(Sp. Reino de España).
Country in Europe. Its territory covers an area of 504,750 km2, comprising most of the Iberian peninsula, the Canary and Balearic Islands and the towns of Ceuta and Melilla on the North African coast. It shares borders with Portugal to the west, and France and Andorra to the north. Its population of approximately 39·8 million (2000 estimate) is distributed among 17 autonomous regions, many of which preserve a strong sense of regional identity. Although Castilian is the official language of Spain, other languages are also recognized in some of the regions, for example, Catalan in Catalonia (Catalunya), Valencia and the Balearic Islands, and Gallego in Galicia. In addition, the Basque language is spoken in the Basque country (Euskadi) and parts of Navarre. (For a discussion of the musical traditions of the Basque people see Basque music.)
Christianity was introduced to the Iberian peninsula during the 3rd century and Catholicism officially accepted by the Visigothic rulers at the end of the 6th (see Mozarabic chant). However, in 711 the invasion by Muslims from North Africa led to the establishment of Islam throughout almost the entire peninsula. During the following centuries the Christians gradually reconquered Spain, and the last Muslim territory, Granada, was finally conquered by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1492. (For further discussion of the music of Muslim Spain see Arab music.) Under Muslim rule, the Jews of Spain (known as Sephardim) flourished, being relieved of the persecution they suffered under the Catholics, but when Granada was reconquered they were expelled from the peninsula or forced to convert to Christianity. (For an account of their distinct musical traditions see Jewish music, §III, 4 and §IV, 2(ii).)
With the accession in 1516 of Charles I, also Holy Roman Emperor, Spain was ruled by a branch of the Habsburg family, a dynasty that remained in power throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Charles's son, Philip II, established the capital at Madrid in 1561. In 1700 the accession of Philip V led to the establishment of the Bourbon dynasty, whose descendants reign today. Spain briefly became a republic in 1874–5 and again between 1931 and 1936. The Spanish Civil War (1936–9) led to the regime of General Franco, which ended with his death in 1975 and the formal restoration of the monarchy.
II. Traditional and popular music
ROBERT STEVENSON/MARICARMEN GÓMEZ
(I, 1–2), LOUISE STEIN (I, 3), ALBERT
RECASENS (I, 4), BELEN PEREZ CASTILLO (I, 5–6),
JOSEP I MARTÍ I PEREZ (II, 1, 2(iii), 6), MARTIN CUNNINGHAM/ RAMÓN PELINSKI (II,
2(i)), MARTIN CUNNINGHAM/ JAUME AIATS
(II, 2(ii)), SÍLVIA MARTÍNEZ GARCÍA (II, 2(iv)), ARCADIO DE LARREA PALACÍN/ JAUME AIATS
(II, 3), ARCADIO DE LARREA PALACÍN, MARTIN
CUNNINGHAM,/ RAMÓN PELINSKI (II, 4), ARCADIO DE LARREA PALACÍN /SÍLVIA MARTÍNEZ
GARCÍA (II, 5)
3. Late 16th century to mid-18th.
The writings of Isidore of Seville (c559–636) are the chief source of information on the music of the early Spanish Church; his Etymologiae and De officiis ecclesiasticis contain descriptions of the Mass and Office that are similar to those found in the later service books of the Spanish Church. The former work also contains a chapter on the discipline of music, based largely on the work of Cassiodorus, that subsequently became one of the most important and widely disseminated texts on music theory during the early Middle Ages.
As Archbishop of Seville, Isidore presided over the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633 which established a single order of prayer and singing throughout the Visigothic kingdom. Although no notation survives from this period, the earliest extant neumes being an Aquitanian source from the 11th century, the body of chant used by the Visigothic Church was no less extensive than that of the Gregorian. At least seven bishops are supposed to have contributed chants to the repertory of the Visigothic Church: Isidore’s elder brother Leander (d 599) of Seville; Eugenius (d 657), Ildephonsus (d 667) and Julian (d 690) of Toledo; Conantius (d 639) of Palencia; and Johannes (d 631) and Braulio (d 651) of Zaragoza, the latter Isidore’s favourite pupil. This rite continued to be observed by Spanish Christians until Toledo was reconquered from the Muslims in the late 11th century; its music is generally known as Mozarabic chant. In 1080 the Council of Burgos imposed the Roman rite on the Spanish Church as a whole (it had been introduced into Catalonia three centuries earlier), although a few parishes in Toledo continued in their ancient observance.
The Muslim invasion of 711 brought a host of new instruments to the peninsula such as the duff (Sp. adufe: a square tambourine), shabbāba (Sp. ajabeba, exabeba: a transverse flute), būq (Sp. albogón: a cylindrical instrument made of metal with reed mouthpiece and seven finger-holes), nafīr (Sp. añafil: a straight trumpet 120 cm or more in length), tabl (Sp. atabal: drum), qānūn (Sp. canón: a psaltery), bandair (Sp. panderete: tambourine) and sunuj al-sufr (Sp. sonajas de azófar: metal castanets). The naqqāra (nakers, a small kettledrum of wood or metal), ‘ūd (lute) and rabāb (rebec) spread throughout Europe. Just as Córdoba was the Spanish seat of Arabic learning, Seville became the centre of Moorish instrument making. Zaragoza was another centre of activity, even after the fall of Granada in 1492. In 1502 Mahoma Mofferriz was still supplying exquisite keyboard instruments to high-born Christian clients as far away as Plasencia. (See also Arab music, §I, 4(ii).)
The Christian courts of Sancho IV of Castile (ruled 1284–95), Pedro III of Aragon (1276–85) and Alfonso IV (1327–36) occasionally engaged Moorish players of the añafil, exabeba, psaltery and rebec, together with dancers. From Xátiva, a centre of Moorish minstrelsy, Pedro IV of Aragon (1336–87) summoned Ali Eziqua and Çahat Mascum, his favourite players of the rebec and exabeba in 1337–8. The Valladolid Council of 1322 forbade further hiring of Moorish musicians to enliven Christian vigils or any more tumult caused by their presence at Christian feasts. This edict is the more interesting because (as Don Quixote well knew when reproving Master Peter for his bells) the mosques did not allow music.
The Muslims not only introduced instruments whose names still bear traces of their Arab origin, but also brought with them musical treatises which were translated from Arabic into Latin at Toledo and thence disseminated northwards (see Arab music, §I, 3(iv)). Al-Fārābī (d 950) in particular came to be quoted by numerous theorists from Vincent de Beauvais, Hieronymus de Moravia and Magister Lambertus in the 13th century, to Gregor Reisch and Juan Bermudo. Some scholars have seen a relationship between a form of Moorish poetry, the zajal, and the 15th-century Spanish villancico. Literary evidence also suggests that the Moors of Granada (conquered in 1492) were the first to use letters of the alphabet to denote finger-position on the guitar. Because a sole miniature at El Escorial (E-E B.I.2) depicts a Moorish player in the train of Alfonso el Sabio (Alfonso X; 1252–84) of Castile and because it was at his court (1252–85) that the principal surviving collection of medieval Spanish monody was compiled (see Cantiga), it has been supposed that some of the cantigas of Alfonso echo lost Moorish songs – a highly improbable hypothesis.
Three principal sources of medieval polyphony survive in Spain. The 12th-century Calixtine Manuscript (E-SC) contains 21 conductus with Latin text; the early 14th-century Las Huelgas Manuscript (in BUhu) includes 195 compositions, of which 140 are polyphonic. Neither manuscript represents a specifically Spanish repertory, although the latter is still at its place of origin, a convent for Cistercian nuns founded about 1180. The 14th-century Llibre Vermell (in MO) includes four monophonic songs as well as six pieces of polyphony. At least four of these are dance-songs.
The major forms of Spanish Renaissance secular composition are the Romance and the Villancico. The Renaissance romance was primarily a literary type. It always told some story, often drawn from the legends of border wars with the Moors. In the chief secular song collection gathered during the epoch of Columbus, the Cancionero Musical de Palacio (E-Mp 1335), the original indexer (c1525) classed 44 items as romances, 393 as villancicos (of the secular type) and 29 as sacred villancicos (villançicos omnium sanctorum). This pioneer indexer called everything in Spanish with a prefatory refrain a villançico; he also gave this name to a Spanish song if any individual section in it, not necessarily the first, was repeated, and, in some cases, even to songs that lacked internal repetition. As used in the 16th century about 1525, villançico therefore meant any Spanish song that was not a romance.
Juan del Encina, the most frequently represented composer in the collection, came naturally by his gift for the folk elements in his phrases and melodies. The son of a Salamancan cobbler, Encina served Don Fadrique de Toledo, Duke of Alva, from 1492 to 1498, and his song output during this period forms the core of the secular repertory surviving from the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella. He entertained the ducal family during at least five of these years with poetic compliments, amorous accompanied solo songs and eglogas (short plays) into which he invariably introduced partsongs for three and four voices. Whether designed for characters to sing in one of his eglogas or for independent performance, the Encina villancico comments on an existing dramatic situation that has already been defined by the dialogue. Much of the charm of Encina’s villancicos is due to their immediacy: the scene having already been set, the song need be no more than a purely emotional outburst. Much as one may regret his ceasing to compose his bold and lusty villancicos after leaving the Duke of Alva, they belong in the quiver of a hot-blooded youth but not in that of the staid ecclesiastic that he was to become.
The Cancionero Musical de Palacio also includes works by Anchieta, Peñalosa, Francisco de la Torre, Alonso Perez de Alba, Millán, Mena and Juan Ponce. Several earlier composers in this manuscript, such as Cornago (fl 1466), Triana (fl 1478), Juan Fernández de Madrid (fl 1479), Juan Pérez de Gijón (fl 1480) and Juan de León (fl 1480), contributed also to the Cancionero de la Colombina (E-Sco 7-1-28).
The most influential foreign-born composer whose works are in both these sources was Johannes Urreda of Bruges, who served as maestro de capilla to Ferdinand V. Other foreigners who left their mark on Spanish music were Ockeghem (visited Spain in 1469), Agricola and La Rue (1506). In 1501 Josquin was recruited by Philip the Fair for a journey to Spain; and although he did not go, he nevertheless became one of the most influential, admired, imitated and transcribed foreign composers in 16th-century Spain. The influence of Netherlandish polyphony is clearly reflected in the masterful masses and motets of Anchieta and particularly of Peñalosa, the most important Spanish composer after Encina and before Morales. The same contrast between the learning of Peñalosa, who held a post at the papal court, and the simplicity of Anchieta, who stayed mostly in Spain, can be seen between the erudition of the most famous Spanish theorists of the Renaissance, Ramis de Pareia and Salinas (both wrote in Latin and lived for a time in Italy), and the more modest teachings of the many Spanish theorists who wrote in their own tongue and never went abroad. Blindness made Salinas’s achievement all the more remarkable, as it did the works of Antonio de Cabezón, the greatest Spanish Renaissance organist, and the works of the consummate vihuelist and composer Miguel de Fuenllana.
The vihuela inspired a considerable group of publications in tablature in the mid-16th century. Although Diego Pisador’s Libro de música de vihuela (Salamanca, 1552) betrays the hand of an amateur, the others, from Luys Milán’s El maestro (Valencia, 1536) to Esteban Daza’s El Parnasso (Valladolid, 1576), testify to the artistry of their compilers. Luys de Narváez (1538), Alonso Mudarra (1546) and Enríquez de Valderrábano (1547) also published tablatures at Valladolid and Seville.
Milán’s El maestro, like the six other vihuela tablatures published later, purports to be a self-instructing manual; easy pieces come in the first book, harder pieces in the second. But his notation system, unlike that used in later vihuela tablatures, places the top course on the top line of the six horizontal lines, the bottom course on the bottom line. Dedicated to King John III of Portugal, his is the only vihuela book to contain any Portuguese songs. Among other novelties not found in any other vihuela tablature are the ornamented versions printed for each of the six Spanish villancicos. In each of the four Spanish romances, he interspersed elaborate virtuoso runs for the accompanying vihuelist between lines of the verse. To prove his exquisite literary taste, he set three of his six Italian sonetos to poetry by Petrarch. These songs in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian are the precursors of the equally sensuous accompanied monodies in Fuenllana’s Orphénica lyra (Seville, 1554). In the purely instrumental pieces that dominate El maestro, Milán established the practice of always indicating the tempo of each piece. His 40 fantasías are free, but each is classified in one or two of the eight church tones. His four tentos are homophonic pieces, with fast runs between phrases, but the best-known works in El maestro are the six pavanas. His insistence on classifying everything polyphonic according to a scheme of eight church tones is a peculiarly Spanish aspect of El maestro, borne out even more emphatically by his concluding essay on the eight tones.
The greatest Spanish Renaissance composers of church music were Morales, Francisco Guerrero and Victoria. As early as 1539, when Morales was not yet 40, he enjoyed the reputation in Spain of being ‘the pope’s maestro de capilla’ (he served in the pope’s choir from 1535 to 1545). His second book of masses (Rome, 1544) opens with a woodcut of Pope Paul III on his throne accepting the dedicated volume from the kneeling composer. A similar woodcut, with a change of facial features to show the more youthful Palestrina, prefaces the first book of Palestrina’s masses (Rome, 1554); the open book of music that Palestrina offers Pope Julius III is that shown in the earlier woodcut. Symbolically as well as musically, Morales stands midway between the Flemings and Palestrina. Although Morales knew Josquin to perfection, his music lacks many of the traits that characterize his greatest predecessor. All voices enter into imitation without delay, he writes no long ‘Pleni’ duos, he banishes verbal canons from his one mass parodying Josquin’s chanson Mille regretz (even though they occur in the primitive version that Morales never published). Although his melodic writing was not as constrained as that of Palestrina he avoided melodic intervals larger than an octave (which he used as an expressive, poignant interval) and avoided to some extent the use of the melodic 6th. Victoria also avoided the melodic 6th, and Samuel Rubio, who studied Morales’s technique in detail, remarked that prejudice against melodic 6ths of any sort should therefore be accounted a Spanish trait. To cite further evidence, Morales’s immediate predecessors in Seville Cathedral where he grew up, Escobar, Alva and Peñalosa, set a pattern of avoiding 6ths.
