Flamenco Music from Spain

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'ANGUISH MADE FLESH'
- Flamenco Music from Spain

By Christopher M. Wright
© 2005 Christopher M. Wright
All Rights Reserved

CD LINKS BELOW

The Greeks taught music in school so that young people could learn how to tame and channel their passions. If flamenco music had been around at the time, Greek educators might have reconsidered.

Flamenco music is a direct portal to the emotions. It has a history of inciting and inflaming the passions, not cooling them off. Traditional flamenco singing could more accurately be described as primal scream - very loud and harsh, not at all pleasing to the unaccustomed ear.

Flamenco song, music and dance sprang from the suffering and oppression of the gypsies and other persecuted minorities in Seville, Cádiz, and other cities of the Andalusia region of Spain, a harsh and semi-arid landscape. The gypsies, descended from an ancient civilization with roots in India, appeared in Spain in the 1400s.

The gypsies were considered outsiders, viewed with suspicion, and repressed. Spanish authorities imposed various laws from 1499 to 1783 to force the gypsies to give up their nomadic way of life. Failure to settle in one place and take a job was met with a six-year prison term, for example.

Jews and North African Moors (Muslims) were also victims of systematic repression. People from marginalized groups were forcibly converted to Christianity, denied a livelihood, exiled, tortured, or burned at the stake. Musical influences from the various groups made their way into flamenco, mixing with other Spanish music. (Purists who object to disparate influences creeping into flamenco today may not realize that flamenco has been fusion music from the beginning.)

Music and dance became a means of escape and self-expression. Flamenco music drew on Spain's rich ballad tradition but took a rougher turn as singers protested injustices and oppression and vented their hostility toward the dominant culture. Some trace the roots of flamenco singing back to the endechas, emotionally charged songs of grief heard at Spanish funerals. Others theorize that flamenco came from songs expressing guilt and remorse sung by prisoners to the Virgin Mary which drew emotional reactions from the crowd during religious processions.

Whatever the case, flamenco was fully developed by 1770 and proliferated into a number of song-types, the most important of which were the soleá (songs of solitude and tragic love) and the siguiriya (emotional songs of fate, betrayal, misfortune, and death). In the words of one poet, flamenco singing was "anguish made flesh." The lyrics generally revolve around very dark themes. For example -

1)
"When I come to die,
I ask of you one favor,
that with the braids of your black hair
They tie my hands."

2)
"The prison in Utrera
Has twenty-five cells
I have been in twenty-four
And the darkest is to come"

3)
(on the death of the singer's mother)
"Through a window
Which was facing the fields
I was calling to the mother of my soul
And she didn't answer me."

The soleá and siguiriya song forms, closely associated with the gypsies, are among the oldest and purest in the cante grande flamenco style. The songs require a rough voice (afillá) and considerable emotional resources to perform. Siguiriyas were always supposed to begin with a cry of anguish (Ay!), lasting upwards of a half a minute with the voice wavering across several notes.

Inspired flamenco performers were said to have duende, a force or ecstasy that rose up through the soles of their feet and took control as though the performer were possessed. Fueled by copious amounts of alcohol, the performers moved themselves and their listeners almost to the point of hysteria in a kind of collective catharsis. In fits of shared emotion, singers and listeners would rip their shirts, smash chairs, or leave bite marks during some of the wilder performances.

Manuel Torre, who would later himself become a great flamenco performer, was so moved as a young man by one performance that he started crying and jumped out a window. On another occasion, he bit through his drinking glass. Flamenco singer Pericón de Cádiz, wrote of another man overcome with emotion: "When I sang 'why did God take her?', the man stood up and came towards me. He was crying, crying but he gave me such a slap and then he embraced me and cried even more...." (Why is it that Bach chorales don't seem to have the same effect on people?)

Originally, the voice predominated and dancing and guitars were secondary. Many flamenco songs were unaccompanied until the middle of the 19th century. Great emphasis was placed on improvisation and making the song the performer's own through various repeats and ornamentation. Guitarists were just expected to follow along. But by incorporating or developing new techniques, flamenco guitarists eventually moved beyond their role as mere accompanists. One such technique was 'falseta' or the art of melodic variation that allowed guitarists to give the singers a break.

Flamenco dancing is rooted in the classical dance of India. Hindu dancers were present in Spain as early as 500 B.C. where they performed for royalty. Their dance moves were eventually incorporated into Christian ceremonies. The Moors who took over Spain after 711 A.D. prohibited calling attention to women's legs, so dancers began to emphasize hand and upper body movements, which characterize female flamenco dancing to this day. (The fast footstamping of the men [zapateado] is a more recent development.) The gypsies, with their Indian origins, arrived in the 15th century and easily picked up the Indian-influenced Spanish dance elements. The fiery dancing of gypsy women in the evenings attracted Spanish aristocrats slumming it in search of booze, thrills, and sex.

