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In an article I wrote three long years ago that I titled Have you had a snack? flamenco the folklore of Andalusia? (January 2022) I was referring to how the artistic reinterpretation of the Andalusian musical tradition, which is what it is flamenco, has led to many local expressions of so-called folklore being transformed into their flamenco "versions." Thus, for example, no one can say they know how to sing the jota de Cádiz, which everything indicates was one of the main sources of alegrías, or even that they have heard it sung. That song, the jota de Cádiz, which before being cante It was a song, it dissolved completely in the said style flamenco never to be performed again in its traditional form. In that post I wondered how many songs have “suffered” a similar fate. In two other articles I wrote on this same forum that I ExpoFlamenco, with the title of Cantes that were songs (1 y 2), in April and May 2021 respectively, analyzed the repertoire jondo and its relationship with folklore. As I believe this is a topic of interest, I will briefly explain here how the transfer of musical elements from one repertoire, the traditional one, to another, the flamenco.
I'll give you an example that we all know. When the flamencology refers to the creations of Antonio Chacon which he labeled on the disc as granaína and the half a pomegranate It is always said that the Jerez native was inspired by a traditional fandango from Granada to create his own songs. cantes. There are those who even say that it was inspired by the fandango of Albaicín, today fandango of Peppermint Bottle, whose clearest antecedent we find in the so-called Verdial of Velez from the genius from Malaga Juan BrevaThe myth reached the point that the very same Child of Marchena He labeled his version of the Granada fandango as Primitive half granaína, giving us, as was common with the wonderful singer, a "cobazo" of great quality. Listening to these canteWe immediately understand that this theory, so widespread and taken for granted, does not hold up. In the melody we find no kinship between the two variants. And so, dear friends, is how la flamencology, once again, manipulates musical reality to construct a theory without documentary support not even the slightest comparative analysis.
And we come to the heart of the issue I want to address today with this article, by raising something that directs our attention to a place rarely visited by scholars. It could be that Chacón was indeed inspired by a fandango from the Granada region, or let's say that he borrowed some melodic motif from a traditional fandango and, to paraphrase Antonio Mairena, made a tablecloth, composed the two aforementioned creations: the granaína and its cante of preparation, the average (although today the nomenclature is known backwards due to a record label "mistake" that probably caused Manuel Vallejo with his impressive version of the granaína that was labeled on the album as media). It will not be that the creative genius of Antonio Chacón He drank from the abundant source of Granada's traditional repertoire to create his two flamenco songs cantes and that those canteTheir matrices fell into oblivion, eclipsed forever by the flamenco versions, as had happened long before with the aforementioned jota from Cadiz regarding the cante for joys. By the way, there had to be two of them cantes of which Chacón drank, since the granaína and the media have a melodic invoice quite far from each other, one as cante preparation, in a medium range, and another cante brave for the higher tones.
"How many songs from the Andalusian tradition have succumbed to the charms of flamenco music, only to be lost forever and leave no trace in the memory of the people? How many songs have been made cante"Have they suffered a similar fate?"
How many songs from the Andalusian tradition have succumbed to the charms of flamenco music, only to be lost forever and leave no trace in the memory of the people? How many songs have been made canteCould they have suffered a similar fate? That is to say, it is not that far-fetched the idea that Chacón was inspired by a fandango of Granada for his creations, but it could have happened that the traditional song that served as the source of the saying cante disappeared from the traditional repertoire, eclipsed, as I have already pointed out, by the flamenco version.
And at this point it is worth clarifying that the “transfusions” between traditional songs and canteThey do not occur exclusively in the melodic field, but also in the rhythmic and even harmonic field. (the guitar accompaniment). However, it is more common for this transfer to be of melodies, but not of an entire melody; it may be that the borrowing is of a phrase or even a small melodic motif. This occurs in the cante quite frequently, the much-discussed kinship that may exist between the polo and the call rondeña from Malaga, or the similarities that exist in the output of the natural night heron, the first variant from the Alcalareña soleá of Joaquin from Paula and primera of the seguiriya of Manuel Molina. How a small motif of a few notes in ascending diatonic sense can be practically identical to three cantes in principle far from each other in time and space, as are the examples discussed in this paragraph.
A small melodic cell moves from one cante to another for the sake of an interpreter-creator who in turn has in his head an infinite number of musics, of the same genre or even of other more or less related ones, and to create a new one cante, without hesitation, he draws on, probably unconsciously, motifs that are stored in his memory to end up creating a cante new fact of scraps that tells us that everything has been invented. Hence muchos cantes of the repertoire flamenco are so similar to each other, like the ascending melody we find in the fourth third of many canteminers, or the one you hear in the caña and the serrana. Not to mention The almost identical thirds of many variants of soleá and seguiriya, tangos and fandangos, malagueñas or cantiñasAnd it all goes to show that, as I've been saying for years, music, like matter, is neither created nor destroyed; it only transforms, dissolves, and crystallizes again.
