The Song of Spain - Canción Clásica de España

 The Song of Spain

The sounds of guitars, castanets, stamping feet, clapping hands and melodic turns are the most familiar aspects of Spanish music to visitors and holidaymakers. Striking melodies, indigenous rhythms and dances have picturesque qualities, which have inspired many non-Spanish composers, particularly
Bizet, who composed “Carmen” without ever setting foot in Spain!

Yet Spain has as many musical styles as it does regions. All its songs have strong rhythmic structures, but the modes, rhythms, cadences and ornamental figures of each region are distinct. However, there is a North-South divide in almost a straight line from Alcantara to Valencia. This line follows the fall of the Caliph of Cordoba and the invasions by the Moors in C11^th to C13^th. 

The music of the North is quasi European despite its obvious turns and modal eccentricities, which clearly lend it an exotic character. Essentially its music is mono-rhythmic, happy and lively with a strong dance element. Southern music is more of an oriental art form, dreamy, melancholic and passionate, polyrhythmic in character with the overlay of many rhythms and cross-rhythms in song and accompaniment.

Flamenco, with its vivid rhythms and melodic melismas, its bittersweet songs, the sound of heel and toe and the ecstatic swirl of the dance, is the most internationally famous Spanish music. Its roots can be traced back to the gypsies who migrated from India to Spain. Its Arab influences come from the horse traders, blacksmiths, field workers, olive and mulberry pickers, the silk-making industry, and the Morisco labourers. The muleteer’s songs, shearing songs and prisoners’ laments are a particular theme of the “cante jondo”: the deep song of Andalusia.

Cante jondo began in the forges of Andalusia, from the heat of the fire and the rhythm of the blacksmith’s hammer. The songs are rarely narrative or descriptive and are usually expressing the poet’s mood and emotions. Many have long guitar preludes and the singer begins with a long wail “Ay!” Their hypnotic charm and the exhibitionist skills of the singers are like bullfights with individual flourishes. The melodies are rich in Arabic ornamentations, usually improvised, which cannot really be transcribed to European intervals on a scale. At specific moments suggested by the text or emotion, the singers slide through gradations, insisting on individual notes, encouraged by others clapping and shouting Olé. It is vocal inflexion rather than ornamentation, similar to Byzantine undertone chanting, with allusions to the tragedy of life and giving a sense of the hot sun on parched earth and a sea breeze.

Many of Spain’s composers, writers and poets were inspired by the half-singing, half-spoken storytelling, street cries and songs, town criers, watchmen, vendors and hawkers that are still familiar in Spain. This is most evident in the work of the poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, who became fascinated by flamenco after visiting Pollinario’s tavern in the Alhambra Palace. Lorca wrote lyrics for the singer Pastora Javon and was inspired to write his famous talk on the “duende” or spirit, that Lorca described as the hidden spirit of a disconsolate Spain.

Manuel de Falla was so influenced by the songs of the gypsies of the Albaicin in Granada, that in 1922 he organised a Cante Jondo competition. He stated that “preference would be given to those whose style was adjusted to the old practises of classic cantaores avoiding abusive flourishes and restoring to cante jondo that admirable sobriety which constituted one of its greatest beauties". For the same reason he also told them that "all modernised songs were eliminated however eminent the vocal qualities of the competitor. Avoidance of all imitation of theatrical or concert style is essential to the quality of pure Andalusian song; the performer is a cantaor not a singer. It should not dishearten a cantaor/a to be accused of singing certain notes out of tune; such notes are not necessarily out of tune to the true connoisseur of Andalusian song. A wide vocal range is unnecessary to cante jondo - it may even prejudice the pure style of it!” A 68-year-old amateur won the considerable first prize of 12,000 pesetas. He had walked for 3 days from Cordoba to Granada and was robbed of his prize on his way home.            

©Copyright Helena Kean