Much more than his Flemish predecessors, Morales overlapped beginnings and ends of phrases. His music exhibits subtle techniques, particularly in form, distribution of voices, and use of dissonance; long melismas are uncharacteristic and it has been claimed that Morales was the first to observe the rules of Latin prosody in giving accented syllables longer aggregate values.
How well Palestrina knew Morales’s music is proved by his parody mass on a Morales motet, O sacrum convivium, and the extra parts he wrote for six verses of Morales’s Magnificat settings. Victoria’s indebtedness to Palestrina can be no less well documented. No feature of Palestrina’s detailed technique escaped Victoria’s eye. His individuality asserted itself in a much greater reliance on the equivalent of modern functional harmony, a predilection for melodic phrases that ascend and descend in the equivalent of modern melodic minor scale movement, a fondness for diminished 4ths and a heightened expressiveness in the use of melodic leaps such as the descending 5th. Both Morales and Palestrina wrote only a few secular works, Victoria none at all.
Francisco Guerrero studied with Morales and composed a similarly serious and extensive sacred repertory. In the New World he exceeded even Morales and Victoria in widespread and lasting popularity. As late as 1774 his works were expensively recopied on vellum for use in Mexico City Cathedral. In 1864 his Liber vesperarum (Rome, 1584) was rebound for constant use at Lima Cathedral. Unlike Morales and Victoria, he, as well as Morales’s other chief pupil, Juan Navarro (i), made important contributions to the secular repertory. Several of Navarro’s secular songs are contained in a predominantly Andalusian collection of madrigals, villancicos and romances (formerly E-Mmc 13230), the so-called Cancionero di Medinaceli, which also includes works by the Seville-born brothers Pedro and Francisco Guerrero, Ginés de Morata (mestre de capela to the dukes of Braganza in Portugal) and Rodrigo de Ceballos (active at Seville, Córdoba and Granada).
A printed collection of Villancicos de diversos autores (Venice, 1556), called the ‘Cancionero de Uppsala’ because the partbooks were discovered there, has works by Gombert as well as by Spanish composers such as Encina, Cárceres, Mateo Flecha (i) and Morales. Although it is the sacred music of 16th-century Spain that has received most attention, a number of composers published collections of secular music, among them Vasquez (1551, 1560), Pere Alberch i Ferrament alias Vila and Mateo Flecha (i), whose ensaladas were published in 1581 by his nephew Mateo Flecha (ii) in a collection that includes also ensaladas by Vila, Cárceres, Chacón, and the nephew. The younger Flecha and Brudieu also published madrigals (1568, 1585 and 1614).
The Toledo-born Diego Ortiz spent his mature years at Naples, where he became director of the Spanish viceroy’s choir; his Glose sopra le cadenze (Rome, 1553), which appeared simultaneously in Italian and Spanish, provides thorough instruction in ornamentation for players of string instruments. Tomás de Santa María’s Arte de tañer fantasía (Valladolid, 1565) gives similar help to the keyboard player and is also one of the first manuals to give fingering and instruction for interpretation. The most important Spanish treatise of the period, however, is Juan Bermudo’s Declaración de instrumentos musicales (Osuna, 1555), which goes beyond fingering and interpretation to investigate a wide variety of musical problems. Something of the didactic spirit is also found in the anthology published by Luis Venegas de Henestrosa, Libro de cifra nueva (Alcalá de Henares, 1557) for keyboard, harp and vihuela. Even the great Antonio de Cabezón, whose Obras de música appeared a dozen years after his death, left a body of intabulated pieces for keyboard, harp and vihuela that he had taught his pupils, rather than the virtuoso repertory with which he entertained Philip II during 40 years of peripatetic court service. Nonetheless, these ‘crumbs from his table’ establish him as perhaps the greatest Spanish organ composer in history, and demonstrate at every turn his mastery of variation technique, his sense of structural balance in the tiento, and his ability to create an inimitable flow of gracious melody.
Spain, §I, 3: Art music: Late 16th century to about 1800
Many genres and musical techniques of the late Renaissance continued to be useful to Spanish composers and musicians throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, although Spanish society was especially desirous of novelty, invention, enigma, artifice and magnificent spectacle. For example, the association between imitative contrapuntal polyphony and sacred texts was maintained even into the 18th century, especially for settings of the Mass, though new textures and techniques were developed in a style that is easily identified as pertaining to the Baroque era, with sections of homophony and solo song added to the mix. Great formal flexibility, bold contrasts, clear harmonic organization, sensitive text expression, and careful attention to text declamation are notable characteristics of Spanish music in this period, whether in large-scale sacred pieces for one or more choirs, romances for two or three voices, solo settings of romances, or clever theatrical songs with continuo.
Among the musical practices that characterized Hispanic music in the 17th and 18th centuries, the all-important traditions of improvisation, variation and recomposition shaped the sound and transmission of music in this period as they had in the 16th century. The practice of glosas and diferencias, partly explained by Luys Milán (1536), Juan Bermudo (1555) and Tomás de Santa María (1565), is demonstrated in the six printed 16th-century vihuela books, and further elaborated in the collections for keyboard, harp and vihuela by Luis Venegas de Henestrosa and Cabezón, mentioned above, and Francisco Correa de Arauxo (1626). It grew in importance during the 17th century, especially because the preferred continuo instruments for Spanish vocal music were harps and guitars. Of course, the art of poetic glosas was essential in poetry by the 16th- and 17th-century masters, so it is no surprise that improvisation continued to be a mainstay of musical performance and recomposition. Spanish composers had perfected the art of writing sets of variations in both instrumental and vocal music of the 16th century, and their inventiveness enlivened multi-strophic romances, villancicos based on traditional harmonic patterns, simple polyphonic settings of courtly poetry based on well-known tunes, and improvised continuo accompaniments for all kinds of music in the 17th century.
Spain, §I, 3: Art music: Late 16th century to about 1800
Hispanic Baroque music presents an intriguing variety of musical sources. The repertory of Latin-texted sacred music includes masses and other liturgical compositions primarily in imitative counterpoint, for one or more choirs. Motets were composed to a very limited extent, to judge by the contents of the musical archives of cathedrals, convents, monasteries and parish churches throughout the Iberian peninsula and in Mexico and Central and Latin America (in addition to numerous libraries in Europe and the Americas), which are replete with sacred villancicos. Although some of them seem to be no more than accompanied solo songs with religious reworkings of formerly profane texts ‘a lo divino’, villancicos are settings of vernacular sacred texts to honour all manner of religious festivities, especially Corpus Christi, Christmas, Epiphany and Easter. They were composed in a variety of musical textures, and normally include sections of strophic coplas and elaborate refrains known as estribillos. More prolifically cultivated even than large-scale psalm settings for multiple choirs, these often festive pieces bring us the brilliant sound of concerted music in the Hispanic Baroque. There are villancicos with or without instruments – harps and sometimes organ, violón or guitars, usually chirimías and bajoncillos, but later also violins, oboes and clarino trumpets – for many voices or for few, and a largely unstudied body of solo villancicos (some of which are indistinguishable from sacred cantatas, while others seem to be religious arias in 18th-century style). Among the most important repositories of Baroque sacred villancicos are the cathedral archives of Burgos, Salamanca, Segovia, Valencia and Valladolid, the music archive of the royal monastery at El Escorial and major libraries such as the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, and the Biblioteca de Cataluña, Barcelona.
The importance of the vernacular and Counter-Reformation genre of the villancico in Hispanic culture cannot be overestimated. Pietro Cerone (Naples, 1613) recognized the pervasive influence of the villancico in its early 17th-century manifestation when he wrote: ‘I don't wish to say that the practice of the villancicos is bad, because it is accepted in all the churches of Spain, and to such an extent, that it seems as if no solemn occasion can be celebrated without them’. Cerone had lived in Spain and served in the court chapel for nine years beginning in 1592. Admittedly a critic at some distance from his subject by the time he wrote El melopeo y maestro, Cerone criticized the villancico especially for the characteristics that made it so popular and so effective as religious propaganda, namely its obvious conceptism, its ‘diversity of languages’ (with sections in dialect or pseudo-dialect for Asturianos, Gallegos, Portugueses, Vizcaínos, Gitanos, Negros or Indios, for example), its quotation from theatrical songs and profane, popular bailes, and its use of comic dialogue. For Cerone, these elements ‘turn God's church into a public theatre or recreation room’. Sensitive to the power of the genre, which remained vigorous through the first half of the 18th century, the chapters of many cathedrals agreed time and again to clean up the villancicos, given the sometimes scandalous conduct of the faithful on hearing them. Virtually all Spanish composers cultivated the villancico, from the most distinguished of court musicians to the masters of cathedral music and those who composed or arranged music for parish churches.
As the correspondence between maestros de capilla such as Miguel Gómez Camargo and Miguel de Irízar y Domenzain makes clear, villancicos (music and texts) circulated widely and rapidly in manuscript copies. The publication of Pedro Rimonte's Parnaso español de madrigales y villancicos for four to six voices (Antwerp, 1614) was exceptional. Rimonte was maestro de música de la cámara to the Archduchess Isabella and Archduke Albert in Prague. His printed collection offers secular villancicos and madrigals with Spanish texts, whereas the typical 17th-century villancico has little in common with the italianate madrigal and survived almost exclusively in manuscript. Villancico texts, on the other hand, were often collected and published in small booklets, including those sung in many cathedrals and in the royal chapels in Madrid. Among the best representatives of the genre are pieces by Miguel de Ambiela, Jerónimo de Carrión, Joan Cererols, Juan Bautista Comes, Sebastián Durón, Cristóbal Galán, Miguel Gómez Camargo, Juan Hidalgo, Miguel de Irízar, José Martínez de Arce, Tomás Miciezes, José de Orejón y Aparicio, Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco, José de Vaquedano, Matías Juan de Veana and Antonio Yanguas.
Spain, §I, 3: Art music: Late 16th century to about 1800
If the sacred songs of the period survive in great quantity and were cultivated with a rich variety of forms, styles and textures, the secular repertories are less plentiful but equally inventive. The secular songs of the first half of the 17th century are almost exclusively romances whose poetic content is now less heroic and more amorous, pastoral, pseudo-popular and courtly in nature. They are preserved largely in manuscript cancioneros: bound anthologies of polyphonic songs in partbooks or in choirbook format, dating from the first half of the 17th century and dominated by the court composers. They are the musical sources for the romance nuevo and for the well-known or pre-existing songs used in many plays in the genre of the comedia nueva.
The cancioneros include (listed in roughly chronological order): P-La 47-VI-10/13, ‘Cancionero de Ajuda’; I-Tn Ris.mus.1-14, ‘Cancionero de Turín’; E-Mn M1370–72, ‘Romances y letras a tres vozes’; I-Rc 5437, ‘Cancionero Casanatense’; Palma de Mallorca, Biblioteca Particular de Bartolomé March, Medinaceli 13231, ‘Cancionero de Medinaceli – B’ or ‘Tonos Castellanos – B’; D-Mbs Mus.ms.E200, ‘Cancionero de La Sablonara’; B. Ferriol's private collection, ‘Cancionero de Onteniente’; Olot (Gerona), Biblioteca Pública I-VIII, ‘Cancionero de Olot’; E-Mn M1262, ‘Libro de Tonos Humanos’.
Many of the songs are presented without attribution, but a number of recognized composers are represented as well: Mateo Romero, maestro of the royal chapel to his retirement in 1633; Carlos Patiño (the last great master of contrapuntal polyphony and the first Spaniard to direct the chapel, maestro until 1675), along with other court musicians serving Philip III and Philip IV: Miguel de Arizo, Juan Blas de Castro, Gabriel Díaz Bessón (maestro in Lerma and later at the royal chapel of the Monasterio de la Encarnación), Diego Gómez de la Cruz, Manuel Machado, Juan de Palomares and Alvaro de los Ríos. Juan Arañés (who accompanied the Duke of Pastrana to Rome in 1623–4), the justly famous Juan Bautista Comes of Valencia, and Joan Pau Pujol, maestro in Barcelona and Zaragoza, contributed to this repertory, as did a number of composers or arrangers about whom little is known at present – Borly, Company (Compañí), Cruz, del Rey, Días, Felipe, Figuerola, Galán (perhaps the very young Cristóbal), García, Garzón, Gramatge, Gutiérrez, Herrera, Martínez, Mesa, Morales, Muñoz, Mur, Murillo, Navarro, Peralta, Peres, Pesa, Rubio, Santiago, Sebastián, Segarra, Settimio, Tapia, Tavares, Torres, Vicente, Viera and Vives.
To this central group of sources with polyphonic settings of Spanish romances for two to four voices it is important to add those settings preserved in poetic manuscripts with alfabeto notation for guitar, such as I-Fr 2774, 2793, 2804, 2951 and 2973; GB-Lbl Add.36877, ‘Villanelle … per sonare, et cantare su la chitarra alla Spagnola’; I-MOe 2 (P.6.22), 3333 (R.6.4.) and 115 (Q.8.21); I-Nn XVII.30; F-Pn espagnol 390 (Corbie 55), ‘Libro di villanelle spagnuol'e italiane et sonate spagnuole’; I-Rvat Chigi L.VI.200 (1599).
Two printed sources, the Libro segundo de tonos y villancicos a una dos tres y quatro voces: con la zifra de la guitarra española a la usanza romana of Juan Arañés (Rome, 1624; copy in I-Bc), which contains settings of 31 Spanish songs with alfabeto and mensural notation, and the Método mui facilíssimo para aprender a tañer la guitarra a lo español by Luis de Briceño (Paris, 1626; copy in F-Pn), attest the popularity of the Spanish guitar among cultivated amateurs outside Spain. The alfabeto notation facilitated the spread of the romances and bailes (Hispanic dances of a non-courtly nature based on repeated patterns and characteristic rhythms) such as the canario, the chacona, the folía, the seguidilla and the zarabanda. Some of the bailes originated in the Americas – for example the chacona and the zarabanda were brought from 16th-century Peru to the Iberian peninsula and thus to Europe.