I think your thesis is true: the flamenco He has "snacked on" Andalusian folklore. He has swallowed it, digested it, and left nothing for the vermin that roam the mountains alone. Besides, it seems perfect to me: in other regions folklore has survived (less and less), but there is no equivalent of flamenco, so traditional music has no aesthetic dimension. They're missing out!
What I don't understand are the following two things:
1. His own theory has no “documentary” support and is as arbitrary as the speculations of the “flamencologists” whom he so vehemently criticizes for their alleged lack of “scientific nature.”
2. I also don't quite understand the difference between the theory that the alegrías have "eaten up" the jotas of Cádiz (I repeat that this seems to me to be the only possible hypothesis) and the theory that the granadinas and medias have "eaten up" the fandangos of Albaicín.
Now, let's not exaggerate. Folk music hasn't completely disappeared from Andalusia. Not only the fandangos of Huelva, the verdiales of Málaga, or the mosca of Sacromonte still exist, but many others, both under the protection of the old Choirs and Dances and the current, revitalized Escuela Bolera. I've seen "canciones de bamba" (with their bamba and all) in Motril, cuadrillas de animas (anima dances) in the Alpujarras, and old peteneras danced in Almería, which don't "sound" like a traditional folk song. flamenco nor with gunshots. Nor should we imagine that folklore is always much older than flamencoThe sardanas are recent, as are the habaneras in Catalonia. What has occurred in Andalusia is more of a bifurcation between the folkloric and the artistic, something that hasn't occurred elsewhere. In the face of the emotional impact of flamenco performances, the purely folkloric has suffered a prolonged anemia that has ended in collapse. But the same thing is slowly happening elsewhere. Folklore is dying because it has stopped evolving due to a lack of technical and cultural foundation (why would there be such a thing today?) cantethreshing floors or proclamations?). However, being art, the flamenco It never stops evolving, constantly adapting to new reception conditions. But beware! If it adapts too much to an international audience without any prior flamenco education, it will end up swallowed up by "Latin" and "urban" music promoted by the entertainment industry. The greatest danger lurking in the flamenco It's cultural tourism. It's a shame that the organizers of events like the Seville Biennial or the Jerez Festival don't realize this. Unfortunately, I think they do, and that's precisely what they're after: to get a slice of the pie, as Juan Habichuela so aptly put it.
Hi Pedro, in a popular science magazine, it's ugly to upload an article with documentary evidence, yet the article is littered with links to articles and audio recordings that explain things better. First, you agree with me, then you disagree. I don't get too hard on you. flamencoLogically, I'm here to say that in the case of the granaínas, they assumed, as is the case with many other styles (Galician farruca, Paterna petenera, etc.), that it comes from the fandango of the Albaicín, something I don't mention in my article. I advise you to read it again.
Thank you for your comment.
Faustino Nunez
Hello Faustino
Perhaps my previous comment was confusing. I agree with you in general terms: when the flamenco It stems from Andalusian folklore, and in many cases, folk versions end up disappearing. What I wonder is whether this phenomenon, which applies to alegrías, also applies to granaínas. Or is it possible to think that they are purely a creation of Chacón, without any "fandanguero" background?
Beyond that minor detail, I believe, as an anthropologist, that you give too much importance to written sources. It's as if anything not documented in sheet music or theater programs didn't exist. If that were the case, anthropology would have no scientific value, since it has developed its methodology based on the study of non-literate societies. In historical societies like ours, it's essential to take documentary sources into account, but one cannot limit oneself to them, especially in cases like the one described here. flamenco where oral tradition prevails. Anthropology is not lacking in criteria to distinguish pure fantasies even if written documents are lacking. To claim that the peteneras are from Paterna with no other basis than the similarity of the meaningscanteAnd, from there, inventing the story of that "paternera" woman who was so evil, so evil, that they called her "the bane of men" has all the hallmarks of being a legend, which must be analyzed as such (by relating it to the different forms of "fear of women"). An anthropologist knows that myths are myths, but that doesn't mean he disdains them: they constitute the raw material of his work.
