'The Alchemists' or the miracle of flamenco

A few years ago, the teacher Jorge Pardo He asked me for a commentary for one of his records and, out of the admiration I have for the brilliant musician from Madrid and from the heart, this came out: “There are musicians who are masters in their field but are clumsy when it comes to other music, others manage to mix languages ​​with a certain ease, but only a few are authentic alchemists, those who know the nature and properties of the metals they wish to melt and know how to obtain pure art through this alchemy.” That thing about the alchemists in reference to Jorge suggested to me the idea that I have been commenting on lately in my writings and conferences, and that I now intend to clarify with this article.

El flamenco It is the product of a true miracle, an almost magical musical phenomenon, astonishing in its originality and exceptional in terms of the sound atmosphere it has managed to create. This miracle was forged by fusing two initially antagonistic ways of expressing oneself, two precious metals coexisting in a way that surprises with the beauty of the result, with a tremendously natural, organic functioning, as if they had always coexisted. Mixing languages ​​to create a new one This is typical of other musical genres of the 20th century. Jazz, for example, emerged from the fusion of ragtime and blues, creating a delicious and immortal music. flamenco He did it decades earlier, in the middle of the 19th century, and the result was absolutely prodigious. As I said, a miracle.

And what metals were those? On the one hand the spanish guitar, a true polyphonic prodigy and, something fundamental for an instrument of this nature, portable, something that allows it to be played in any context. And the other metal to be melted was the so-called "cante Gypsy", whose unique nature, a full-fledged artifice, as Undibel commands, is based mainly on recreating the Andalusian song of ancient times with all its ingredients, although in the middle of the romantic era, the 19th century.

The guitar is the result of an organological evolution which goes from East to West, while the gypsy song developed in reverse, from the Andalusian threshold of the West towards singing forms full of oriental ingredients. Let me explain. The guitar has its most remote antecedents in Mediterranean and oriental chordophones and came to be configured around 1850 in the template designed by the great Almería native Antonio Torres. cante, however, was “designed” by the gypsies of Cadiz and Seville, with a very convenient and intentional oriental accent. Their paths crossed and they decided to join hands and walk together until they achieved a solid genre, the flamenco.

El Arabic lute, one of the great-grandfathers of the guitar, has as its main difference with respect to the guitar the absence of frets, those metal pieces that are inserted in the fingerboard of some instruments such as the guitar, the bandurria, the Spanish lute, the Cuban tres or the Venezuelan cuatro. Meanwhile, the tempered chant typical of Western songs, from medieval plainchant, through the romances and a good part of the Iberian cantigas and songs, was tempered and decomposed into the characteristic microtones of oriental song, from Persia to the Maghreb. A unique processpeñain achieving the musical language that sums up the centuries-old fusion of the Spains.

«It could not have been forged anywhere else than in that paradise of fusion that is Andalusia and Spain in general, a land of tolerance, however much some insist on distorting the historical reality of a people, the Hispanic, accustomed to mixing since time immemorial and who have made the fusion of cultures their reason for being, from Portbou to Cape Horn, from Tijuana to Cabo de Gata»

And here is the miracle. How to melt mint and cinnamon into a perfume, as they sang Lole and Manuel en The river of my Seville. How to achieve this blessed alchemy without violating the most basic rules of musical aesthetics of a people as skilled in musical matters as the Andalusians. Let's see.

The guitar divides the scale, by means of the frets, into twelve identical semitones, which are formed between C-C#-D-D#-E-F-F#-G-G#-A-A#-B-C, the so-called even tempered scale, the hallmark of Western music, European academic music and a good part of the music of oral tradition cultivated in Spain. Meanwhile, el cante jondo, cante flamenco, cante Gypsy, moves along a scale that subdivides the tones into multiple microtones that make it almost impossible for them to be captured on a staff, originally designed to write even-tempered scales. The singable melodies of the cante They have an oriental appearance, they are sung with the clear intention of seasoning with oriental ingredients a music made in the West by the most western inhabitants of Europe. And here is the miracle.

A student told me a few years ago that a friend of his, a Turk and an Arabic player, told him that flamenco it should be played with that instrument instead of the guitar, in order to unite the languages ​​with instruments, the Ud and the voice, not tempered. Obviously I had not understood anything, I was unaware of the great giant step that the flamenco Since the first styles began to crystallize in the second half of the 19th century, it was precisely the fusion between these two worlds: the very western tempered scale of the guitar with the very eastern tempered scale of the cante (which does not mean that the left hand of the guitar does not try to spice up the oriental character of the genre with dissonances).

By reconciling both worlds, a miracle was achieved, giving rise to a musical genre that is unique in the world, the fruit of the most exquisite fusion, the result of the communion between two apparently antagonistic worlds and which could not have been forged anywhere else than in that paradise of fusion that is Andalusia and Spain in general, a land of tolerant people, however much some insist on distorting the historical reality of a people, the Hispanic people, who have been accustomed to mixing since time immemorial and who have made the fusion of cultures their raison d'être, from Portbou to Cape Horn, from Tijuana to Cabo de Gata.

In a very brief and hopefully understandable way, I am convinced, although I may be wrong, that This is how the great miracle of the flamenco, the delicious alchemy that melting two metals he obtained pure gold, the gender flamenco, one of the most exceptional music in the world.