From the bar to the stage : socio-musical processes in the Maltese Spirtu Pront

Abstract

The present essay attempts to show how during a spirtu pront performance, the type of audience arid the various kinds of pre-existing social ties that may exist both among the performers themselves and between performers and members of the audience can influence, and in certain cases determine, the execution of this kind of event. This essay will focus on these social relationships, considering them as active agents behind a series of socio-musical processes that can vary from one context to another, making out of every spirtu pront session a unique experience for both the performers and audience. The arguments brought together here will be based on ethnographic descriptions of two contrasting sessions. A number of musical examples elicited from the same sessions will also be analyzed. The performances occurred in the summer of 1995 in two quite distinct contexts: one in a small village bar with an audience mainly composed of ghana dilettanti, while the second session took place on Imnarja eve in a much more formal context in the presence of an audience having a variety of interests in what they were listening to and watching. The situations examined in this paper will continue to shed light oh the fascinating quality of the spirtu pronto The latter, apart from having the dual quality of being rooted both in history and in contemporary social realities, is a clear index of people's ancient traditions and, interestingly enough, of the same people's current tastes.