Elkano completed the first circumnavigation – tonight his voyage becomes music
At the Jordi Savall Festival, Euskal Barrokensemble recalls Juan Sebastián Elkano, who brought the Victoria back to Spain in 1522 and completed a voyage that changed humanity’s image of the world.
Tonight the Jordi Savall Festival opens with a musical voyage around the world. At 10 p.m., Euskal Barrokensemble presents “Elkano: the first circumnavigation of the world” at the Sanctuary of La Serra in Montblanc. Enrike Solinís directs the ensemble, while actor Jordi Boixaderas links the music with spoken narration. The Jordi Savall Festival describes it as a sonic journey through Europe, America, Asia and the Near East.
At the centre is Juan Sebastián Elkano, whose name is heard far less often outside Spain than Ferdinand Magellan’s. Magellan was Portuguese, but the expedition was organised for the Crown of Castile under Carlos I. In August 1519, five ships first sailed down the Guadalquivir from Seville. From Sanlúcar de Barrameda they then entered the Atlantic in search of a western route to the Spice Islands.
The expedition followed the coast of South America and passed through the strait later named after Magellan. Magellan did not complete the circumnavigation. He was killed on the Philippine island of Mactan in April 1521. After further losses, Elkano took command of the Victoria. Instead of returning by the same route, he sailed across the Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope.
The Victoria reached Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 6 September 1522. Two days later it sailed up the Guadalquivir to Seville. Of the several hundred original participants, only 18 men returned aboard the ship. After his arrival, Elkano wrote to Carlos I that they had achieved something extraordinary: they had completed the entire circuit of the world.
It is therefore more accurate not to speak solely of Magellan’s circumnavigation. Magellan led the expedition, found the passage into the Pacific and decisively shaped its course. The first documented voyage around the Earth was nevertheless completed by Elkano and the men who returned aboard the Victoria.
The concert does not tell this story as an academic lecture. The project “Juan Sebastián Elkano – The First Voyage Round the World” brings together Basque traditions, Renaissance and early Baroque music, and sounds associated with different regions encountered through the narrative. The extensive double album released in 2019 includes the Basque rowing song “Ale, arraunean”, “Pabanea”, music connected with the departure from Seville, an extract from Antonio Pigafetta’s journal and Elkano’s letter to Charles V. These are examples from the larger project; a complete set list for tonight’s concert has not been published.
The story therefore returns to a European point of departure: old stone beneath a night sky, where musicians and a narrator make a voyage of more than five hundred years ago audible again. Magellan opened the way. Elkano brought a ship home and with it practical proof that the world could be circumnavigated.