The consistency of the sources and the early 17th-century repertory speak of a musical practice both dependent on well-known popular and courtly poetry and steeped in the culture of recomposition and improvisation. Rarely do two settings of the same song text show exact musical concordance, though settings of the same text often reveal that these polyphonic songs were based on well-known tunes or standard harmonic or rhythmic patterns. The art of exquisite counterpoint graced the settings for two to four voices, while solo performances of the same songs were tempered by the ‘sweetness’ of the well-known tunes in improvised and mostly chordal accompaniments for guitar or harp. Secular and theatrical songs from the later 17th century are preserved in an entirely different array of sources, although the Libro de Tonos Humanos (1655–6) preserves music from at least one court play of 1653, and manuscripts from the monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra contain both early romances and slightly later theatrical songs, as well as sacred villancicos and sketches for these (P-Cug M50, M51, M227, M229, M232–40, M242 and M243; notated in score and probably dated 1630–70; the romances are mostly in M227, M229 and M236).
Musical sources for this central period of the Spanish Baroque contain mostly solo songs (secular and theatrical) known as tonos humanos and tonadas, many of which have texts by the best poets of the epoch, including Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Agustín de Salazar y Torres, Antonio Solís, Juan Bautista Diamante, Antonio de Zamora and José de Cañizares. There are also theatrical ‘cuatros’, ensemble songs in four parts. These ‘composed’ songs were probably intended in the first place for performance at court or for élite patrons; many of them were composed for musical plays performed at the Madrid court in the later 17th century. Once popularized through public performance in Madrid and elsewhere, theatrical songs circulated in both performing parts and manuscript anthologies throughout the Iberian peninsula and the Spanish colonies in Italy and the New World. Spanish theatrical songs were also known and appreciated at the French court and at the Habsburg court in Vienna, thanks to the close contact propitiated by the marriages of the Spanish infantas and the travels of Spanish aristocrats and diplomats throughout Europe. The principal composers represented include the court composers Juan Hidalgo, Cristóbal Galán, Juan del Vado y Gómez, Juan Francisco de Navas, Sebastián Durón and the enigmatic José Marín, along with composers who worked in other major musical centres, such as Barcelona, Segovia, Valencia and Valladolid. Many songs are by the best theatrical musicians who worked in both the courtly and public spheres, such as José Peyró, Juan de Serqueira and Manuel de Villaflor, employed by the acting companies.
Most characteristic of the second half of the 17th century are the collections of loose scores and performing parts (some with alfabeto notation or tablature) in E-Bbc (especially music legajos 691, 698, 701, 737–8, 741, 743–4, 746–7, 749, 753–4, 759, 762–3, 765–7, 769, 774–5, and 888); E-Mn M3880 and M3881 (erroneously dubbed ‘Cancionero de Madrid’ or ‘de la Biblioteca Nacional’); E-SE Leg.39, 41–2, 44–5, 52, 56; E-VAc legs.10–11, 37–40, 42–3, 54, 83; E-V legs.21, 39, 40, 51, 62, 68, 80, and 70–71, 84–5 (among sketches of villancicos); D-Mbs Mus.ms.2872–938; Lima, Biblioteca Nacional de Perú, solo songs with tablature for guitar; and US-NYhsa HC:380/824a.
Large anthologies of Spanish secular songs and theatrical music from the later 17th and early 18th centuries are preserved in: E-Bc 3660; GB-Cfm MU.4-1958 (32-F-42): 51 songs in guitar tablature with vocal melody, composed or arranged by José Marín; E-Mn M2478, ‘Libro de tonos puestos en cifra de arpa’: songs in harp tablature, most from court plays 1660–1700; I-Vnm it.Cl.IV 470: anonymous songs with continuo, many attributed to Hidalgo or Marín; E-Mn 13622, ‘Tomo de música vocal antigua’, c1705, which belonged to Barbieri (in Mn since 1894); Almagro (Spain), Museo del Teatro, ‘MS Novena’ (formerly in E-Mcns), undated, c1710: songs by Peyró and Hidalgo exclusively for comedias and autos sacramentales; US-SFs SMMS M1: 134 songs (largely from the Madrid theatres) for soprano and continuo, by Serqueira, Villaflor, Hidalgo, Marín, Navas and others; E-SCu 265: 100 secular and theatrical songs mostly for solo voice and continuo (copied by J.M. Guerra, scribe of the royal chapel, c1680).
While the repertory of Spanish Baroque secular and theatrical songs is incomplete, owing to the loss of many of the flimsy loose scores and performing parts over time, and to the disastrous fire in the Alcázar palace, Madrid, in 1734, the repertory is a large one, still in great part unedited and rarely performed. The smallest group of musical sources is that of the bound complete scores for individual semi-operas, operas and musical plays. Thanks to the royal family's habit of sharing news of its theatre presentations (descriptions of plays, texts of plays, drawings of scenery, and copies of music) with courts to which it was connected by blood ties or dynastic marriage, and thanks also to the travels of Hispanic opera's aristocratic patrons, several bound manuscript scores for individual stage works have been preserved: US-CA Houghton Library Typ 258H, ff.105v–150: vocal music probably by Hidalgo for Calderón, Fortunas de Andrómeda y Perseo (prologue and three acts), 1653; Madrid, Palacio de Líria, Biblioteca del Duque de Alba, Caja 174, num.21: ‘Musica de la Comedia Zelos aun del Ayre matan. / Primera jornada / Del / M.o Juan Hidalgo’; P-EVp CL 1/2-1: ‘Zelos aun del Ayre matan / Comedia de D. Pedro Calderon / Muzica de Juan Hidalgo’, opera (‘fiesta cantada’) in three acts; Lima, Biblioteca Nacional de Perú C-1469: ‘La púrpura de la rosa, representación música, fiesta … Compuesta en Música por D. Thomas Torrejón de Velasco’, 1701. These carefully copied complete sources help us to understand the conventions of Hispanic Baroque musical theatre and to appreciate the rare musical beauty and true historical significance of major works such as the operas La púrpura de la rosa and Celos aun del aire matan.
Spain, §I, 3: Art music: Late 16th century to about 1800
The early history of opera and related genres in the Hispanic dominions followed its own path, with limited reference to operatic developments elsewhere in Europe. The first opera performed in Spain was La selva sin amor (1627), with libretto in Spanish by the prolific poet and dramatist Lope de Vega, almost entirely in Italian poetic metre (only the brief coros are in Spanish octosyllables). The music (apparently lost) was by Filippo Piccinini, a Bolognese lute and theorbo player who was among Philip IV's favourite musicians and who accepted the commission under pressure from the Florentine diplomats assigned to Madrid. The production of this tiny opera followed the model of the Florentine pastorals, but was given only twice for the royal family. It was designed above all to display the talents of Cosimo Lotti, the stage designer brought to Philip IV from the Tuscan court. While Lope de Vega was ‘enraptured’ to hear his entire text performed in song (which we assume to have been recitative composed by the none-too-eager Piccinini), the production did not persuade the Spaniards to cultivate opera.
The next operas composed and performed in Spain were created without recourse to foreign models, well before a national, non-Italian genre of fully sung opera was developed elsewhere in Europe. A decade before Lully and Quinault's tragédie lyrique, two Hispanic operas were created for the Madrid court by the dramatist Calderón and the principal composer of secular and theatrical songs for Philip IV (and later Charles II), Juan Hidalgo. The first of these, La púrpura de la rosa, was written and rehearsed in 1659, but first performed on 17 January 1660. The second, Celos aun del aire matan, was performed on 5 December 1660. Opera was an extraordinary genre in the Hispanic Baroque, and these operas are full of extraordinarily lyrical, beautiful music. They were composed to celebrate momentous events – the treaty between Spain and France known as the Peace of the Pyrenees, and the marriage of the Spanish Infanta María Teresa to the young Louis XIV of France. Both operas were revived a number of times at court before the end of the Habsburg era. Another setting of La púrpura de la rosa was produced in 1701 at the viceregal court in Lima (Peru) to celebrate the accession of Philip V, the first Bourbon to reign as King of Spain. The score carries an attribution to Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco, maestro de capilla of Lima Cathedral and among the most influential composers in the New World.
Polymetric and mostly tragicomic plays known as comedias (many of them with songs drawn from the repertory of the cancioneros) dominated the Spanish stage in the 17th century. Partly sung masques, festival plays and spectacle plays were performed at court and at country houses and estates beyond Madrid in the early 17th century. Just after 1650, Calderón – probably working with Hidalgo together with the Roman stage engineer and scenic artist Baccio del Bianco – invented a new genre of serious dramatic court mythological play with operatic scenes. In this kind of semi-opera the mortals sing only well-known songs, whereas the gods converse in the heavens in recitative and use newly composed tonadas (declamatory, strophic solo songs) to influence, persuade or seduce the mortal characters. These musical-theatrical conventions were based in contemporary socio-political theory and Neoplatonic philosophy. Examples of the Spanish semi-opera include La fiera, el rayo y la piedra (1652), Fortunas de Andrómeda y Perseo (1653) and La estatua de Prometeo (?1674).
A second genre invented by Calderón and shaped by Hidalgo's music in the 1650s and beyond (to his death in 1685) is the zarzuela, a genre first exemplified in the court production of Calderón's El laurel de Apolo (1657). As demonstrated in this work, the zarzuela was a lighter, increasingly burlesque genre of mythological pastoral in which only the deities sing elaborate newly composed songs, and recitative (Sp. recitado) is used sparingly, if at all. Zarzuelas dominated the court stages in the later 17th and early 18th centuries, and all the major court dramatists provided texts. Almost all the songs are extant for Los celos hacen estrellas (Juan Vélez de Guevara and Hidalgo, 1672), and much of the music survives for Los juegos olímpicos (Salazar y Torres and Hidalgo, 1675). After Hidalgo's death the zarzuela became the preserve of the court composers Navas, Durón and, slightly later, Antonio Literes, although music was contributed as well by composers who worked for the acting companies. In the zarzuelas and semi-operas, the partly sung roles for the classical gods and goddesses alike were played by women (with ranges we would identify today as belonging to sopranos, mezzo-sopranos and, less commonly, contraltos). Special ‘old man’ (barbas) roles, such as Morpheus or Father Time, were taken by male baritones and/or female contraltos, as far as can be discerned. Some comic gracioso roles were sung by actresses, while others were sung (however badly) by actors. The musical styles and conventions developed by Hidalgo over a period of three decades continued to characterize zarzuelas into the 18th century.
Many musical plays outside the genre of the zarzuela were also popular, including Ulloa's Pico y Canente (1656; music by Hidalgo), with its famous lament ‘Crédito es de mi decoro’, and Calderón's Eco y Narciso (1661) and Ni amor se libra de amor (1662), source of the celebrated four-voice ‘Quedito, pasito’. Exceptional for the repertory of zarzuelas and other partly musical plays are the printed scores for Destinos vencen finezas by Navas to a zarzuela text by the Peruvian dramatist Lorenzo de las Llamosas (Madrid, 1699), and for Los desagravios de Troya by Joaquín Martínez de la Roca to a text by J. Escuder (Madrid, 1712). While the first of these is a musical gem, revealing the richness, melodic grace, variety and textural fullness of the Spanish Baroque zarzuela around 1700 (the score has parts for violins, clarino trumpets and oboes and gives the full scoring of the ensembles), the music for Los desagravios de Troya is less interesting. Performed privately in Zaragoza for the Count of Montemar, the work is rich in political references and cultural significance, quite apart from its importance as a complete printed score.
In the first two decades of the 18th century, the zarzuelas of Durón and Literes, written for the court and for the public theatres (corrales) of Madrid, provide not only delightful music (to uneven and somewhat insipid dramatic texts) but a more varied layer of Hispanic Baroque music, full of innovation and striking contrasts. This is certainly the best Spanish music surviving from the early 18th century, and the charm of Durón's zarzuelas helped the genre to become wildly successful with the public in the years 1710–20. Although it has been claimed that Durón invented a kind of ‘operatic zarzuela’, his zarzuelas follow the conventions developed by Hidalgo quite closely, and their music is no more ‘operatic’ than that of earlier works in the genre.
The theatre scores of Literes (performed 1708–11) are highly original and present the traditional Hispanic musical forms (tonos, tonadas, coplas, estribillos, recitados) alongside italianate arias and recitatives, within a basic framework that preserves the conventions of Hidalgo (essential as well to the zarzuelas of Navas and Durón). Literes also composed for noble patrons, which may be why he composed so few works for the royal court and the public theatres. His zarzuela Accis and Galatea (1708) was a great success at court and subsequently became the rage in the public theatres. Its combination of native Hispanic forms with italianate arias was especially characteristic for this period of political and cultural change that accompanied the arrival of Philip V on the Spanish throne in the midst of the War of the Spanish Succession.
The taste of Spain's new French king and his wives tended toward the contemporary, pan-European genres of opera and serenata, so that the zarzuela was transformed from a genre designed to delight princes into one aimed at the mixed public of the corrales in the early 18th century. The theatre administrators discovered (through the production of works such as Literes's Accis y Galatea) that musical plays brought in substantial revenue. Many 18th-century ones (some based on older texts but revised with new music) called for violins and oboes, and the harpsichord now presided over the continuo band, so that the kind of small theatre orchestra (c1718–20) used elsewhere in Europe joined together with and ultimately replaced the traditional large continuo band of harps, guitars and viols. Actress-singers were still required for musical plays, even for Spanish versions of opera seria (with spoken dialogue), because castrato singers were unwelcome on Madrid's public stages.
Apart from the works of Durón and Literes, few zarzuelas survive from the early 18th century, although their performance history is known. The character of the full-blown 18th-century zarzuela, with its absorption of the mainstream pan-European operatic style (principally in da capo arias and italianate recitatives) and conservation of traditionally Spanish numbers (e.g. coplas, seguidillas, frequent four-voice coros), characters (the graciosos) and conventions, is exemplified in José Nebra's Viento es la dicha de Amor (1743; revised 1748 and 1752). Nebra's score preserves Zamora's older libretto, but replaces all the song texts for the principal serious characters with new texts appropriate for recitative and da capo arias. The work demonstrates the flexible, hybrid character of the zarzuela.
