's 'Most Holy Christ of the Mercies', nothing to do with the car).
Not all of these are funerary marches, either; some, especially those that come at the beginning of the Easter parades, are quite upbeat and cheerful, because Christ has not been crucified yet, meaning there's still hope.
Tomorrow (Saturday) normally sees Spain in 'religious lockdown', with several masses held in honour of the 'vigil of Christ' – the mourning of his death, and the 'waiting game' before his resurrection and the joyful reunion with his mother on Sunday morning.
Depending upon your native country, Easter may mostly be about chocolate eggs and a few days off work (or not, but with overtime pay). But being in Spain – or watching and listening to what Spain usually does, on video – will really get you into the thick of what the originally Easter story was all about and, whatever your religion or even if you are an atheist, you cannot help but truly feel it in the emotive re-enactments of the tale.
Related Topics
DEPENDING upon where you are in Spain, 2020 could be the second year running that the Good Friday parades were called off – many were unable to go ahead in 2019, either, due to heavy rain. But let's hope it's third time lucky in 2021, and if you've never watched this solemn, highly-emotional, haunting and somewhat eerie procession, next year you'll finally get the chance.
To find out what we're all missing out on, a full explanatory article and colourful photographs can be found right here, and will hopefully whet your appetite to plan a trip to Spain to see them in a year's time.
Meanwhile, the people of Spain have always had a knack of cheerfully adapting to adversity and making the best of a situation – rather than moping at home that the nationwide festival is off, they've been taking to their balconies and celebrating it there instead.
If you're based in a town, you may well have seen that for yourself this evening: Lately, entire streets of neighbours have been plotting in groups for ways to make the national quarantine a bit more fun, with a joint theme every evening during the 20.00 collective 'applause for the health service'. Everything from superhero costumes to emojis, rainbows to flowers, and palm leaves and olive branches for Palm Sunday have been the 'décor of the day' in windows and on balconies, and tonight saw practically everyone who is involved in an Easter brotherhood wearing their pointy hoods and cloaks, playing Easter marching band music from their stereos.
One local community in the far north-western region of Galicia opted to keep the usual Virgin Mary float alive, even though they could not go out on the street, and a video of their ingenious 'procession' has gone viral on social media.
Last night, tonight and tomorrow night (Saturday), residents in the As Lagoas neighbourhood of Ourense have been and will be passing what appears to be a giant basket on ropes, containing an image of Christ's grieving mother, from window to window.
The first 'parade' is at 20.15, just after the applause for the health service and other key workers, then again at 21.15 when, having just got dark, the lanterns surrounding Mary are lit up and give a more ghostly feel to it all, reflecting the 'real life' Good Friday or Viernes Santo processions, which start in the last half-hour or so of full daylight and end in the dark, which appears to symbolise – deliberately or not – the 'twilight' of Jesus' life.
If seeing the odd neighbour in capirote get-up doesn't do it for you – or if you're not living in a built-up area or none of the closest occupied homes is owned by a Spaniard, meaning you don't even get the window display – video footage of last year's parades in areas where they were not rained off have been published online, and you can take your pick.
You could watch them on a mobile phone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer or, if you're lucky enough to have a 'smart TV' and even luckier to have one with one of the largest screens on the market, you could really create a proper Spanish Good Friday atmosphere in your house. In fact, you could travel the country, watching one after the other, then pop abroad by searching for versions that normally take place elsewhere in the world (in Malta, the paraders dress up as Roman soldiers, for example), and then, finally, to lighten the mood, pop on a DVD of Monty Python's Life of Brian with Spanish subtitles to help you practice. Many Spaniards admit that La Vida de Brian, dubbed into Spanish, is their favourite Easter film.
Feel it on screen: How to make Good Friday in Spain 'real'
One of the most unusual Good Friday parades is the 'throning of Christ' with the Málaga Legion – search for Entronización de Cristo 2019, where you'll find the troops in full uniform, complete with drums, standing on guard for the 'disembarking' of the Messiah from the huge ship, Furor, in the port.
The first parade of this type was in 1930, according to the commentary on the video by a local historian.
Watch their fast-footed march, holding rifles, trombones and drums aloft, in a port thronged by spectators three or four deep.
If you weren't in Málaga port last year on Good Friday, you may well be feeling quite jealous about their clear, blue skies with not a drop of rain to put paid to the evening.
It didn't last, though: Umbrellas started to come out before nightfall, and the commentators said it was 'very worrying' – the sculpture of Christ could have been badly damaged if he'd had a soaking.
The good thing about watching all this on screen rather than from the pavement or your window is that you can fast-forward during the 'hanging around' bits – the 'throning of Christ' clip, which is filmed live, goes on for nearly two hours, during which the crowds waited patiently for the massive statue of Jesus to be lifted out the huge arched doorway of the Santo Domingo parish church atop a gold-leaf-decorated float, alongside the Virgin Mary in another, even more elaborate version, surrounded by candles.
Above the umbrellas, the Legionnaires' flag flew and the the brass and percussion accompanied the Messiah's exit, already on the cross and in his crown of thorns.
And the sight was more than worth the wait in the gathering drizzle (see second picture).
