The silence is deafening. The silence makes you vibrate. The silence is shocking. With the first full moon of spring comes Holy Week and the Bajo Aragón of Teruel is preparing to live its most intense hours of the 366 days of this leap year 2024 with the ‘break of the hour’.
Once again the bass drums and the drums have once again recovered the vibrations stored safely in the algorfas of the houses since, on this occasion, a little less than a year ago, the previous Holy Week was closed. The strings on the bass drum and the rods on the drum had to be tightened so that the mallet and sticks can impact the head and membrane and make them resonate intensely. If they had not been loosened, they would not have been able to maintain permanent tension and would have given way.
Like every year, this portion of Empty Spain, which inexorably and despite the futile political efforts continues to empty itself, once again becomes for a few days the pole of attraction for those who were forced to leave to earn a living but who left behind a important part of their feelings in the house where they were born.
The reunions of those who left and those who remain are emotional. It has been a year since, in some cases, there has been an opportunity to embrace each other in a hug and shake hands and it is time to reaffirm friendship. It is also the occasion to remember those who are no longer here; in most cases they have completed their life cycle at over eighty-something years of age.
In others, the absence is marked by the unexpected and early departure of the person with whom so many hours have been shared over the years. There will no longer be the possibility of being together but it is hoped that their memory lasts as long as possible.
Contained or burst tears make an appearance, both voluntarily and involuntarily, in all those who wait for the minute hand of the clock at Manufacturas Blasco de Roquetas in Samper de Calanda to make the leap to signal midnight and the change of day. One, two, three… up to twelve bells and the halberdier, playing the bugle, sounds the instrument so that “the breaking of the hour” occurs again during Holy Week in Bajo Aragón, Teruel, in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento.
The contained emotion of those who have been silent until that moment is projected onto the heads of the drums and bass drums so that the roar once again takes over the hitherto silent atmosphere.
The tension on this occasion has been justified by the intermittent presence of rain throughout the day and the uncertainty of not knowing if at the key moment the celebration of the ancient ritual of breaking the hour will be respected.
Many will not mind if their bass drums get wet, although they would rather do it with their tears than with rainwater. For the next 42 hours, the typical sound of each of the towns that make up the Bajo Aragón route in Teruel will sound tirelessly in each and every corner.
This year the president of Aragón, Jorge Azcón, has attended in Híjar his first break of the hour that always takes place between midnight from Thursday to Friday of Holy Week and they have also lived in Albalate del Arzobispo, Alcorisa, Andorra, La Puebla de Híjar, Samper de Calanda and Urrea de Gaen.
Of the nine towns that make up the Drum and Drum Route, declared a Festival of International Tourist Interest since 2014, only in Calanda, the birthplace of the surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, who made this tradition famous, the silence is broken at noon on Good Friday , and Alcañiz is the only one in which this shocking moment does not occur.
Despite the monotonous rhythm that incessantly beats drums of all sizes, some end up spattered with blood from hitting the mallet so much, and drums with their repeated rolls, everyone, large and small, ends up getting used to it well so as not to miss the necessary night’s rest or to fall asleep those who need it without problems.
There are three hundred or so days of waiting, always depending on the date on which the first full moon arrives after the spring equinox as established in the year 325 AD, at the Council of Nicaea (Central Asia).
This full moon is what allows us to keep alive a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation. From parents to children and from these to theirs, it is easy to see up to three generations, and sometimes even more, playing the drum or bass drum together. Choosing one instrument or another, although in some cases it is about maintaining tradition, in most cases it is a personal choice.
Although the intensity of these hours of continuous playing ends up being short, a large majority have begun to experience them a few months before, with weekend rehearsals. It is about achieving the most tuned and rhythmic touch possible or that the youngest players can get started with.
The hours before are of great intensity and preparations. It is about leaving the membranes of bass drums and drums in perfect condition with the appropriate tension, where the mallets and sticks will impact. You also have to prepare and leave perfectly ironed the tunics, black, blue, purple, in each locality a different color, and the hoods or hoods, which have been kept safe in the closets for a year.
Even the “manolas” who, completely mourning with their traditional mantillas and combs, will accompany each and every one of the different processions with the images that recount the biblical sufferings of Jesus Christ, his crucifixion, his deaths and his subsequent resurrection.