Spain, §I, 3: Art music: Late 16th century to about 1800
The cantata (Sp. cantada) was also cultivated by Spanish composers of this period, though to a very limited extent. Probably the first piece to be so called was Corazón, que en prisión de respetos (text by Salazar y Torres), which exists in a number of musical settings and is ascribed in one source to Marín (d 1699). The designation ‘cantada’ appears in a poetic manuscript that includes this text as well as many others by Salazar y Torres, Calderón and others. The setting is entirely strophic with music for long series of coplas, such that this first use of ‘cantada’ may well have been an extrapolation of the term ‘tonada’, which was customarily used to describe this kind of long, declamatory, strophic air. Likewise, other pieces in traditional Spanish forms are included in late 17th- or early 18th-century musical sources designated as containing cantatas (the earliest of which may be E-Mn M2618), alongside or in alternation with selfconsciously italianate arias, recitatives and graves. The Hispanic recitado is to be distinguished, however, from recitativo. The composers who cultivated the cantada in the genre's early period include Durón, Literes, Navas, Rabassa, Serqueira de Lima and (chief among them) Torres. A few of the first ‘cantadas’ are nothing more than scenes extracted from Spanish theatrical scores. Others demonstrate that the very late 17th-century Neapolitan multi-sectional cantata with alternation of arias and recitatives (exemplified in the works of Alessandro Scarlatti) was first cultivated in Spain, by composers who served or worked in the ambitus of the royal court in Madrid.
Spain, §I, 3: Art music: Late 16th century to about 1800
With copious musical sources for sacred and secular vocal music, and the relatively full surviving documentation concerning the functions and social use of vocal music, the paucity of musical sources for strictly instrumental music in this period is striking. In part this can be blamed on the low social and economic status accorded to musicians, especially instrumentalists, in Hispanic society. The lack of a vigorous music-printing industry made itself felt in a scarcity of printed music of all kinds. Manuscript sources, with few exceptions, do not contain notated music for instrumental ensemble, athough solo compositions for organ, harp and guitar are preserved in both manuscript and printed sources (largely instruction books). The only early 17th-century exceptions are three manuscripts for ministriles – players of shawms (chirimías), cornetts and bajoncillos – containing music for the royal wind band in the time of Philip III and his prime minister, the Duke of Lerma. Rather than original compositions, the three books contain instrumental versions of vocal polyphony by both Spanish and Franco-Flemish masters: the same kinds of pieces that were performed in this period by the chapel under the direction of Mateo Romero.
The Canzoni, fantasie et correnti (Venice, 1638) by Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde is a printed collection of instrumental music by a Spanish composer working abroad. Selma y Salaverde (son of Bartolomé de Selma, instrument maker to the royal court in Madrid) was a virtuoso player of the bassoon and other wind instruments who served the archducal court at Innsbruck (and perhaps others in the hierarchy of the Habsburg empire) and the collection contains difficult and beautiful music both for solo instruments and for small wind ensemble.
The Spanish organ music repertory was among the first to exhibit the virtuoso character of Spanish Baroque music, independently of vocal models. The tiento (cultivated in the 16th century, and explained first in Milán and Mudarra) after Cabezón became increasingly brilliant and exuberant in the hands of such composers as Sebastián Aguilera de Heredia and most especially Francisco Correa de Arauxo. The latter built extravagant embellishment into the tiento's traditional contrast between fast passages with sometimes dissonant figuration, and consonant, chordal progressions, between redobles and consonancias. Correa's tientos, substantial in length and both mono- and polythematic, preserve an underlying structure of correct counterpoint, yet the elaborate and highly coloured figuration (whether performed on organ, harpsichord or arpa doble) impresses us with its improvisatory character, perhaps due to diverse rhythmic patterns filled with syncopation and hemiola. The Spanish predilection for contrasts of colour and texture is demonstrated in these tientos, with their exploitation of the divided single keyboard of the Spanish organ – the medios registros, or registros partidos – and timbral contrasts between registers: the very high tiples against the low registro bajo. Correa published 69 of his own pieces (mostly tientos but also canciones, glosas, diferencias and cantus firmus settings) in his treatise on organ playing, Facultad organica (1626), an indispensable source for early 17th-century performing practice.
Many organist-composers flourished in the 17th and early 18th centuries (Antonio Brocarte, Pablo Bruna, Bernardo Clavijo del Castillo, José Elias, José Ximénez, Gabriel Menalt, Andrés de Sola and Diego Xaraba, to name only a handful), but none was as prolific as the great Valencian composer Juan Bautista José Cabanilles (1644–1712), whose more than 1000 works (preserved in more than 15 manuscripts) include religious pieces (versets and hymns) and some 200 tientos (including batallas and clarines), along with tocatas and sets of variations or diferencias (gallardas, corrente italiana, passacalles, paseos, folías and jácaras). Cabanilles's music was known beyond Spain, especially in France, and the composer himself knew something of French and Italian instrumental music.
In addition to the virtuoso exuberance we associate with Cabanilles's music, his works embody the free interchange of musical forms, figures and genres that characterized Hispanic instrumental music in the later Baroque, as do the keyboard pieces contained in the four Flores de música anthologies of Antonio Martín y Coll (MS, 1706–9, E-Mn). These contain many kinds of piece, both Hispanic and imported, and are extremely valuable for the cross-sectional view they provide of the tastes and practices of instrumental music, especially in Madrid (where Martín y Coll served as organist in the monastery of San Francisco after 1707).
While variations for organ barely surface in the 17th century, there are many such works, along with character-pieces and those based on contemporary songs, in the Martín y Coll manuscripts (compared to only a dozen or so within the works of Cabanilles). Of course, variations on popular bailes, court dances, well-known tunes and bass or harmonic patterns were the mainstay of the guitar and harp repertories, from the earliest printed guitar collections (Amat, Briceño, Doizi de Velasco). Later 17th-century collections such as the Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española (1674–5) of Gaspar Sanz (in Zaragoza after his Italian training), the Poema harmónico (1694) by the Mallorcan Francisco Guerau, and several manuscripts notated for five-course guitar, including the Libro donde se veran pazacalles de los ocho tonos by Antonio de Santa Cruz (E-Mn M2209; 1675–1700), tell us a great deal about the character of the bailes and danzas and the techniques needed to play them. One of the most accessible sources is the instruction book and collection of Lucas Ruiz de Ribayaz, Luz y norte musical para caminar por las cifras de la guitarra española y arpa (Madrid, 1677), with music for guitar and for harp. The section devoted to the Baroque harp – the most consistently used instrument for the accompaniment of Hispanic music of all kinds, sacred and profane, before about 1750 – is, together with the Compendio numeroso de zifras armónicas (Madrid, 1702–4) by Diego Fernández de Huete, our most important testimony concerning its repertory, performing practice and the technique of improvised basso continuo. These printed books, along with several more manuscript sources, bring us the core repertory of Hispanic Baroque instrumental music.
The 18th-century collections – especially the Resumen de acompañar la parte con la guitarra (Madrid, 1717) by Santiago de Murcia, and his later Passacalles y obras de guitarra (MS, 1732, GB-Lbl) and the Mexican Saldívar Codex 4 – not only enrich the repertory with longer and more daring passacalles and diferencias, but show the all-important co-existence of Hispanic with French and Italian pieces and musical genres that was so characteristic of musical life in 18th-century Spain. Although an independent repertory of instrumental ensemble music does not survive from this period, there is no reason to suppose that it would differ fundamentally from the music preserved with consistency of form, genre and technique in the keyboard, guitar and harp sources.
Spain, §I, 3: Art music: Late 16th century to about 1800
While the early 18th-century sources show that the music of famous contemporaries such as Lully and Corelli was known and performed in Spain, there is little musical evidence for earlier foreign influence in Hispanic Baroque instrumental music. Two important points of contact between Spanish instrumental practice and the canzonas and sonatas cultivated so prolifically in Italy in the mid-17th century are the compositions of Andrea Falconieri, who spent some time in Madrid and served the Spanish court at Naples, and of Henry Butler, a viol player and violinist who worked at the Madrid court from 1623 to 1652. The form of a multi-sectional sonata with sections based on successive points of imitation may well have been known and cultivated by Spanish musicians, if the pieces by Falconieri and Butler may be taken as representative. One undated manuscript trio sonata by José de Vaquedano (d 1711), maestro at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, is preserved in the music archive there. Composed for two treble and one bass instruments, with a separate bass line for the ‘acompañamiento’ or basso continuo, the piece may reflect a particularly Hispanic practice of providing a separate continuo bass for the harp, labelled simply ‘accompaniment’, in addition to a bass line that is integrated into the imitative treatment of successive motifs (to be played on tenor viol or by a wind instrument in the tenor/baritone range). This scoring is also used for the instrumental parts of many villancicos and some chamber songs.
Francisco José de Castro published four books of Trattenimenti armonici da camera a tre for two violins with cello or keyboard instrument (Bologna, 1695), with sonatas in the contemporary form and style, but, as he makes clear in his preface, his musical training and orientation were wholly Italian. From about 1680 archival documents increasingly demonstrate the presence of many newly arrived Italian and French musicians at the Madrid court. Many of these were singers, destined for the royal chapel, and violinists. They came directly from similar posts at the courts that ruled Spain's Italian possessions in Milan, Naples and Sicily. Contemporary Italian and French styles were probably introduced by these new employees in the 1680s and 90s.
Around 1700 a separate Hispanic practice still existed for instrumental music and for the accompaniment of Hispanic vocal music, although the nature of both was to change during the next few decades. While it is true that the presence later of Domenico Scarlatti at the Spanish royal court (c1728–57) furthered the cause of Italian music and musicians, his employment was a very private matter. His sonatas were hardly published in his lifetime, and certainly not in Spain. They were copied and collected into elegantly bound manuscript volumes for the queen, Barbara de Braganza. The degree to which Scarlatti's sonatas were known by his Spanish colleagues is questionable, yet the keyboard sonata was also developed among Iberian composers (José Elías, Carlos de Seixas, Antonio Soler, Sebastián Ramón de Albero y Añaños and Vicente Rodríguez Monllor). The independence of Hispanic accompaniment practice is made clear in the all-important Reglas generales de acompañar, en órgano, clavicordio, y harpa (Madrid, 1702, 2/1736) by Joseph de Torres y Martínez Bravo, organist in the royal chapel and maestro from 1718, and in other sources (the earlier publications by Sanz and Ruiz de Ribayaz, for example). The first edition of the Reglas instructs continuo players in the estilo español, whereas the second edition includes an additional new section that explains and ‘demonstrates the modern style of accompaniment for Italian pieces’.
Torres y Martínez Bravo (1665–1738) was a distinguished musician and composer who was involved in virtually every aspect of early 18th-century musical life in Spain. Between the second quarter of the 17th century and the early 19th he was not only the first but the only one to issue printed music systematically (beginning with Juan Francisco de Navas's Destinos vencen finezas of 1699), and the many pamphlets and scores issued as musical pliegos by his Imprenta de Música in Madrid are extremely important. From an early age Torres was employed by the chapel of the royal court (as organist, as director of the choir school, and then as maestro de capilla), though he also composed secular works and (c1710–16) collaborated to supply music by other composers for zarzuelas performed in the public theatres. Above all, he was the principal composer of sacred music at court during his three decades of service, and he was responsible for the renovation of its sacred music (together with Literes, and then Nebra, his former pupil), following the disastrous fire that destroyed the music archive of the royal Alcázar de Madrid in 1734.
Torres's statement about the ‘modernity’ of Italian music is key to understanding the new taste for Italian opera that characterized the musical life of Madrid (and of Barcelona and Valencia). While it is certainly incorrect to describe the Italian presence as an ‘invasion’ or ‘conquest’ (both musical and non-musical documents speak of the co-existence and plurality of musical genres and styles), there is no doubt that in élitist social circles Italian music and performers were all the rage, beginning before 1720. Among the distinguished visitors, undoubtedly the most illustrious was Farinelli, who first sang for Philip V at his palace in La Granja in August 1737. Farinelli's performance won him a very special private position; Philip V appointed him ‘my servant, who answers only to me or to the queen, my very beloved wife, for his unique talent and skill in the art of singing’, with a generous salary and all perquisites. Farinelli used his unique position at court to further the cause of Italian opera seria and to better the standing of fellow musicians. An ambitious series of operas was planned for the Coliseo theatre of the Buen Retiro, which was completely remodelled and transformed into one of the best opera theatres in Europe. Whereas the first opere serie were performed in Madrid in 1738 and depended on the talents of both Spanish and Italian composers and performers, Farinelli's direction of the Coliseo (and his management of court entertainments at other royal palaces, for example, at La Granja and Aranjuez) as a venue exclusively for Italian operas and Italian singers, with performances for only a small invited audience, was limited to the years 1746–59. A number of other Italian musicians worked in Madrid – at the royal court, for the public theatres, and for aristocratic patrons – including Nicola Conforto, Francisco Corradini, Francesco Courcelle, Giacomo Facco, Philipo Falconi and Giovanni Battista Mele. The orchestras put together by Farinelli included a number of Italian players, but also talented Spaniards such as the violinist-composer Joseph de Herrando, the virtuoso violinist Francisco Manalt, the oboist-composer Luis Misón, and the justly celebrated José Nebra. By 1756, the lists of players for both the orchestra of the royal chapel and that of the Coliseo included many more foreign than Hispanic names.
The 18th-century plurality of styles and the dialectic between Spanish and foreign styles were also a point of contention still for church composers during and following the 20-year controversy sparked by the use of an accented unprepared dissonance in the famous Missa ‘Scala aretina’ (1702) by the Catalan Francesc Valls. Most Spanish composers defended the aptness of the stile antico for sacred texts. With this pamphlet war as a backdrop, the royal chapels were hospitable to forms from opera seria (e.g. da capo arias replete with luxuriant melismas), and the vernacular villancico, which had gradually absorbed the ‘modern’ forms and mannerisms, was banished with the suppression of all vernacular sacred music in 1765.