Evolution

Flamenco was originally performed in taverns, fiestas, and celebrations. After 1850, flamenco became more popular and spread to ordinary cafés and beyond Andalusia to Barcelona and Madrid where it began to attract foreign visitors looking for beauty and passion. Non-gypsy performers incorporated new elements drawn from Andalusian folk music. Dancing and guitar-playing assumed greater importance. One key figure, Silverio Franconetti, a non-gypsy half-Italian performer, opened his own café and deliberately set about to soften flamenco's harsh tone in order to broaden its appeal. Purists decried such moves, arguing that 'Andalusianization' destroyed flamenco's authenticity while others consider this period to be flamenco's Golden Age.

Cafés declined in popularity after the 1920s but the march of flamenco into the mainstream was not yet complete. Flamenco moved to the world of theater where it was watered down even further, to the point of vulgarity some said. Flamenco found its way into Spanish light opera (zarzuela), far from the genre's tragic origins. A new form of musical theater, ópera flamenca, arose which drew on lighter subjects and relied on orchestras for accompaniment more so than guitars.

Flamenco also crossed over to the popular culture through the efforts of serious performers like Pepe Marchena, an excellent flamenco singer who became rich and famous by mixing popular song and orchestral accompaniments into his performances. Money was also a draw for Juanito Valderrama who later brought the 'flamenco twist' and 'flamenco cha-cha-cha' to TV audiences.

Flamenco dance did not remain unaffected. Castanets and hand-clapping (palmas) became common, though originally foreign to pure flamenco. Female dancers took up fancy footwork, once exclusively the province of the men. Some of the women even wore male costumes. Commercial success demanded tightly scripted performances, so improvisation was squeezed out of the art form. Large dance companies arose which drew as much from classical and regional dances as from flamenco to create a new fusion style known as ballet español.

The Franco dictatorship that came to power in 1939 hijacked flamenco for propaganda purposes to sell 'picture postcard' Spain to foreign tourists. The government used flamenco's popularity to assure potential visitors that the atrocities of the civil war were safely in the past.

Around 1950, a flamenco renaissance took place, led by foreign enthusiasts and record companies. Old flamenco masters were engaged to document the pure forms of cante grande for posterity. These foreign recordings were eventually sold in Spain, rekindling interest in flamenco's glorious past. New clubs (tablaos) opened to bring traditional flamenco to a new audience. But the genie was already out of the bottle: flamenco dancers were asked to spice things up with more suggestive movements, singers to soften their delivery, and guitarists to play faster riffs. A new cycle of commercialization began. Purists derided the 'flamenco-flavored pop songs' and the new flamenco-inspired TV, film, and theater productions, but others argued that flamenco music had to adapt or stagnate.

f'Carmen' on VHS Tape
(non-USA DVD also available)

The mainstreaming of flamenco prompted occasional moves in the opposite direction, towards tradition and authenticity. One such move was a film version of Bizet's 'Carmen'. The filmmakers thought that Bizet had toned down the original story so as not to offend Parisian sensibilities. They wanted to restore the jealousy, violence, and sensuality of the original story. Bizet's dance music was too slow, so the filmmakers used the bulerías style to pick up the pace, relying on guitar and hand-clapping instead of an orchestra as Bizet had done.

Paco de Lucía - Amazon Selections Below

Nowadays it's hard to tell where flamenco ends and the rest of Spanish music begins. Paco de Lucía is the best known flamenco guitarist today (2005). He won an amateur contest at the age of 14 and, in his early 20's, accompanied the traditional singer Camarón. De Lucía's experimentation with jazz and Brazilian elements helped to usher in the era of 'nuevo flamenco' where traditional elements are fused with such disparate styles as rock, Indian raga, African, Arabic, reggae, and rhythm & blues.

Flamenco began as a fusion of styles and continues to incorporate new elements today. Purists may cringe, but flamenco's malleability may well be what ensures the music's vitality into the future.

Great photographs DVD Guitar Instruction Raw, unadulterated

Paco de Lucía

Touchstone First Fusion

Fusion / Nuevo Flamenco

Spanish Music - Some of My Personal Favorites

Suite for Guitar Nights in the Gardens
and Jazz Piano of Spain Rodrigo Concertos

'Iberia' played by Spanish Dances (esp #5)
Alicia de Larrocha de Larrocha playing Segovia

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