'Anguish Made Flesh'
- Flamenco Music from Spain
The Greeks taught music so schoolchildren could learn how to tame and channel their passions. If flamenco music had been around at the time, the Greeks might have reconsidered.
Flamenco music is a direct portal to the emotions. Performing it for its original intended audience was not unlike deliberately making a volcano erupt. The music was meant to incite and inflame the passions, not cool them off. Traditional flamenco singing could more accurately be described as a primal scream - very loud and harsh, not at all pleasing to the ear. The importance of the music may lie more in the story it tells than in the music per se.
Flamenco song, music and dance sprang from the suffering and protests of the gypsies and other oppressed peoples living hundreds of years ago in Seville, Cadiz, and other cities in 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 1400's.
The gypsies were considered outsiders, viewed with suspicion, and persecuted. Spanish authorities imposed various laws from 1499-1783 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 Muslims (Moors) 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 these groups made their way into flamenco. (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 their means of escape and self-expression. Flamenco music drew on Spain's rich ballad tradition but took a rougher turn as singers protested injustice and oppression and vented their hostility toward the dominant culture. Some trace the roots of flamenco singing back to the endeches, emotionally charged songs of grief and lamentation sung at Spanish funerals. Others theorize that flamenco came from songs expressing guilt and remorse sung by prisoners to the Virgin Mary in religious processions which drew emotional reactions from the crowd.
Whatever the case, flamenco was fully developed by 1770 and proliferated into a number of song types the most important of which were the solea (songs of solitude and tragic love) and the siguriya (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 some 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 solea and siguriya 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. Siguriyas 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 magically inspired power or Dionysian force that rose up through the soles of their feet and took control of their body as though the performer were possessed by demons. 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 audience members would rip their shirts and smash chairs during wild performances.
Manuel Torre, who would later himself become a great flamenco performer, was so moved as a young man by a flamenco performance that he started crying and jumped out a window. On another occasion, he bit through his drinking glass. Flamenco singer Pericon de Cádiz wrote that, on one occasion, "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...." (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 expected to follow along. But by incorporating or developing new techniques, flamenco guitarists were eventually able to move beyond their role as mere accompanists. One such technique was 'falseta' or the art of melodic variation that allowed guitarists to give 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 in 711 prohibited calling attention to women's legs, so women dancers began to emphasize hand and upper body movements, something that would come to characterize female flamenco dancing later. (The fast footwork of the men [zapateado] is a more recent development.) The gypsies, with their Indian origins, arrived in the 15th century and picked up the Indian-influenced Spanish dance elements easily. The fiery dancing of gypsy women in the evenings attracted Spanish aristocrats 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 such 'Andalusianization' destroyed flamenco's authenticity while others consider this period to be flamenco's Golden Age.
Cafés declined in popularity after the 1920's but the mainstreaming of flamenco wasn't over yet. Flamenco moved to the world of theater where the style was watered down even further, even to the point of vulgarity some said. Flamenco found its way into Spanish light opera (zarzuela), far from flamenco's tragic origins. A new form of musical theater, ópera flamenco, arose which drew on lighter subjects and relied on orchestras for accompaniment more than guitar.
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 Valderama 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 male dancers. Some of the women even wore male costumes. Commercial success demanded tight performances, so improvisation was squeezed out of the art form. Large dance companies arose which drew as much from classical and regional dance as from flamenco to create a new fusion style known as ballet español or, as American audiences know it, Spanish dance.
The Franco dictatorship that came to power in 1939 hijacked flamenco for propaganda purposes and used it to sell 'picture postcard Spain' to foreign tourists. The government used flamenco's popularity to convince 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 prosperity. These foreign recordings were eventually sold on the Spanish market, 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.
One interesting move in the opposite direction was a remake 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
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 working 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, reggae, African, Arabic, 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 in the future.
- Flamenco Music from Spain
The Greeks taught music so schoolchildren could learn how to tame and channel their passions. If flamenco music had been around at the time, the Greeks might have reconsidered.
Flamenco music is a direct portal to the emotions. Performing it for its original intended audience was not unlike deliberately making a volcano erupt. The music was meant to incite and inflame the passions, not cool them off. Traditional flamenco singing could more accurately be described as a primal scream - very loud and harsh, not at all pleasing to the ear. The importance of the music may lie more in the story it tells than in the music per se.
Flamenco song, music and dance sprang from the suffering and protests of the gypsies and other oppressed peoples living hundreds of years ago in Seville, Cadiz, and other cities in 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 1400's.
The gypsies were considered outsiders, viewed with suspicion, and persecuted. Spanish authorities imposed various laws from 1499-1783 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 Muslims (Moors) 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 these groups made their way into flamenco. (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 their means of escape and self-expression. Flamenco music drew on Spain's rich ballad tradition but took a rougher turn as singers protested injustice and oppression and vented their hostility toward the dominant culture. Some trace the roots of flamenco singing back to the endeches, emotionally charged songs of grief and lamentation sung at Spanish funerals. Others theorize that flamenco came from songs expressing guilt and remorse sung by prisoners to the Virgin Mary in religious processions which drew emotional reactions from the crowd.
Whatever the case, flamenco was fully developed by 1770 and proliferated into a number of song types the most important of which were the solea (songs of solitude and tragic love) and the siguriya (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 some 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 solea and siguriya 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. Siguriyas 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 magically inspired power or Dionysian force that rose up through the soles of their feet and took control of their body as though the performer were possessed by demons. 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 audience members would rip their shirts and smash chairs during wild performances.
Manuel Torre, who would later himself become a great flamenco performer, was so moved as a young man by a flamenco performance that he started crying and jumped out a window. On another occasion, he bit through his drinking glass. Flamenco singer Pericon de Cádiz wrote that, on one occasion, "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...." (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 expected to follow along. But by incorporating or developing new techniques, flamenco guitarists were eventually able to move beyond their role as mere accompanists. One such technique was 'falseta' or the art of melodic variation that allowed guitarists to give 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 in 711 prohibited calling attention to women's legs, so women dancers began to emphasize hand and upper body movements, something that would come to characterize female flamenco dancing later. (The fast footwork of the men [zapateado] is a more recent development.) The gypsies, with their Indian origins, arrived in the 15th century and picked up the Indian-influenced Spanish dance elements easily. The fiery dancing of gypsy women in the evenings attracted Spanish aristocrats 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 such 'Andalusianization' destroyed flamenco's authenticity while others consider this period to be flamenco's Golden Age.
Cafés declined in popularity after the 1920's but the mainstreaming of flamenco wasn't over yet. Flamenco moved to the world of theater where the style was watered down even further, even to the point of vulgarity some said. Flamenco found its way into Spanish light opera (zarzuela), far from flamenco's tragic origins. A new form of musical theater, ópera flamenco, arose which drew on lighter subjects and relied on orchestras for accompaniment more than guitar.
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 Valderama 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 male dancers. Some of the women even wore male costumes. Commercial success demanded tight performances, so improvisation was squeezed out of the art form. Large dance companies arose which drew as much from classical and regional dance as from flamenco to create a new fusion style known as ballet español or, as American audiences know it, Spanish dance.
The Franco dictatorship that came to power in 1939 hijacked flamenco for propaganda purposes and used it to sell 'picture postcard Spain' to foreign tourists. The government used flamenco's popularity to convince 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 prosperity. These foreign recordings were eventually sold on the Spanish market, 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.
One interesting move in the opposite direction was a remake 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
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 working 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, reggae, African, Arabic, 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 in the future.