In the age of Enlightenment, the increasingly powerful middle classes joined the traditional list of music patrons – church, court and theatre. The church continued to be the most important centre of musical production in Enlightenment Spain. The music chapels around the court were the most reputable in the land for both the economic benefits and the prestige they provided. Composers of high repute held posts in the royal chapels of Madrid: José Mir y Llusá, Antonio Ripa, Antonio Rodríguez de Hita, José Lidón and Jaime Balius y Vila. Towards mid-century a drastic reorganization of the royal chapel was carried out at the instigation of Nebra, its vicemaestro from 1751. The music chapels attached to the cathedrals, collegiate churches, parish churches and monasteries competed for the best musicians. Throughout the 18th century the mobility of Spanish musicians increased progressively. The phenomenon of the flow of Catalan composers to important positions at the court of Castile, such as the cathedrals of Toledo (Jaime Casellas, Joan Rosell, Francesc Juncá) and Seville (Pedro Rabassa, Domingo Arquimbau), was particularly significant for contributing to the assimilation of the Italian style into the peninsula's sacred music. Other coveted posts were those at Santiago de Compostela (dominated by Italian musicians), Salamanca (which gave access to the chair in music at the university), Zaragoza (the cathedral and El Pilar), Valencia and Barcelona. Of all the genres of the second half of the 18th century, church music was the most conservative. The liturgical output in Spain continued to make use of stile antico procedures. In the Mass Ordinary settings, for instance, the polyphonic texture alternates with homophonic sections (usually in the Gloria and the Credo), which allow the text to be intelligible. Polychoral writing, generally for two SATB choirs, survived. From the mid-18th century, old instruments such as the cornett, bass horn, key bugle and Russian bassoon began to be replaced in the church by the oboe, bassoon and trumpet. The style of Neapolitan opera and modern instrumental techniques had evidently penetrated not only Office pieces such as responses, lamentations and vesper psalms, but, most particularly, paraliturgical religious compositions such as villancicos and oratorios. Up to the beginning of the 19th century the religious villancico remained popular in Spanish chapels, except at court, where its performance was abolished in 1750. The villancico assimilated the formal structure of the Italian cantata, with its preponderance of recitatives and arias, without totally renouncing the traditional sections (introduction, estribillo). The convention of including characters of popular origin (pilgrim, shepherd, blind man) or belonging to national, regional or ethnic groups (Indian, Asturian, Galician, Gypsy) continued at this time. Its prototypical presentation was marked in particular by colloquial language and traditional music. The debasement of the textual content led some ecclesiastic authorities to ban villancicos in the last third of the century, reinstating the singing of liturgical responses in Latin, in accordance with the exhortations of Pope Benedict XIV's encyclical Annus qui (1749) and with enlightened ideology. Francisco Javier García Fajer, maestro de capilla at Zaragoza Cathedral, was highly influential in this reform of sacred music, assisted by his nephew Juan Antonio García de Carrasquedo and by Pedro Aranaz y Vides, maestros at the cathedrals of Santander and Cuenca respectively. In the second half of the century, the polemics regarding the adoption of the Italian operatic style in sacred music continued. Treatises by progressive composers and theorists such as Antonio Rodríguez de Hita (Diapasón instructivo, 1757) and Antonio Soler (Llave de la modulación y antigüedades de la música, 1762), drawing on the liberal ideas expressed by the Benedictine monk Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro (1676–1764) in his Cartas eruditas y curiosas (1742–60), which were a long way from the reactionary stance of the famous lecture ‘Música de los templos’ from Theatro crítico universal (i, 1726), unleashed a barrage of attacks by conservatives. In 1796, the translation into Spanish of Dell'origine e delle regole della musica by the expelled Spanish Jesuit Antonio Eximeno also incited inflamed polemics in the capital's newspapers. Underlying this controversy is the confrontation between the supporters of the old rationalist aesthetic, which advocates that music is directed at reason, and the adherents of sensationalism, who accepted innovations in music so long as they provided auditory pleasure.
For splendour of court music, the reign of Charles III (1759–88) cannot be compared with that of his predecessors. The monarch's lack of inclination for music led to the cessation of Farinelli's employment and to the progressive dwindling of operatic performances at court. When the Count of Aranda, president of the Council of Castile (1766–73), promoted theatres at the king's country residences, French tragédies and Italian opere buffe, some with text by Goldoni, were the preferred fare. From the beginning of the reign of Charles III, Italian opera spread rapidly through all the important Spanish cities. Italian opera companies, directed by impresarios like Nicolà Setaro, Alfonso Nicolini, Petronio Setti, Francisco Creus and José Lladó, established themselves in the commercial theatres of La Coruña, Zaragoza, Valencia, Seville and, especially, Cádiz – buoyant thanks to commerce with America – and Barcelona, among others. The predominant entertainment was dramma giocoso. Some of the companies of Spanish actors, like those at the municipal theatres of Madrid, found themselves obliged to compete by offering Spanish versions of comic operas. The pieces were adapted to zarzuelas: they were reduced to two acts, the recitatives were eliminated and replaced by spoken dialogue and, in many cases, the characters and the action were also modified. A local composer was commissioned to add a few numbers to the original score, usually by Piccinni, Traetta, Galuppi or Scolari. The central figure in this process of assimilation was the playwright Ramón de la Cruz (1731–94). Thus, for instance, one of the greatest successes in Europe at the time, La Cecchina, ossia La buona figliola, a comic opera in three acts by Niccolò Piccinni with libretto by Goldoni (1760, Rome), was performed as early as 1761 in Barcelona, the following year in Seville and Cádiz, in 1767 at the La Granja palace and, finally, in Aranjuez and Valencia (1769). In 1765 De la Cruz rewrote it into a zarzuela for the Madrid public under the title La buena muchacha, while Antonio Bazo did the same for the company of Carlos Vallés, who took it to Barcelona (1770) and Valladolid (1772). The overwhelming success of adapted comic operas such as Pescar sin caña ni red (Le pescatrici) and Los cazadores (Gli uccellatori) contributed to the creation, towards the end of the 1760s, of the ‘costumbrista’ zarzuela (centred on local customs), by De la Cruz and the composer Rodríguez de Hita. Their two ‘burlesque’ zarzuelas, Las segadoras de Vallecas (1768) and Las labradoras de Murcia (1769), set the foundations of the genre: division into two acts, comic costumbrista theme, a mixture of noble and popular characters, use of vernacular and regional language, folktunes, patter, arias in two tempos, etc. These costumbrista works prepared the way for the 19th-century zarzuela. De la Cruz continued to exploit the vein of rural or bourgeois subjects in the zarzuelas En casa de nadie no se meta nadie o El buen marido (1770), with music by Fabián García Pacheco; Las Foncarraleras (1772), by Ventura Galván; and El licenciado Farfulla (1776), by Antonio Rosales. The comic zarzuela also attracted Luigi Boccherini, whose Clementina, with libretto by De la Cruz, was first performed in 1786 in the private theatre of María Josefa, Countess-Duchess of Benavente. The serious subject matter characteristic of the zarzuela after Calderón was not completely abandoned in the second half of the century, even though heroic story lines were preferred to mythological ones. De la Cruz himself, in his first period, had written zarzuelas with plots taken from classical antiquity: Quien complace a la deidad (1757), with music by Manuel Pla; Briseida (1768), by Rodríguez de Hita; and Jasón (1768), by an Italian resident in Spain, Gaetano Brunetti, all follow neo-classical lines to a greater or lesser degree. Both the expansion of Italian opera and the revitalization of existing zarzuelas coincided with the Count of Aranda's reformist government. The measures in support of the theatre which followed the uprising of 1766 (‘Esquilache mutiny’) reflected the wish to extend royal authority in the face of the Catholic Church's claims. In 1787 the Caños del Peral theatre reopened in Madrid with a prestigious company directed by Domenico Rossi, and operas by Sarti, Cimarosa, Paisiello, Guglielmi and others were performed until the end of the century. During the same period in Barcelona, Italian operas by such Spanish composers as Carles Baguer, Fernando Sor and Vicente Martín y Soler (whose international renown had taken him as far as Russia) were offered alongside the Italian repertory. Finally, in December 1799, Charles IV banned performances with foreign actors and in languages other than Spanish. One of the products of the competition with Italian opera was the stage tonadilla, the most characteristic phenomenon of musical theatre during the reigns of Charles III and Charles IV. Like the sainete (a comic sketch or one-act farce), this independent piece would be inserted in the second interval of a play or zarzuela; between one and four singers would take part (tonadilla general). The musico-literary style is simple, rooted in the popular tradition. The tonadillas, which became small musical dramas, portray working-class and bourgeois characters (together with the typical fops, lovers, clergy and gallants) with critical irony and excessive conventionalism. The picturesque qualities of the tonadilla are reflected in the painting of the period, particularly in the works of Goya. The main proponents of the genre, which reached its zenith between 1770 and 1790, were Antonio Guerrero, Pablo Esteve y Grimau, Antonio Palomino, Mariano Bustos, Jacinto Valledor y la Calle and Pablo del Moral. In 1778 it was established that the ‘company composers’ of Madrid's municipal theatres were obliged to provide 60 tonadillas each year. The most prominent librettists were Luis Moncín, Manuel del Pozo, Gaspar Zavala y Zamora (1762–1824) and Vicente Rodríguez de Arellano (1750–?1806), although the Catalan Luciano Francisco Comella (1751–1812), the most prolific of the end-of-century dramatists, also undoubtedly stands out. The success of the tonadilla lies in the fact that it was intended essentially for the urban working classes. Owing to the methods used by the authors in order to please the audience, the tonadilla, like the sainete, was severely criticized by the neo-classicists. The melólogo (melodrama) was one of the most widely cultivated musical genres in the 1790s. The first adapter in Spain was the dramatist Tomás de Iriarte (1750–91), author of the well-known didactic poem La música (1779), who wrote the lyrics and orchestral commentary of Guzmán el bueno (1790, Cádiz). The authors of the texts, whose plot was usually mythological, legendary or historical, were most often Rodríguez de Arellano and Comella.
Despite having little inclination for music himself, Charles III, who had been taught by the violinist Giacomo Facco, took pains over his children's musical education. Prince Charles (the future Charles IV) was trained by the Italian violinists Felipe Sabbatini and Gaetano Brunetti, whom he was to appoint violinist of the royal chamber on his accession to the throne. José Nebra and the Hieronymite Antonio Soler were the Infante Gabriel's clavichord teachers. A large proportion of Soler's instrumental works, most prominently the quintets of 1776, were composed for the musical academies patronized by the Infante Gabriel at his El Escorial palace. Another promoter of chamber music at court was the king's brother, the Infante Luis Antonio, who was Boccherini's patron from 1768. In imitation of court circles, the nobility organized musical academies in their salons. Among the foremost noble houses were those of Osuna, Conquista and Arcos. The 12th Duke of Alba (1714–76) and his son, the Duke of Huéscar (1733–70), held a pre-eminent position, with Luis Misón and Manuel Canales, the first Spanish composer of string quartets, in their service. Another patron who stands out is María Josefa (1752–1834), Countess-Duchess of Benavente, who kept an excellent orchestra and took the trouble to maintain an extensive musical archive up to date. In 1783 she obtained, through her representative in Vienna, a contract with Joseph Haydn which committed him to sending her every six months copies of any new music he composed. In 1786, following the death of the Infante Luis Antonio, Boccherini passed into María Josefa's service as composer and director of her orchestra.
The favourable political-economic choices of the reformist governments helped the consolidation of the high bourgeoisie and the middle class, which constituted the new audience for music in the second half of the century. Musical gatherings proliferated in salons, private houses and cafés, turning into soirées which would end in music and dance, especially the fandango, the seguidilla and the bolero. Musical academies became common, and the participation of amateurs increased. For instance, music occupied an important place in the Sociedades Económicas de Amigos del País, one of the Spanish intelligentsia's achievements. At the Caños del Peral theatre ‘concerts spirituels’ were organized for the first time, staged by the opera company to compensate for the interruption of performances over Lent. The success of these subscription concerts led to similar ones being held in the last years of the century in Barcelona and Valladolid. The pre-Classical and Classical central European composers, until then heard only at court and the aristocratic salons, now reached a wider audience. As in the rest of Europe, musical education became one of the main preoccupations of the educated in Spain as well. For the first time, the possibility of offering musical training through lay institutions was raised. However, the requests of the poet Iriarte and of Rodríguez de Hita for the creation of a music academy were ignored. Because the monarchy did not favour the establishment of music publishers, the requirements of the new amateur market could not be satisfied, nor could Spanish music be propagated abroad. Despite these unfavourable conditions, a number of books on instruments and dances appeared, directed at aficionados. In particular, there was a resurgence of treatises on learning to play the guitar, like those by Andrés de Sotos (Arte para aprender con facilidad y sin maestro a templar y tañer, 1764), Fernando Ferandiere (Arte de tocar la guitarra española por música, 1799), or Antonio Abreu and Víctor Prieto (Escuela para tocar con perfección la guitarra, 1799).
Turbulent and politically unstable, the 19th century in Spain was not propitious for major musical creation. Until about 1830 the Napoleonic Wars, civil wars, revolutions, coups d'états and the reactionary government of Ferdinand VII – anti-liberal and hence ‘anti-Romantic’ – caused many composers and artists to leave Spain (thus consolidating Spanish music in Europe through composers such as Fernando Sor and Manuel García). This situation prevented the development of major symphonic trends and of a more substantial indigenous creativity, while causing an economic and intellectual crisis among musicians, an absence of musical organizations and a deficiency in the state of musical education. However, the negative image that has weighed upon this century is being dispelled as the result of events that were decisive for the subsequent development of Spanish music, from mid-century onwards. Mention must be made of the consequences of the Mendizábal sale of church lands, which began in 1835 and reduced by half the proportion of revenue destined for music. As a result, many musicians were forced to leave their positions in churches and cathedrals to perform in flamenco bars and cafés, where a number of pianists also ended up. Their repertory included fashionable dances and arrangements of operas and zarzuelas as well as more serious chamber music. Granados and Albéniz first performed several of their works in these circumstances. Compared to the exaltation of composers in the rest of 19th-century Europe, in Spain only a few composers and certain virtuosos escaped the general degradation of the music profession. As for sacred music, a few composers such as Hilarión Eslava, Mariano Rodríguez de Ledesma, Francisco Andreví y Castellar, Nicolás Ledesma and Enrique Barrera Gómez stand out despite the disastrous situation.
