Aguilando

The aguilando is an Asturian oral-tradition carol tied to the Christmas and New Year season. Historically, young men from the villages went door to door singing aguilandos in exchange for the aguinaldo: food, drink or money. The term connects directly to aguinaldo, the gift that was asked for.

It isn’t a villancico in the Spanish-language sense of the term. The aguilando has its own festive, collective character, shaped within the oral tradition of the northwestern Iberian Peninsula. Musicologist Eduardo Martínez Torner collected numerous aguilandos in his Cancionero Musical de la Lírica Popular Asturiana (1920), the reference collection of Asturian traditional music.

The Asturian gaita can play aguilandos without voices: the festive character of the piece is carried by phrasing and ornamentation alone.