I write these lines to the sounds of Sunday of the Proclamation, a brotherhood act that announces what is to come. The town crier has opened the gates of the city and invited us to stroll through its streets to receive the presence of God. And the score of this seven-day walk includes the music of the flamencos, a cante seasonal prayer directed to our devotions and not to the sky, because if it has a bad face and threatens to be covered with clouds, let us stick to St. Ignatius of Loyola, because God will not turn his face away from death, he will turn his face away from the rain.
We hurry Lent where the crystal of the arrow has sharpened its edges And these are now ready to march directly into the heart of the crowd. The saetero is aware that he will lack atonal support and will obviously stumble upon the thickets of style, knowing that if he doesn't overcome the difficulties and fly above the noise of street cries, he is doomed to sink into the swamp of his own confession.
The importance of the intonational cadence of the saeta In this light, it is so urgent that, apart from being overcome by the charms of the preferred advocations, the singer of the saetero has to aim his most immediate goals at identifying his state of mind with the faith of the brotherhood.
But if the arrow is to be interpreted as pure metaphor of religious convictionsIt's also clear that the singer must take charge of the stage, not allowing himself to be drowned out by the coppery sound of the bugles or distorting the rhythm of the processional marches. The crush of the crowd and the struggle with the treacherous gust of wind are also added risks.
But the obstacles do not end here. Because all these setbacks that follow one another like a kaleidoscope through the singer's mind find an even greater enemy in the endless wait, which is, in short, what closes the way to the impenetrable.
The undertaking, which demands from the saetero the fear of counting the minutes, requires such concentration that he adds to his impatience the mental exercise of removing himself from the feverishness of the environment, from the atmosphere that surrounds him and from the audience's anxiety.
Once these obstacles have been overcome, the clarion of truth sounds. The singer finds himself in the ring of solitude. And There goes his arrow: he modulates it with convulsive melodic fragments, at times almost morbidly withdrawn into themselves, and develops it with great nervousness in the resolution of the thirds, relaxing and making the notes vibrate until they generate irritation, making us all fall into a lacerating hysteria without solution of continuity.
"Saint Augustine was right when he proclaimed that he who sings well prays twice. But not only he who sings well, but he who knows what he sings, because let us remember that until the end of the 19th century, saetas deserved to be eradicated by the press due to the mockery made of our sacred customs."
In the end, it is triumph that leads the singer to glory. Those minutes that seemed longer than in any other cante, have returned him to an everlasting eternity: the arrow has once again reviewed the sound sensations of the Feast of Love because the saetero has made his cante an instrument at the service of Jesus' Passion. With him, Christ y María They become more present, and the audience becomes a receiver and, in turn, a sort of reflective sensitivity, the ultimate objective between artistic consciousness and the horror of reality.
He was not wrong, therefore, San Agustín when proclaiming that He who sings well prays twice. But not only those who sing well, but those who know what they sing, because let us remember that, according to the Seville newspaper archives, until the end of the 19th century the saetas –called then ejaculations– deserved to be eradicated by the Press because of the mockery made of our sacred customs.
Finally the newspaper The Liberal It was recorded on April 3, 1915 – ten years after the flamenco saeta had already been recognized as one of the geniuses of Henry the Twin in Cadiz– the cantes by arrows of Medina boy y Jose Cepero on the balconies of Sierpes Street. It was the first time that the flamencosaeteros in the Sevillian media, deserving such special interest that even the same newspaper included this review the following year, 1916:
As the brotherhood of San Bernardo passed through the Plaza de Mendizábal (today, Plaza de la Alfalfa), a young woman from the neighborhood called Rocío Vega sang several saetas impeccably from one of the balconies of the aforementioned plaza, which produced great enthusiasm in the public that gathered there, which made them turn around in front of the aforementioned young woman..
I refer, as the reader suspects, to The Alfalfa Girl, that imposing saetera who in 1932 sang to the Virgin of the Star: That Spain is no longer Christian / was heard on the blue mountain / and even if you are a republican / here the one who commands is you / Morning Star.
The anecdotes would be endless about those who anchored the beating of their heart by directing their gaze to their prayers. canteHe is the one who, in short, saved the life of a family member or acquaintance, until the strings of their throats broke between the corners of the arrow.
No one doubts that the Saint, Saint Augustine, was possessed by this singular music of a people who, in their desire for religious perfection, relied on the saeta to throw themselves into the open sea of their public confession, and let it run down the greenish backs of the waves until it returned to the sand of the crowd, thus strengthening their faith, a virtue that, as he preached San Pablo en Écija, is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
But if the saeta is the hymn of faith because its music is more pleasant than a conversation, how can we deny its category of cante jondo?, he wondered Joaquin Romero Murube. Yes; cante The arrow is deep. But what depth? The most intense. The one that admits no human measure or calculation… It is the depth of a tear; it is the depth of a thorn stuck in the temple of goodness; it is the depth of the religious sentiment that unites, through man, the centers of the earth with the infinite grandeur of God's love..