The low standing of musicians and their craft, and the impression abroad that Spain was a musically backward nation, were not ameliorated until the arrival of the composers of the ‘Generación del 27’. From then on, thanks to the efforts of Baltasar Saldoni, Eslava (director of the religious publications series Lira Sacro-Hispana), Mariano Soriano Fuertes, Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, Antonio Peña y Goñi, Felipe Pedrell (a key figure through his teaching and his support of national music) and others, the beginnings of musicological research can be seen. Music criticism reached a peak of brilliance, especially following the death of Ferdinand VII, through such publications as La ilustración. The outstanding figures in this field are Fargas y Soler, Manuel Manrique de Lara, Cecilio de Roda, Peña y Goñi, and Luis Carmena y Millán. Finally, the century witnessed the birth of conservatories (first in Madrid, financed by the initiative of Queen María Cristina in 1830), the first musical societies (Sociedad de Cuartetos, 1863; Sociedad de Conciertos, 1866), the beginning of concert life and the rise of symphonic writing.
In the first third of the century, the lack of both an interested audience and an adequate infrastructure prompted the production of music intended to introduce shows or pageants, whether on stage, at court or in church; hence the predominance of overtures in the Italian style. The names that stand out are those of Juan Baladó, Manuel García – who worked abroad – and Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, with his symphonies in the Classical style. From the 1830s onwards, the work of José Melchor Gomis, Ramón Carnicer – famous for his italianate overtures – and Baltasar Saldoni, all of whom composed mainly for the theatre, should be singled out. More substantial orchestral music began to be properly valued in the 1840s, and various initiatives to found orchestras emerged. The creation of the Sociedad de Conciertos in 1866 indicates the stabilization of instrumental music. Directed by Barbieri, Gaztambide, Monasterio, Bretón and Giménez among others, it was born from the musicians' initiative with the aim of giving concerts of classical and modern music, and it provided the necessary stimulus to symphonic creation in Spain. The Spanish repertory performed by this society included the symphonies of Pedro Miguel Marqués y García, Bretón and Ruperto Chapí; overtures; nationalist pieces such as Monasterio's Fantasía característica española; and programme pieces and symphonic poems, such as Los gnomos de la Alhambra by Chapí. The concerto was one of the least performed genres; the only one of significance is Monasterio's B minor Violin Concerto.
The War of Independence interrupted the establishment of a true school of chamber music. One isolated case is Arriaga, whose premature death cut short an oeuvre in which the quartets stand out. The Sociedad de Cuartetos, under Monasterio's direction, would later revivify this genre.
The piano, a typically Romantic instrument, gained a foothold in Spain following the visits of Liszt (1844), Thalberg (1847) and Gottschalk (1851–2), and gave rise to a market of modest artistic pretensions. Especially before 1830, when the first conservatory was established, the piano's main venue was the salon, not the concert hall, with a wide range of easy pieces: dances, fantasies and variations based on operatic themes, arrangements for voice and piano, etc. Two periods can be distinguished: the first defined by European genres (waltzes, variations, scherzos, sonatas, mazurkas) and the virtuosity adopted by pianists in imitation of the great performers; and the second, starting in the 1850s, in which Spanish and central European dances would predominate. In any case, the most prominent compositions were small works – which reflected the influence of both the great European masters and nationalism – free forms, of rhapsodic or programmatic type. The foremost composers of piano music were Pedro Albéniz y Basanta, Santiago de Masarnau, José Miró, Pedro Tintorer, Juan María Guelbenzu, Marcial del Adalid y Gurrea, Adolfo de Quesada, Eduardo Ocón, Teobaldo Power, José Tragó, Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados.
These last two are particularly notable. Albéniz (1860–1909), a child prodigy and a pianist of polished technique, studied with Pedrell, who guided him towards composing. He was a tireless traveller: for a time he followed Liszt, and he had contacts with musical fin-de-siècle Paris, especially Debussy. A connection can be established between his pianistic language and that of Chopin, in that both endeavoured to create a nationalist musical expression and to renew pianistic technique. Until La vega, the main criterion that propelled his work was improvisation. Suite española and Chant d'Espagne stand out from this early period. His greatest work is Iberia. Granados (1867–1916) was, like Albéniz, Catalan and a piano virtuoso. He exhibits a purely Romantic tendency which is also nourished by the folklore of various regions. Prominent among his piano works, which also owe some of their character to Pedrell's teaching, are Danzas españolas and Goyescas (the latter was also to become an opera). Among his vocal works, the tonadillas and the zarzuela María del Carmen are noteworthy. His orchestral music is more limited, although the intermezzo of Goyescas stands out. As concerns other solo instruments, the majority of creative activity was focussed on the guitar. Some of the eminent figures in this field were Fernando Sor, Dionisio Aguado – author of a well-known method – and Julián Arcas, who may be considered the founders of the modern guitar school.
The salon, the main centre for piano music, was also – together with the café – the venue for song, which would only later pass on to the theatre. There is a marked Andalusist and populist component, as well as a strong relation with the 18th-century tonadilla, which shows up in the use of seguidillas, boleros and polos. Manuel García was one of the main song composers. In the second half of the century the influence of the Italian romanza and the French mélodie was more evident. Choral activity reached its peak towards the end of the century, building on the groundwork of Anselmo Clavé and his choirs composed of manual workers. Clavé's music, expressive and popular in character, was widely imitated.
The theatre was one of the chief musical centres in the 19th century. A large number were built, among them the Teatro Real and the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, the Arriaga in Bilbao and the Liceo in Barcelona. The two main genres performed at these centres were zarzuela – aimed, in principle, at the middle class – and opera, aimed at the aristocracy (these differences were to disappear with the arrival of the género chico). Apart from an influence of French operetta at the start, the first 30 years of the century were marked by a veritable delirium for Italian music, especially Rossini's works. In this ambience, so unfavourable for vernacular production, the work that stands out is that of José Melchor Gomis, a passionate liberal who was forced to flee to France, where several of his operas were performed. Ramón Carnicer was another noteworthy dramatic composer; he, however, could not avoid the Italian influence.
In the 1840s, with nationalism at its peak, there was a reaction to the invasion by Italian opera, and the first attempts to create a national opera took place. Generally, these failed owing to the audiences' rapture with the Italian style, the agents' interests, the composers' scepticism and a lack of public funds; all of this added fuel to the Teatro Real's boycott of Spanish opera and zarzuelas. Opera was the great unfinished business and one of the major subjects of discussion of the 19th century. While for Peña y Goñi Spanish opera had never existed, for Barbieri Spanish opera was the zarzuela. The subject provoked the great manifestation of nationalism reflected in Pedrell's treatise Por nuestra música (Barcelona, 1891). All the same, it is worth mentioning some Spanish operas such as Tomás Bretón's Los amantes de Teruel, Chapí's La bruja, Granados's María del Carmen, Pedrell's Els Pirineus, Arrieta's Marina and Albéniz's Pepita Jiménez.
On the other hand, the nationalist resurgence prompted the appearance of the ‘new zarzuela’, which continued the national lyrical theatre's tradition of alternating spoken dialogue with songs. Though characterized by classical harmony and Andalusist effects such as the use of the augmented 2nd and the Andalusian scale, it nevertheless does not escape Italian influence and the typology of French operetta. However, it also shows a relation to the tonadilla. The Sociedad de Artistas, formed in 1851 and consisting of Salas, Joaquín Gaztambide, José Inzanga, Barbieri, Cristóbal Oudrid and Rafael Hernando, among others, succeeded in obtaining the financial aid needed to build the Teatro de la Zarzuela and establish the new theatrical genre. Among first examples of the latter were Los enredos de un curioso (1832) – a collaboration between Carnicer, Saldoni, Piermarini and P. Albéniz y Basanta – and the one-act Jeroma la castañera (1842) by Soriano Fuertes. The ‘restoration’ of the zarzuela was later consolidated with Colegiales y soldados (1849) and El duende (1849), by Hernando (both in two acts); La mensajera (1849; two acts), by Gaztambide; El dominó azul (1853; three acts), by Arrieta; and, above all, the works of Barbieri: El barberillo de Lavapiés (1874; three acts), Gloria y peluca (1850; one act), Jugar con fuego (1851; three acts) and Pan y toros (1864; three acts). Two types of zarzuela can be distinguished at this time: the zarzuela grande and the one-act zarzuela. The zarzuela grande, in two or three acts, with 15 or 16 multi-sectional numbers, generally used historic subjects. Sung text predominates, and it tends to begin with a prelude followed by a large choral section. It continues with the first scene, in which the main character appears, and then goes on with the acts and concertantes. The one-act zarzuela, Hispanic in nature and with popular subject matter, was written for a small number of characters. Recited dialogue predominates, with reduced vocal demands. The use of strophic songs and the presence of dances are two of its characteristics. This genre prefigures the one developed later as the género chico.
Another form of lyric theatre up to the 1880s was the ‘género bufo’, whose name comes from the Compañía de los Bufos Madrileños founded by Francisco Arderíus in 1866. Modelled on Offenbach's Bouffes-Parisiens, these works were comic-burlesque in character and their aim was financial success. Among them are El jóven Telémaco, by Rogel; Un sarao y una soirée, La trompa de Eustaquio and Sópleme usted ese ojo, by Arrieta; Los sobrinos del capitán Grant, by M.F. Caballero; and Robinsón Crusoe, by F.A. Barbieri. The librettists worthiest of note were López de Ayala and Eusebio Blasco. The influence of the género bufo gave rise to competition that turns the spotlight on to the sainete, in which the music is progressively simplified and strophic form is gradually imposed. But the ultimate victory belongs to the cuplé (variety song) and the género chico, which originated with the hourly performances that theatres began to offer in the last third of the century in an effort to solve the theatre crisis. Its birth is usually set at 1880, the composition date of La canción de la Lola by Federico Chueca. The roots of this genre are in the stage tonadilla and the sainete with their popular Madrid setting. The main author was Chueca, who, despite his great lyrical ease, required collaborators in the majority of his works. The most important of these was Joaquín Valverde (i).
The development, from the 1860s onwards, of ‘theatre by the hour’ finds its culmination in the famous ‘cuarta de Apolo'. The works destined for this market came to be produced in a mechanical manner, thus becoming a focal point of criticism for the writers of the ‘Generación del 98’. One kind of programme that stands out within the repertorio chico is the revue, which originally had a political content, and which ended up giving way to a sort of ‘current affairs’ revue. All the current news and topics of discussion would be included in these. Among its characteristics were the preponderance of spectacle over plot, the dramatic possibilities of combining isolated scenes, and political satire. Its musical raw material would be in folk tradition or urban folklore, and its form would come from the fashionable rhythms. One of the most popular was La gran vía (1886), subtitled ‘comic-lyric-fantastic street revue’, by Chueca and Valverde. The majority of dramatic composers cultivated these genres. Among the most famous at the end of the century were Manuel Fernández Caballero, Tomás Bretón (with his masterly La verbena de la paloma), Jerónimo Giménez, and especially Ruperto Chapí, who, with works like La tempestad and La bruja, revitalized the zarzuela. In the years that followed, the dramatic composers who stood out were Vicente Lleó, Amadeo Vives, José Serrano, Pablo Luna, Francisco Alonso, Federico Moreno Torroba, Pablo Sorozábal and Jacinto Guerrero.
Cultural development in 20th-century Spain is largely marked by the Civil War (1936–9) and by the subsequent fascist government which held power for nearly 40 years. In the first part of the century, up to the establishment of the Republic, the output of Spanish composers leant towards a kind of neo-romanticism with popular connotations. The zarzuela continued to enjoy great success through the work of authors such as Vives and Usandizaga. Manuel de Falla (1876–1946) himself, who exerted a decisive influence on the careers of all the other composers, began his career in composition while living in Madrid surrounded by zarzuela, a genre for which he demonstrated his admiration and to which he contributed five works, two in collaboration with Vives. Of these, only the lyrical sainete Los amores de la Inés was to be performed. The teaching of Pedrell acquainted Falla with the music of the Spanish polyphonists and with the musical movements in Europe. This period of training culminated with the prize won by his stage work La vida breve from the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts. Later, Falla travelled to Paris (1907–14), where he came into contact with Albéniz, Debussy, Ravel and Dukas, who gave him guidance in orchestration. His return to Spain signalled the beginning of a third stage. His style evolved from the Impressionism of works such as Noches en los jardines de España, through the ‘Andalusist’ phase of El amor brujo and El sombrero de tres picos, to the neo-classicism of El retablo del maese Pedro (1923), influenced by Stravinskian language, and the Harpsichord Concerto (1923–6). From 1927 onwards he worked on Atlántida. Falla's last period centred on Argentina, where he lived from 1939 until his death.
In the second decade of the 20th century an alternative line developed in Spain, headed by the composers of the ‘Generación de la República’ or ‘Generación del 27’, the latter name originating from the celebration in 1927 of the tricentenary of the death of Luis de Góngora by musicians and writers with similar aesthetic concerns. In addition to Impressionist and neo-classicist tendencies evident in a process of expressive refinement and the restriction of sound media, the work of these composers was profoundly marked by the nationalist language of Falla. Among them – within what might be called the ‘Madrid group’ – were Julián Bautista, Gustavo Pittaluga, Fernando Remacha, Salvador Bacarisse, Jesús Bal y Gay, Rosa García Ascot, Rodolfo Halffter and Juan José Mantecón, as well as the musicologist Adolfo Salazar. Among Catalan composers may be mentioned Eduardo Toldrá, violinist, conductor and composer of works such as the comic opera El giravolt de maig and the quartet Vistas al mar; Frederic Mompou, Baltasar Samper and Manuel Blancafort. Mompou (1893–1987), trained in Paris and influenced by Debussy, is the author of a piano oeuvre from which the series Cançons i danses and Impresiones íntimas stand out. Other noteworthy composers from this period are Jaime Pahissa, Nemesio Otaño, Joaquín Nin, the Valencian Joaquín Rodrigo and the Alicantino Oscar Esplá (1886–1976). The musical language of Expressionism went practically unnoticed, except by the Catalan Roberto Gerhard (1896–1970). Through Gerhard, a pupil of Pedrell's, serial techniques entered Spain via Schoenberg himself, who taught Gerhard in Vienna.
