All for the money? – The things (XIV)

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Two days with Antonio Gades

Let me say from the start that the years I was in the Antonio Gades Company They were the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. That's why I get so insistent on this subject and come back to it whenever I have the chance. I can't help it. The Cozas.

I was fortunate that Antonio asked me to design and compose the music for what turned out to be his last choreography, his last ballet: FuenteovejunaIt was six months of intense work, developing a dance script based on the sketches I had made. Pepe Caballero Bonald. Once the script was done (which we finished at the house of Dr. Barros, that miraculous doctor who was a friend of the cream of the anti-Franco culture, Bergamin a Picasso, gades a Alberti) We started with the music, then the choreography and staging. Antonio finished the ballet in December 1994, a few days before its premiere at the Genoa Opera.

I went to register it at SGAE, and 50 percent of the rights that corresponded to the music had to be divided between the remembered Antonio Solera, who contributed a lot to the creation of the soundtrack of that masterpiece, a high percentage, Anton Garcia April, who had not actually composed anything original for the work, but left us a tape with fragments of other projects that had not worked out, and which my menda lerenda reworked by cutting here and there, "recreating" the music for the pas de deux (the sheet and the blanket), as well as a brief fragment that I extracted from a record. But lo and behold, since Abril is a bigwig of Authors, what we commonly know in Cuba as the “sacred cow”, in Gran Derecho they demanded a higher percentage than the rest, and so it had to be done. In addition, I had to take into account that Antonio had asked the composer from Zaragoza for the music for this ballet and when he refused due to lack of time, the dancer told me: “We have to put something by García Abril.” And so I did, with the aforementioned tape and a disc that I had with his works I made the eight minutes of his authorship into a ninety-minute work. I was not afraid, with what I got I was happy. I, who have never considered myself a composer, ended up making music that was going to go around the world. I knew García Abril from my years as a student at the Madrid Conservatory, when it was in the current building Royal Theatre, and he was already famous among the students of Mangón. After the premiere in Madrid, precisely in that theatre, I found him on stage with the then Minister of Culture, recounting the process of composing Fuenteovejuna, boasting about the work done. He is very shameless. He is no longer with us but, well, I met him when he was a judge in a SGAE competition and I was able to remind him of the infamy of appropriating the merits (and money) of others. And I told him so to his face. There are witnesses. He didn't even flinch. Made of marble!

«My friend invited us to a conservatory in Madrid and before I could start telling him what Antonio wanted, he started talking about the money he should get paid, rights, exclusivity and other niceties of that nature. Obviously he didn't know who he was fighting with»

To what we are going. I swear that I never did it, but in the Company the word spread that Solera, Antonio's friend, and myself, when the curtain opened, whether it was in Carmen or in Fuenteovejuna, the two works in which I participated as a guitarist during the years I was in the Company, we counted the number of people there (always full, by the way) to calculate how much we took from SGAE. Solera and I were authors of part of Fuenteovejuna. Antoñito also from Carmen, and of course, what we were entitled to was often more than what we were paid as guitarists. The thing about counting the audience was a hoax, now that it is so fashionable, that Antonio himself and the Gomez of Jerez, who with their well-known wit had a laugh at the expense of the royalties that were due to us from the ballet's music. You're making a killing today, aren't you?, they said. We took it as a joke.

For many years I have been saying that the best thing that has ever happened to me was being with Gades for ten years of my life. From the moment we met, we fell in love. I knew his work by heart, I had memorized the steps of his films, I knew every detail and I really appreciated that the day we met at his house in Plaza de Castilla thanks to my brother's recommendation. Maurice Sotelo. A small chalet whose hall had a photo of Antonio's wedding on the sideboard. pepe flowers, and the godparents, Alicia Alonso and Fidel.

It was never money that got me excited when Gades proposed that I collaborate with him on his ballet; the opportunity to help a genius whose work I admired more than met my ambitions. As an author, I earned enough to live comfortably, it's true, but, although in other activities I do worry about fees, with Gades, money was the least of my concerns.

I remember that Antonio asked me to find a composer to take charge of the fragments of the work corresponding to the character of the Commander. The choreographer wanted war-like trumpet music and for that he needed someone with a recognised expertise in that style. I thought of a pianist friend who had had an intense relationship with the world of dance for many years and I suggested it to him. My friend arranged to meet us at a conservatory in Madrid and before I started to tell him what Antonio wanted he started talking about the money he should charge, royalties, exclusivity and other niceties of that kind. Obviously he didn't know who he was fighting with. Gades was the strictest guy I have ever met when it came to those things and as expected he didn't take it well at all. In all the months I was working in music, money was never mentioned, nor was there any need to. I was fully aware that next to a giant like Gades, vile metal would come as an added bonus, there was no need to bring up that subject. That was the great mistake of my recommendation. As soon as Antonio heard the tirade about economic conditions, he looked at me and said: We're leaving! And my friend was left with “to the face of a damn thing”, as we say in Cadiz. I shrugged my shoulders and we left the classroom. I took charge of that part too, selecting baroque trumpet and some fragments of the Pictures from an exhibition of Mussorgsky orchestrated by Ravel, which by the way turned out great. Since then I have not had any contact with my friend, I suppose he thought I was to blame for his lack of tact. Gades was excessively scrupulous about such things and the other had touched the wrong nerve. And all for the money. The things.