[citation needed] In tandem with the rest of Western Europe, it has a long musical tradition, incorporating a number of different styles and genres over the past two thousand years.
Catalonia and adjacent areas were the home for several troubadours, the itinerant composer-musicians whose influence and aesthetics was decisive on the formation of late medieval secular music, and who traveled into Italy and Northern France after the destruction of Occitan culture by the Albigensian Crusade in the early 13th century.
Joan Pau Pujol wrote four books of polyphonic masses and motets in honor of the patron saint of Barcelona, St. George.
The cobla itself is an 11-piece band, that includes genuine folk instruments such as the flabiol (tabor pipe) and tambori, tenora, tible which are also used in other regions of Spain.
Sung in both Catalan and Spanish, Havaneres have been very popular at parties since the end of the 19th century when sailors returned from the War of the Cuban Independence.
In the last half century, the rumba catalana genre has spread in Catalonia, played mostly by Gypsies, including popular performers like Peret and Gato Pérez.
[1] and more recently, groups such as Doctor Prats[2] and Buhos[3] In the wake of Mano Negra and Manu Chao's success, Catalonia has also produced a number of popular fusion and world music bands, such as Dusminguet or Cheb Balowski.