I don't know whether or not there was a fandango from the Albaicín. I also don't know for sure if there were jotas from Cádiz, beyond the zarzuela of Chueca and Valverde. But that question isn't a problem for an anthropologist. What interests them is highlighting global phenomena, general laws of transformation. In this case, the question is: How do we go from folklore to flamencoI think the answer is this: the flamenco It is much more elaborate musically and vocally, much more demanding, and this demand drastically limits the size of its audience. Folklore appeals to everyone (within a certain group), flamenco to a select few. The consequence is immediate: the flamenco is necessarily elitist and minority. That is why the avant-garde of the 20s (Falla, Stravinsky and Diaghilev) were so interested in the paradox of a minority traditional music. Hence, those who embark onpeñan in conquering for the flamenco massive audiences internationally, are going to end up destroying it. There are those who are excited that there were more than 20 foreigners at the last Jerez festival. It drives me crazy. I find experiences like that of Esperanza Fernández singing compositions by Mauricio Sotelo clearly more valuable. True contemporary music (that of Nono or Sotelo, who was a disciple of Nono) is also ultra-minority. I would like the flamencoif they followed that path and not the path of different “arrangements” and “fusions” with pop.
Hi Pedro, I give written sources the value they deserve. In the absence of recordings, sheet music is a very valuable source in music, although it should always be treated with due caution. Personally, I focus more on the comparative analysis of recordings (until they invent a time machine and I can go listen to it at the Planeta), while historical sources help me follow the path. If you notice, I've included links to up to six recordings so the reader can compare. By the way, the Andalusian jota has been documented and written in sheet music since 1770, and with all of Spain having it in multiple living variations, I don't see why Cádiz couldn't have had it until it was transformed, due to the flamenco fever and the introduction of the jaleo/soleá vibe, into alegrías.
Anthropology is essential for musicology studies, although musicologists also have methods beyond written sources.
And thank you for mentioning my brother Mauricio.
Thanks for your reply, Faustino. I have reread your text on the jotas in Flamencopolice and it is very convincing.
I also agree with the issue of borrowings, transfusions and transfers (particularly of melodic fragments) between folklore and cante and between cantesy cantes. All of these musicological elements are very illuminating, and their work in this regard is fundamental.
The only thing I dare add is that for an anthropologist, there are also other sources and another way of thinking. You don't need a time machine to go back to the time when recordings didn't exist or to understand that Rafaela and María Cantoral had something to do, a generation before the Planet, with the emergence of a flamenco archaic that has not survived in scores or in written stories such as “A Dance in Triana”.
I mean that when an anthropologist reflects on the relationship between folklore and art flamenco not only considers purely musicological aspects but also ethnic, generational, familial, social, lifestyle, ways of being, etc. This is why I have insisted twice on the question of reception. In my opinion, the essential characteristic of folklore is its space of diffusion: folklore is universally appreciated by a specific group and is of no interest beyond the borders of the group. On the other hand, art knows no borders (hence the interest in flamenco is worldwide, like the interest in Baroque music or Quattrocento painting) but it is socially very minority. Thus, the characteristics of folklore and flamenco come to intersect: the (+) becomes (-), and vice versa. This, which may seem like pure Levi-Straussian logical formalism, has very practical and concrete consequences in the current evolution of flamencoOf course, you didn't mention this dimension in your article. But it seems to me to be crucial in determining the present and future of the flamenco. Inpeñato be in making a flamenco that it is both universal and mainstream is a contradictory undertaking because it consists of confusing folklore and art. And the flamenco can die from that contradiction. Beyond the question of alegrías or granaínas, what caught my attention was the metaphor: "eating folklore." I found it very graphic for expressing not only what happened more than a century ago but also what's happening right now: but in this case, they would be "eating art."
Once again, thank you for your patience and clarifications.
Dear Pedro, thank you for your comments and for presenting your contributions so clearly. Comments are rare, but they're always welcome in these forums. Warmest regards from the eternal spring of southern Galicia.
Finally, I'm reading something with judgment and truth, under the protection of the social sciences. In my forty-odd years of dealing with roots music in different parts of Spain, I've been able to acquire some knowledge on the subject. This insight comes from fieldwork, forty-odd video and literary productions, and having participated from the beginning in the Cuadrillero Movement in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. I'm a professor of social anthropology, an editor, and a musical performer, and from Murcia we view the cultural horizon, which we call the southeast, as a conglomerate of related or first-cousin territories that live in half of Almeria, north of Baza, in the Segura region of Jaén and Albacete, even in the Vega Baja region of Alicante, and the entire Murcia region.
These are also flamenco lands, but unlike official Andalusia, these magnificent genres didn't gobble up the whole cake. Forty years of struggle have managed to maintain and revive the languages of peasant and alternating culture, so that today both genres can coexist without major problems. Here, we know that Andalusia had a landscape similar to ours, but the references are not in Choirs and Dances and low-level choreographies, but in the groups for the festive and spiritual rituals of their populations and, of course, in the work songs and others. There's more, but it's not appropriate to go into detail here. I'll only elaborate on what Faustino Nuñez says and that, despite the oblivion, there would still be time to bring to light the hidden treasure of Andalusian peasant music, because although the flamenco He ate almost everything, there are still living remains of a great heritage culture.
Manuel Luna