Civivox Condestable is hosting the exhibition ‘La música en los carteles de San Fermín’ on the first floor until August 25th, an exhibition that covers 175 years of illustrations and analyzes the presence of music in them. The exhibition was made possible thanks to the collaboration of the Municipal Archive of Pamplona, which provided originals and reproductions, and was presented on Friday by the director of the area of Culture, Festivities, Education and Sports, Íñigo Gómez, and the exhibition curator, Pedro Luis Lozano.
A total of 38 high-quality reproductions of advertising posters and 30 original programs make up this exhibition, which is organized into different thematic groups. Thus, the posters are grouped according to the musical representation they include and the treatment they receive, including «Alegorías», «Decorative details», «Bagpipers», «Joteros», «Txistularis», «Street bands and music», «Institutional music» and ‘Pablo Sarasate’.
The oldest advertising poster dates back to 1848. This is followed by a series of illustrations from the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, ending with half a dozen advertising images from the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010s. The final touch is the poster that announces the Sanfermines in 2024, which includes a unique moment such as the departure of the bagpipers from the Town Hall after the Chupinazo. The original programs also trace the evolution of the festive tastes of the population of Pamplona from 1875, the first program exhibited, to 2024, with a special emphasis on the brochures from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The exhibition allows us to see how, over time, the vision of the festival, the interpretation of aesthetics, and fashion change. From the use of a romantic modernist illustration to announce the San Fermín festivities to the conceptual and abstract value, the poster reflects a conception of society and its tastes and allows for a transversal analysis of historical, ethnographic, and sociological aspects. But always leaving room for music, in its many different interpretations.
In this sense, the works collected in the exhibition allow for a simple differentiation between the representation of cultural music and popular music or folklore. In the first option, you can see concerts by Pablo Sarasate, zarzuela, or the Orfeón Pamplonés. In turn, within popular music, images of bagpipers, joteros, street bands, pipers, reveille, festivals, and dulzainas stand out. Even in the 2005 poster, music is represented without instruments, only with the lyrics of an equally popular and well-known song like «Uno de enero, dos de febrero…».
Over the years, posters have depicted allegorical figures carrying musical instruments, such as lyres, harps, or Roman tubas. These images barely reflect anything about the city, but they were in line with the tastes of the time, from 1900 to 1930. In other times, the focus was on including music not in the main representation of the poster, but in small ornamental elements, through instruments, still lifes, or decorative figures. This happened mainly in the 19th century and in the decades from 1930 to 1950. The first poster with musical representations found dates back to 1848 and includes an ornamental set consisting of a guitar and a tambourine, complete with castanets on the sides.
In the «Bagpipers» section, you can see six posters, from 1900 to 2024, including two by artist Javier Ciga (from 1910 and 1918) and another by Jesús Basiano (from 1929), in which musicians play a significant role. front and center. The representation of «Joteros» is captured in three works, from 1903, 1908, and 1945, the second of them also by Javier Ciga. In the 1903 poster, there are some notes from a score that, thanks to the exhibition, it was verified that corresponded to the famous jota by the composer from Lumbier, Joaquín Larregla.
It was more common to use «Txistularis». In fact, the exhibition includes six posters from 1921 to 1936 in which they are the protagonists. As for «Street Bands and Music», the exhibition features five works, all from the last decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century (from 1983 to 2018). The fact that all these works are concentrated in such a recent period reflects a social evolution, in which there is a shift in social interest towards music bands at the expense of bagpipes.
The exhibition makes two special mentions. One of them for the Pamplonese violinist Pablo Sarasate, whose name appears repeatedly in the advertising posters announcing the San Fermín festivities and whose figure was reflected in some decorative details of at least three posters from the early 20th century. The artist’s connection to Pamplona led the City Council to announce the presence of the violinist in the city on the festival posters. In 1908, the year of his death, it was announced that he would receive the insignia of Knight Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso XII.
In turn, the second mention focuses on official, institutional music, collected as a sample in two posters, from 1950 and 1958. The first one reflects a dancer, a year after the City Council established a dance group to participate in official acts of San Saturnino, which was the origin of Duguna Iruñeko Dantzariak / Dantzaris de Pamplona, responsible this year, by popular vote, for launching the Chupinazo from the Town Hall balcony. The 1958 poster represents a timpanist from the Town Hall with his livery and bicorne.
The exhibition contains a challenge for viewers, especially designed to make the visit more enjoyable for children. In the room, you will find a questionnaire with twenty questions about various details and elements distributed among the posters that you will have to find and answer. It is a small competition that forces us to sharpen our eyes and improve our knowledge of Sanfermin culture.
If the visual representation of music is a fact in advertising posters, its importance in the program of festive events is no less. A dozen original programs attest to this. From the early numbers, musical references are made in advertisements, news, and references to all kinds of musical events, from dances to concerts, contests, and praises. But that reference was also visual, with images where music is once again the protagonist, especially on the back covers. Pablo Sarasate is once again a safe bet, as is the figure of the bagpiper, which were drawn by artists of the caliber of Javier Ciga or Pedro Lozano de Sotés, León Astruc, or Urzainki.
With technological evolution, drawing gave way to photography, with well-known brands such as Larión, Pimoulier, Nagore, or Guerendiain. Furthermore, in the face of a striking absence of La Pamplonesa in advertising posters, the municipal band is the undisputed protagonist of the programs, with information in the agenda about their events, but also with photographs and illustrations of its members and performances.
