(Sp.: ‘arrow’, ‘spontaneous outburst’; Lat. sagitta: ‘arrow’, ‘dart’).
A devotional song genre, considered to be the religious song par excellence of Andalusia, as well as a venerable constituent of Cante hondo (deep song). The saeta has long been associated with Holy Week, particularly in Seville, where it achieved widespread fame, and where it continues to be sung along the extended route of the all-night street processions in an atmosphere of fervour and vitality, intermixed with deep reverence and joy. The pasos (statue-bearing floats), toward which the saetas are directed and which are carried by the various cofradías (brotherhoods), constitute an important element of the processions. Saetas can also be heard during the processions of Corpus Christi, and are quite popular in all the regions of Spain. In as much as the pasos depict scenes from the Passion, the saetas, whose coplas (stanzas) range from four to six octosyllabic hemistichs (perhaps derived from the ancient romances), deal with themes from the Passion, the death of Christ and the sorrows of the Virgin.
According to López Fernández, the saeta evolved into three distinct types: the primitive saetas narrativas, which narrated the Passion and Death of Christ; saetas explicativas, which described the pasos carried by the various cofradías along the procession route; and saetas afectivas, which, by the mid-19th century, were sung spontaneously by individual interpreters at different points along the procession route, on the street or from a balcony or window, during which time the procession was halted. Saetas afectivas are directed toward a particular paso, expressing the subjective thoughts, emotions and prayers of the singer.
The origin of the saeta, like many other genres of cante jondo, is uncertain. López Fernández sought its antecedents in Moorish and Jewish chants which, when later intermingled with plainchant, were called saeta penetrantes and saetas del pecado mortal. Larrea Palacín surmised that the saeta, as a musical form, was derived from a remote fertility rite involving blood sacrifice which, when later christianized, lost its earlier sacrificial aspect in the course of centuries. Caffarena suggested that the saeta originated from the liturgical music of the early Christians and that it was later gypsified (aflamencada), perhaps like the toná, martinete or the siguiriya. The more embellished and animated gypsified style resulted in the distinction between the ancient (more pristine and psalm-like) and modern renditions of the saeta. Likewise Rossy distinguished between the ancient and classic saeta, which was still popular during the first quarter of the 20th century, and the modern saetas, sung as saetas por fandangos, por martinetes, por siguiriyas etc. Kahn linked it to the sung prayers of the Jewish converts. Caballero Bonald and others have expressed a hypothesis that has gained wide acceptance, that the saeta was derived from the toná, being a corruption of Catholic liturgical psalmodies, and that saetas were first sung only at the end of the 18th century.
See Flamenco.
A. Aguilar y Tejera: Saetas populares recogidas, ordenadas y anotadas (Madrid, 1928)
A. Rodríguez González: Colección de 500 saetas originales (Seville, 1930)
L. Melgar Reina and A. Marín Rujula: Saetas, pregones y romances litúrgicos cordobeses (Córdoba, 1987)
J. Turina: ‘La evolución de la saeta’, El debate, xviii (1928), 5
B. Más y Prat: ‘La semana santa: Silueta cuarta – Las saetas’, La tierra de María Santísima (Madrid, 1935), 445–54
M.J. Kahn [Medina Azara]: ‘Chant populaire andalou et musique synagogale’, Cahiers d’art, xix (1939), 155–64; Eng. trans. pubd separately (New York, 1956)
A. Reyes: ‘La saeta’, Dos o tres mundos (Mexico City, 1944), 163–74
D. de Valencia: Historia documentada de la saeta (Seville, 1947)
A. de Larrea Palacín: ‘La saeta’, AnM, iv (1949), 105–35
M. Schneider: ‘Consideraciones acerca del canto gregoriano y la voz humana’, Revista arbor, xiv (1949), 367–84
A. Salazar: ‘La saeta’, Nuestra música, vi (1951), 29–41
A. Caffarena: Cante jondo (Madrid, 1955)
J.M. Caballero Bonald: El cante andaluz (Madrid, 1956)
A. Caffarena: Cantes andaluces: La saeta – La peternera (Málaga, 1964)
H. Rossy: Teoría del cante jondo (Barcelona, 1966)
M. Alvar: ‘Oínas, endechas y saetas’, Endechas judeo-españoles (Madrid, 1969), 9–16
G. Diego: ‘Las saetas: devoción, poesía y música’, Estafeta literaria, no.416 (1969), 4–7
A. Caffarena Such: Algo sobre el cante (Málaga, 1970)
R. López Fernández: La saeta (Seville, 1981)
J.L. Buendía López: ‘Una aportación al estudio de la saeta’, Candíl, no.20 (1982), 11–16
J.M. Sbarbi and A. Machado Álvarez: Las saetas (Córdoba, 1982)
M. Yerga Lancharro: ‘Copiando a los demás: Saeta del latín Sagitta’, Candíl, no.20 (1982), 17–19
A. Arrebola: ‘La saeta en el cante jondo’, Sevilla Flamenca, no.24 (1983), 23–5
J. Criville i Bargalló: El folklore musical (Madrid, 1985)
ISRAEL J. KATZ