After this time, as a result of the Civil War and Spain's subsequent isolation from the rest of Europe, Spanish music suffered a setback in the progression of compositional activity from which it did not recover for some years. A number of composers were obliged to leave Spanish soil because of their rejection of the fascist regime. Among those forced into exile were Pittaluga, Bacarisse, Salazar, Bal y Gay, Rosa García Ascot and Rodolfo Halffter. Gerhard established himself in England until his death, while Falla remained in Argentina. The majority of the Generación del 27 ended up settling in various parts of Europe and, particularly, Latin America. Those who stayed in Spain included the composers Jesús Guridi, Conrado del Campo and Joaquín Turina. The work of the last-named at the helm of the Comisaría Nacional de la Música resulted in the creation of the Orquesta Nacional de España, which gave its first concert in 1942. Its most distinguished regular conductor was Ataulfo Argenta. Turina also held its directorship, along with Conrado del Campo and Julio Gómez. The works of these composers and of Falla, Esplá, Blancafort, Mompou and Toldrá, as well as those of Ernesto Halffter, Jesús García Leoz, Muñoz Molleda and Xavier Montsalvatge, made up Spanish production at the time, with prominence given to works of a nationalist character. Alongside these was the work of Joaquín Rodrigo, whose Concierto de Aranjuez is probably the most performed guitar concerto of the century. Also during this time the national dramatic genre went into decline, being replaced by revues and variety shows.
The younger composers attempted to reject all trace of nationalism and to join European currents such as dodecaphonism which, as already observed, had scarcely been taken up in Spain. Among these were Cristóbal Halffter, Narcís Bonet, Josep Cercós, Xavier Benguerel, Alberto Blancafort and others. The musical panorama was nevertheless desolate; there were hardly any scores or recordings of works in which new composition techniques had been assimilated. Bibliography in Spanish regarding contemporary composition was practically non-existent in Spain in the 1950s. The improvement in international relations and the increasing ease in communication were to have consequences. In the 1950s a veritable rupture with the predominant language of contemporary Spanish composition took place, the result of an awareness of opportunities missed during the years of autocracy and a consequent need to link up with the European currents. In Madrid, the main incentive towards renovation was provided by Nueva Música, founded in 1958 under the patronage of the Ateneo de Madrid. The group played an essential role in the emancipation of ‘new composition’ in Spain by organizing various concerts, conferences and seminars. Among its members were Luis de Pablo, Antón García Abril, Antonio Ruiz-Pipó, Ramón Barce and Manuel Moreno-Buendía, as well as the critic Enrique Franco. The group's heterogeneity was reflected in a subsequent compositional path of a very different character. In addition to the Ateneo, contemporary music was disseminated at that time through the concerts of Sonda, Juventudes Musicales, the French and German institutes and Tiempo y Música, founded in 1961 and directed by Luis de Pablo during the two years of its existence. From 1965 until 1973 the development of Spanish contemporary composition received a strong impetus from Alea. This was another organization directed by Pablo, created mainly through his concerts and his Laboratorio de Música Electrónica, which channelled the interest of new composers in concrete and electro-acoustic music. The Zaj group, which counted Walter Marchetti and Juan Hidalgo among its members, commenced its notorious activities in 1964.
In Catalonia, Roberto Gerhard had caused an upheaval in musical language by promulgating 12-note techniques and bringing about various musical events, among them the première in 1936 of Berg's Violin Concerto in the setting of the 14th ISCM Festival and Schoenberg's stay in Barcelona. Traditionally Wagnerian, Catalonia became confirmed at the beginning of the century as a champion of the Germanic style in music. In the years before the Civil War, the musical ambience in Catalonia had created the perfect climate for the development of new ideas, but the war truncated the promise of a generation of young musicians. Fortunately, the younger composers – among them Josep Cercós, Josep Soler Sardà, Xavier Benguerel and Josep M. Mestres Quadreny – had the advantage of the guidance of a Catalan musician trained elsewhere in Europe: Cristòfor Taltabull (1888–1964), who was acquainted with Max Reger. Traditionally, Spanish musicians had leant towards the French influence – take Falla or the majority of the Generación del 27 – but Taltabull brought in addition a German influence, also present in musicians like Conrado del Campo, which had a bearing on the structure and logic of musical discourse.
The formation of the Círculo Manuel de Falla in 1947, under the sponsorship of the Instituto Francés in Barcelona, brought together a number of composers with different perspectives. The first members of the circle were Joan Comellas, Alberto Blancafort Paris, Josep Cercós, Angel Cerdá and Manuel Valls. Josep Casanovas, Jordi Giró and Mestres Quadreny joined later, and the singer Anna Ricci also took part. The Círculo Manuel de Falla ceased its activities during the 1954–5 season. Other factors that contributed to the dynamism of the period's musical life were the work of Juventades Musicales and the concerts and activities of Musica Abierta organized by Club 49 between about 1960 and 1970. In retrospect, a certain uniformity of style becomes evident in Catalonia, where serialist techniques matured and persisted, unlike in the Madrid area, where they were generally employed over a shorter period of time. In the 1970s the foundations of a democratic government were laid in Spain. At the same time – and probably even before – there was, musically, a clear move towards the establishment of personal languages, as well as a degree of backing away from the most radical avant-garde trends. On the other hand, interest in non-Western cultures and in the development of non-academic musical creativity also reached a climax in the early years of the decade, as manifested in the 1972 Encuentros de Pamplona, in effect a coda to the period. Groups such as Canon, which assimilated the theatrical experiences of Artaud, Brecht and Grotowsky and at the same time attempted to renew the relation between the piece and the actors on the one hand and the spectators on the other, and in which the singer Esperanza Abad began her work in contemporary music, developed their creative work in the 70s. Among the representatives of this anti-academic tendency is Llorenç Barber, founder of groups such as the collective Actum (1973) – which concentrated on the conceptual, on improvisation, musical actions and minimalism – and the Taller Música Mundana (1978). The Catalan musician Carles Santos and the singer Fátima Miranda followed the same line.
A series of ‘generations’ of composers in Spanish music can be identified in the second half of the century. One is the Generación del 51, including those born between 1924 and 1938. Among these are Luis de Pablo (one of those who have carried post-Webernian experimentation the furthest, in his most recent phase interested in opera), Cristóbal Halffter (who has gone from serialism to the communicative potential of his music for choir or full orchestra through textural procedures), Ramón Barce, Amando Blanquer, Agustín Bertomeu, Miguel Alonso, Agustín González Acilu (whose work stresses the relation between music and phonetics), Manuel Castillo, Carmelo Alonso Bernaola, Antón García Abril, Juan José Falcón Sanabria, Miguel Angel Coria Varela, Angel Oliver, Francisco Calés, Juan Hidalgo, Angel Arteaga and Claudio Prieto. In the Catalan region, the works of Soler Sardà – whose serialist language has frequently been put to use in dramatic music – Mestres Quadreny, Benguerel, Joan Guinjoan and Jordi Cervelló stand out. Gerardo Gombau, though older, is linked to these through his interest in renewal. Other composers, whose careers had a greater degree of independence due to their more or less prolonged residence abroad, are Gonzalo de Olavide, José Luis Delás and Leonardo Balada. The following ‘generation’ would include those born between about 1939 and 1953. The names that figure here are those of Tomás Marco (although the path of this musician, critic and music administrator converged temporarily with that of the Generación del 51), Félix Ibarrondo, Jesús Villa Rojo, Carlos Cruz de Castro, José García Román, Javier Darias, Llorenç Barber, Carles Santos, Marisa Manchado, Francisco Guerrero, José Ramón Encinar and José Luis Turina, as well as the Catalans Albert Sardà and Jep Nuix. A mellowing of the language becomes most evident at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 80s, particularly in the composers of the Generación del 51. From that time on, a large number of authors began to accept the use of a more or less open tonality. The variety of aesthetic options has also had its effect on the younger generation, including Seco de Arpe, Manuel Hidalgo, Adolfo Núñez, Zulema de la Cruz, Agustín Charles, Benet Casablancas, José Manuel López, Alfredo Aracil, Manuel Balboa, David del Puerto, Jesús Torres, Jesús Rueda and Carlos Galán.
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C.J. Gosálvez Lara: La edición musical española hasta 1936 (Madrid, 1995)
C. Alonso: La canción lírica española en el siglo XIX (Madrid, 1998)
A. Salazar: La música contemporánea en España (Madrid, 1930/R)
J. Borrel: Sesenta años de música (1876–1936): impresiones y comentarios de un aficionado (Madrid, 1945)
A. Salazar: La música en España (Buenos Aires, 1953, 2/1972)
J. Pahissa: Sendas y cumbres de la música española (Buenos Aires, 1955)
F. Sopeña: Historia de la música española contemporánea (Madrid, 1958, 2/1976)
M. Valls Gorina: La música catalana contemporánia (Barcelona, 1960)
M. Valls Gorina: ‘La música española después de Falla’, Revista de occidente (Madrid, 1962)
A. Fernández-Cid: La música y los músicos españoles en el siglo XX (Madrid, 1963)
A. Custer: ‘Contemporary Music in Spain’, MQ, li (1965), 44–60
T. Marco: La música de la España contemporánea (Madrid, 1970)
T. Marco: Música española de vanguardia (Madrid, 1970)
A. Fernández-Cid: La música española en el siglo XX (Madrid, 1973)
J. Ruiz and F. Huici: La comedia del arte (Madrid, 1974)
C. Santos: Dossier música y política (Barcelona, 1974)
A. Fernández-Cid: Cien años de teatro musical en España (1875–1975) (Madrid, 1975)
F. Sopeña: Historia de la música española contemporánea (Madrid, 2/1976)
R. Barce: ‘La musica contemporanea spagnola e i suoi condizionamenti’, Musica/Realtá, no.1 (1980), 119–32
J. Maderuelo: Una música para los 80 (Madrid, 1981)
E. Casares Rodicio, ed.: 14 compositores españoles de hoy (Oviedo, 1982)
España en la música de occidente: Salamanca 1985 [incl. A. Medina: ‘Primeras oleadas vanguardistas en el área de Madrid’, ii, 369–97; T. Marco: ‘Los años cuarenta’, ii, 399–411; B. Casablancas: ‘Dodecafonismo y serialismo en España’, ii, 413–32; A. Medina: ‘Crisis o reafirmación en la música española actual’, ii, 433–41]
R. Barce: Las fronteras de la música (Madrid, 2/1985)
E. Casares: La música en la Generación del 27 (Madrid, 1986)
Catálogo de obras de la Asociación de compositores sinfónicos españoles (Madrid, 1987)
J. Ruvira: Compositores contemporáneos valencianos (Valencia, 1987)
Composición musical I: Valencia 1988
Associació Catalan de Compositores, ed.: 68 compositors catalans (Barcelona, 1989)
T. Marco: Historia de la música española, vi: Siglo XX (Madrid, 2/1989; Eng. trans., 1993, as Spanish Music in the Twentieth Century)
S. Salaün: El cuplé (1900–1936) (Madrid, 1990)
R. Barce: Tiempo de tinieblas y algunas sonrisas (Madrid, 1992)
R. Barce, ed.: Actualidad y futuro de la zarzuela:.Madrid 1991 (Madrid, 1993)
A. García Zurro and L. Martín: Nuevas músicas en España (Madrid, 1994)
1. Ethnomusicological research.
Spain, §II: Traditional and popular music
Research into the traditional music of Spain began only in the 19th century, although earlier folksong collections, known as cancioneros, exist (see §II below; for a bibliography of early cancioneros see also Cancionero). During this period an increasing interest in traditional life and the study of folklore led to the collecting of folksongs. In 1799 a collection of seguidillas by J.A. Iza Zamácola appeared (under the pseudonym of Don Preciso), and in the 19th century a major interest in folklore emerged among small groups of intellectuals, particularly in Spanish territories with incipient regionalism, such as the Basque country, Catalonia and Galicia. As early as 1826, for instance, J.I. de Iztueta published a collection of Basque dances with musical transcriptions (see Basque music for a bibliography of further collections). Despite this, 19th-century interest focussed on folksong; the greatest number of collectors were from a literary background or were folklorists. As a result most collections were restricted to literary texts: for example, those of Serafín Estébanez Calderón, Manuel Murguía and Marià Aguiló. Those of Manuel Milà i Fontanals and Antonio Machado y Alvarez deserve special attention. The first, influenced by Herder and German philology, carried out important research on balladry with a methodological rigour at that time unusual in Spain. His Romancerillo catalán also included some melodies published as an appendix. Machado y Alvarez's clear positivistic approach, with an interest in folk literature, particularly in the area of Andalusia, included several studies on flamenco song. In 1881 Machado y Alvarez founded the society El Folk-Lore Español, which encouraged research on traditional Spanish folksong.
At the end of the 19th century the publication of songs with their melodies became more frequent, often as a small appendix, as in the Cancionero vasco of José de Manterola and the Cantos populares españoles of Francisco Rodríguez Marín. More importance was given to musical transcription in the collections of Pau Bertran y Bros, F.P. Briz, José Inzenga and Eduardo Ocón. Towards the close of the 19th century R.M. de Azkue assembled the material for his monumental Cancionero vasco and Casto Sampedro y Folgar his Cancionero gallego, works that would not be published until many years later. Also part of the musicological production of the 19th century was the work of Mariano Soriano Fuertes, whose Historia de la música española desde la venida de los fenicios hasta el año 1850, a speculative study, was seemingly based on previous work of Josep Teixidor. This book considers musical aspects, which today are considered to belong to the modern field of ethnomusicology, describing the music of old colonizers from Spain; it also includes some Spanish folktunes as an appendix.