About halfway between Madrid and Valencia, the quaint city of Cuenca – capital of the ultra-rural province of the same name and famous for its 'hanging houses' – is famous for its Camino del Calvario, or he 'stations of the cross' parade, which is one of the most multitudinous of its type in Spain (see third picture). It is also famous for the more colloquial name given to it – the Procesión de los Borrachos, or the 'Procession of the Drunk', and where the pointy-hooded paraders are known as turbas, or 'mobs'. Roman soldiers are among them here, too, in a parade that first hit the streets exactly 403 years ago, in the year 1617.
Despite being in the middle of open countryside with up to 20 kilometres between villages, and among Spain's most 'empty' provinces, Cuenca city is home to nearly 200,000 people – and in the 'Drunks' Parade' last year it seemed as though every single one of them was either marching in pointed hats as one of the 'mob', or was lined along the pavement. So, if you've ever travelled across the province of Cuenca – and you will have done if ever you've driven between Madrid and Valencia – and wondered, where is everybody? Well, now you know.
You can find it on YouTube by searching Las Turbas – EspecialCamino del Calvario 2019, and see for yourself.
No doubt if you're not familiar with Easter week in Spain, you'll have been led to believe that to see the parades for Semana Santa means you have to be in Sevilla. This isn't necessarily the case, since almost every town and even very small villages hold their own Good Friday processions and Sunday morning resurrection ceremonies, although those in Sevilla are probably among the largest nationwide, or at least the most famous. The 'top' Good Friday parade is the La Macarena (see fourth picture), in the neighbourhood of the same name in the land-locked southern city, with some of the most elaborate floats in Spain. If you haven't time to watch the 29-minute video of last year's (found by searching YouTube for Salida Esperanza Macarena 2019), you could just play the music instead – Marcha Madrugá Macarena, composed by Pablo Ojeda Jiménez for marching bands.
At the opposite end of the country, the centre-northern province of Valladolid – reputed to be where the purest 'received Spanish' is spoken – calls its Good Friday parade the 'General Procession of the Sacred Passion of the Redeemer'. And the live footage of it passing through the provincial capital city, complete with marquées and a market and trade fair set up in the Plaza José Zorrilla, is one of the longest of last year's live coverage videos, at two hours and 48 minutes, but is worth watching or at least playing in the background; having first hit the streets on April 20, 1810, it is somewhat less haunting than many of the others – the capirotes that start the procession in daylight are entirely dressed in white (see fifth picture), and flanked by police horses. The statues range from relatively modern, built in 1946, through to Baroque, created in 1612, making the parade something of an art gallery spanning several eras in cultural history and often featuring complete scenes with several characters, not just Christ himself or his grieving mother.
Costumes go through red and purple after the white, and become darker as the sky does – and as the figurines on the floats do.
Madrid's 'Christ of the Medinaceli' parade – which also escaped being rained off last year – is a little more manageable, with its live footage being just 36 minutes long. No running commentary is given, but the spectacular gold-leaf float with its red roses and bright, gold lanterns paraded through the Plaza de Neptuno – on the Paseo del Prado, right in the heart of the capital near the museum of the same name – is a stunning display of light and colour against a backdrop of an illuminated night cityscape (see first picture).
Put some music to it
Otherwise, you could just put some Semana Santa music on. Although you might expect the marches to be centuries old, some of them are as recent as the 1990s – such as Caridad Para Mi Hijo, by José Ribera Tordera (1993) and Cristo Rey en La Salle (Miguel Ángel Román García, 1994), or at least the 1970s (Agripino Lozano's La Oración en el Huerto).
La Saeta by Joan Manuel Serrat, and Al Jesús Nazareno de Ponferrada by Abel Moreno are examples of regional marches – in fact, most provinces and even some towns have their own, very recognisable ones, meaning you won't necessarily hear the same tunes with every Good Friday parade in the country.
For Sevilla, you could make an entire playlist with Mektub, Conversión del Buen Ladrón (literally, 'The Good Thief's Conversion'), Sentimiento Gitano ('Gypsy Feeling'), El Cachorro, La Carretería, Aquella Virgen and Pedro Morales Muñoz's Señorita de Triana and Virgen de Montserrat; for Málaga, try Perfecto Artola Prats' 1958 number, Llanto y Dolor ('Tears and Pain'), known as the 'symphonic poem of Málaga Easter week', or Abel Moreno Gómez's 1980s' and 1990s' numbers Cristo de la Agonía, La Madrugá, Hermanos Costaleros, Macarena, or Pablo Toribio Gil's and Eugenio Gómez García's Santísimo Cristo de las Mercedes (that's 'Most Holy Christ of the Mercies', nothing to do with the car).
Not all of these are funerary marches, either; some, especially those that come at the beginning of the Easter parades, are quite upbeat and cheerful, because Christ has not been crucified yet, meaning there's still hope.
Tomorrow (Saturday) normally sees Spain in 'religious lockdown', with several masses held in honour of the 'vigil of Christ' – the mourning of his death, and the 'waiting game' before his resurrection and the joyful reunion with his mother on Sunday morning.
Depending upon your native country, Easter may mostly be about chocolate eggs and a few days off work (or not, but with overtime pay). But being in Spain – or watching and listening to what Spain usually does, on video – will really get you into the thick of what the originally Easter story was all about and, whatever your religion or even if you are an atheist, you cannot help but truly feel it in the emotive re-enactments of the tale.
Related Topics
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