A number of publications from the end of the 19th century attest an increased interest in folksong. These were largely the initiatives of isolated people with non-existent or at best weak support from academic or other public institutions. Many such works were of nationalistic character and for general public consumption, resulting in materials edited according to the literary and musical aesthetic objectives of the time.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the study of traditional music was increasingly influenced by incipient Spanish musicology, most prominently the theoretical work of the musicologist and composer Felipe Pedrell. A survey of his substantial work concerning musical folklore appears in the four-volume Cancionero musical popular español (1918–22), which contains theoretical reflections as well as numerous melodies from all corners of Spain. His teaching on musical nationalism strongly influenced not only Spanish musicologists such as Higini Anglès and J.A. de Donostia but also some of the most important Spanish composers of the 20th century (e.g. Albéniz, Falla, Granados, Turina).
In the first third of the 20th century, important cancioneros were collected and edited, focussing often on musical aspects, sometimes to the detriment of literary ones. Noteworthy folksong collections of the period include those of Federico Olmeda on Burgos, Dámaso Ledesma on Salamanca, Donostia on the Basque country, M.F. Núñez on León, Bonifacio Gil García on Extremadura, Miguel Arnaudas Lorrodé on Teruel and Eduardo Martínez Torner on Asturias. Of particular interest is the work of Martínez Torner, who was also concerned with systematization and theoretical reflection and who organized his cancionero according to a strictly musicological classification based on the tonal system and rhythmic-melodic elements. The work of Kurt Schindler in several Spanish provinces between 1929 and 1933 was also important as he was one of the first to make phonograph recordings.
L'Obra del Cançoner Popular de Catalunya (1921–39) is regarded as the first major attempt to systematize research in Spain. This was a well-planned enterprise with ambitious aims and many collaborators, including musicologists and folklorists such as Anglès, Francesc Pujol, Joan Tomàs i Pares, Joan Amades, Joan Llongueras and Pere Bohigas. The project involved the systematic gathering of folksongs in the Catalan-speaking area of Spain (Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands) and the comparative study and later publication of materials. Ethnographic data were used as an important complement to the collected musical materials, while the published fieldwork reports show the innovatory spirit and methodological rigour that inspired the project. Although the initiative was cut short by the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War, a great amount of material was collected, mostly transcribed in the field. Phonograph recordings were made in only a few cases and only a small part has been published. After many years hidden in Barcelona and Switzerland to avoid any reprisals by the Franco regime against Catalan culture, the collection is now conserved in the library of the Monastery of Montserrat near Barcelona.
The development in the first third of the 20th century of what was known at the time in Spanish as ‘folklore musical’ was reflected in the celebration of the third congress of the IMS, held in Barcelona in April 1936, when the section on traditional music played a relevant role. But the promising evolution of Spanish musical folklore was cut short by the Spanish Civil War. The victory of General Franco had disastrous consequences for the intellectual development of Spain, including musicological research. In the four decades following the Civil War, Spanish folk music studies were characterized by the undeniable marginalization of international research trends. Analysis of published works from this period reveals considerable conservatism in methodological and conceptual framework, with emphasis placed on achievements in early Spanish musical folklore. Research interest centred almost exclusively on the musical product, disregarding both musical processes and the dynamic of music as a cultural phenomenon. Interest was focussed in rural areas, where musical materials pertaining to pre-industrial traditions were sought. As a result the cancionero constituted the closest paradigmatic study of ethnomusicology in Spain during this era. This conservative approach to the collection of folksong moved Spanish research away from the different perspectives of ethnomusicology that were developing in other countries from the 1950s onwards.
In the 1940s and 50s, the Sección Femenina de la Falange (the women's section of the Falange party) undertook the important task of collecting and disseminating traditional song and dance. Their work was strongly marked by the nationalism of Franco's political regime. Ethnomusicological research in Spain was led during this period by the Instituto Español de Musicología (IEM; later renamed the Departamento de Musicología), founded in 1943 at the Consejo Superior d'Investigaciones Científicas in Barcelona. The distinguished specialists working in its musical folklore section included Marius Schneider, J.A. de Donostia, Arcadio de Larrea, Bonifacio Gil García and Manuel García Matos. Taking as their model the previous initiative of L'Obra del Cançoner Popular de Catalunya, following closely its methodological and conceptual framework yet working within the new political reality of the state, the IEM carried out a broad collecting task in most Spanish provinces until the 1960s. As a result, in its first 20 years of existence the institute created an archive of ethnomusicographical material; phonograms, however, are unfortunately rare.
During his tenure at the IEM Schneider developed an important part of his theories on musical symbolism. One of the most important researchers within the old line of Spanish musical folklore was García Matos, who collected phonographic material in several regions of the country, leaving behind a rich ethnomusicological legacy at his premature death in 1974. The ethnomusicologist Josep Crivillé also carried out important research for several years. Since the 1960s interest in folk music research at the IEM has progressively declined and the subject in Spain generally has relied on the initiative of individuals with little support from academic institutions: these include the folksong collections of Salvador Seguí, Miguel Manzano, Joaquín Díaz and Dorothé Schubarth. During the 1990s relatively new research perspectives with a more culturalist view have been introduced by specialists such as Ramón Pelinski, Josep Martí, Jaume Aiats and Joaquina Labajo.
The concentration of research into cancioneros has resulted in the remarkable underdevelopment of other aspects of ethnomusicology. Little theoretical work has been undertaken, culturalist or sociological approaches are quite unusual and research fields such as popular music are still incipient. The academic base of ethnomusicology in Spain has always been weak, with most folksong collectors self-taught. Such collectors have as their principal reference point the achievements of folk music from several decades ago.
Political transition following the death of Franco has provided an important catalyst for ethnomusicological research. When Spain became a state composed of autonomous regions, initiatives in folk music found the public administration a generous sponsor, encouraging the collection and publication of materials as people recovered, reinforced and reinvented the ethnic identity of their communities. The result has been the appearance of social groups concerned with regional musical traditions from which in turn has evolved an interest in ethnomusicology and folklorism. Study has tended towards the descriptive, with post-Romantic tendencies. This has led to the emergence of institutes of regional studies focussing on folk music, often dependent on public administration and frequently subject to economic and political change. Such centres encourage ethnomusicological research, promote publications and phonograph archives and include the Centro de Cultura Tradicional de Salamanca, Centro Etnográfico de Documentación (Valladolid; now in Urueña), Centro de Documentación Musical de Andalucía (Granada), and the sound archives of the autonomous governments of Valencia and Catalonia in Valencia and Barcelona respectively. The need for furthering developments in Spanish ethnomusicology led to the creation of the Sociedad Ibérica de Etnomusicología, which held its first congress in Barcelona in 1995. Ethnomusicology in universities at the end of the 20th century was still weak because of its recent adoption into the curriculum. Nevertheless, it shows indubitable progress and consolidation.
Spain, §II: Traditional and popular music
Spain, §II, 2: Traditional and popular music: General features
Spain is remarkable for the abundance of its folk music and for the tenacity with which, until recently, song and dance traditions have been preserved. This may be attributed to the close association of many genres with the tasks and recreations of daily life and with a firmly established cycle of annual festivities, and to the survival in Spain longer than in other European countries of a way of life in which such tasks and festivities played an important part. By the 1990s few villages had not been influenced by mass entertainment, agricultural mechanization, mobility of population and other factors which stimulate musical change (Larrea Palacín, A1968; Pelinski, E1996). Nevertheless, traditional practices of music, song and dance are still alive, although often in the form of revivals or reinventions (Martí, A1995).
Spanish folk music also displays a wealth of regional diversity, which can be partly explained by geographical factors. The Iberian peninsula is divided by mountain chains that have proved effective cultural barriers and have accentuated the individuality of particular regions. The main cause of its diversity is undoubtedly the many invasions of peoples and cultures that have affected different parts of the peninsula. But the extent to which Iberian, Celtic, Carthaginian and, in particular, Jewish and Arabic influences underlie modern regional differences is a matter for conjecture; there is not sufficient evidence from early times to trace any particular modern trait to an ancient source. Even the presence of Celtic elements in modern Galician folksong, though frequently assumed, remains to be conclusively demonstrated. Evidence for music in the pre-Roman period is chiefly literary; Greek and Latin authors refer to ritual war dances and burial dances, songs relating deeds of war, nocturnal dance-feasts accompanied by flute and cornet and circle-dances performed by groups holding hands. More tangible evidence of Roman and liturgical influence has been sought in the modal characteristics of modern folksong (see §3). Visigothic elements may perhaps survive in the music of Asturias. Eastern influence may be traced to Byzantines and Jews in some areas (Anglès, B(ii)1958); the precise role of Arab influence continues to arouse discussion (see Cantiga), and Schneider (A1948) drew parallels between Spanish and Berber (and other more remote) non-Arab types of melody. French troubadour music was probably known to the populace principally through the cantigas, but also through liturgical drama. Other cultural contacts have been numerous, though their effect is also difficult to pinpoint: Frankish, via the Pyrenees; European, via the route to Santiago de Compostela; Italian, via the Mediterranean coastline; English and German, via the Cantabrian ports. Peninsular music was taken by Sephardi Jews expelled at the end of the 15th century (see Jewish music, §III, 4 and §IV, 2(ii)) to other Mediterranean lands, in particular Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, where it still survives. Spanish colonists carried their music to the New World, where it partly survived and partly mingled with Amerindian and African elements to produce new forms. The arrival of Gypsies (Gitanos) in Spain in the 15th century was important for the development of cante jondo (see Flamenco and ‘Gypsy’ music); other cultural contacts occurred during the Italian wars and later during the wars of Succession (1701–12) and Independence (1808–14). Cultural ties with South America from the 18th century onwards led to the introduction into Spain of new genres in the theatre (e.g. zorongo) and in Andalusian (guajira, rumba) and Catalan (havaneras, rumba) popular music. Since the globalization of mass media, the most potent influences are African and American styles and, in general, the commercial pop music circulated by radio and television.
Since the Middle Ages a close relationship has existed between traditional music and art music (Anglès, Pedrell; see also Grove5, ‘Folk Music: Spanish’); hence early records of art music give valuable information about the history of folksong. The most important medieval types are refrain songs related in form to the virelai (see Villancico, §1); the earliest musical collection is the Cantigas de Santa María of Alfonso el Sabio (Alfonso X; d 1284), which in addition to probable French influence display popular Spanish elements. Refrain songs have retained their importance up to the present day. The Siete canciones de amor of the Galician jongleur Martin Codax (fl 1240–70) are in a parallelistic form which perhaps derives from the oldest traceable lyric tradition in the peninsula (see Cosaute); melodically, these songs are similar to modern Galician alalás. Medieval pilgrims’ songs from Montserrat, some with dance elements, reveal a popular origin. Another medieval form is the romance (ballad), which in some cases derived from fragments of epic that remained in the popular tradition, and in other cases from stories based on legendary topics or contemporary events (see Romance, §1). Many ballads are documented over a period of centuries, and some have survived into the 20th century in Spain and elsewhere; this is also true of many songs used by Salinas in his De musica libri septem (1577) to explain aspects of ancient Greek rhythm. From the late 15th century to the 17th, some of the most notable Spanish poets, including Juan del Encina (Anglès, B(ii)1941), Lope de Vega (Gavaldá, B(ii)1986) and Góngora (Gavaldá, B(ii)1975), frequently introduced popular refrains, themes and forms into their works (see Seguidilla). Settings of villancicos based on popular refrains, as well as romances and other traditional songs, are found in cancioneros of the same period (Bal y Gay, B(ii)1944; Haberkamp, B(ii)1968; Pelinski, B(ii)1971) and in the partsongs of Antxieta, Flecha (B(i)1581), Juan Vásquez, Cristóbal de Morales and others. Traditional tunes are also found among the vihuelistas (Milán, B(i)1536; Narváez, B(i)1538; Mudarra, B(i)1546; Valderrábano, B(i)1547; Pisador, B(i)1552; Fuenllana, B(i)1554; Daza, B(i)1576), and in the treatise on ornamentation by Diego Ortiz (B(i)1553).
Folk influence, mainly through the characteristic alternation of binary and ternary metres and the use of traditional melodies, also pervades many sacred villancicos (cantatas) of the 17th and 18th centuries. While these villancicos may be forgotten, some of the melodies upon which they drew are still alive in Spain and in the Hispanic New World (Crivillé, A1983). Despite the increasing influence of Italian music in the 18th century, composers such as Scarlatti and Boccherini drew on traditional Spanish styles. There is also a relationship between some ‘popular’ (i.e. essentially urban and non-traditional) genres and theatre music, notably the 18th-century tonadilla and the 19th-century zarzuela. The ‘Spanish idiom’ of such music was adopted not only by Spanish art-music composers (e.g. Falla, Granada, Albéniz, Turina), but also by composers of other nationalities (e.g. Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Ravel). In the late 19th and the early 20th centuries there was a vogue for arrangements of popular and traditional melodies, either in keyboard versions or as songs with vocal harmonizations or piano accompaniment; such arrangements were made by students of folk music (Pedrell, Torner) as well as by well-known composers (Falla, Granados, Turina, Albéniz). Analogous interest in folk style was shown by poets such as García Lorca and Machado.
Spain, §II, 2: Traditional and popular music: General features
Four types of metric-rhythmic arrangements can be distinguished: unmeasured, ‘giusto syllabic’, so-called children's rhythm and dance rhythms. ‘Unmeasured’ refers to a sung phrase (although there are exceptional instrumental versions, such as certain flamenco guitar styles) that employs a flexible succession of tempos and a certain amount of melodic freedom, while maintaining fixed points of tonal reference. In between these points, the phrases are mostly melismatic and greatly ornamented in form, and timing is flexible (ex.1). These are individually sung pieces (occasionally with musical accompaniment, as in the cant d'estil of Valencia or some cantes flamencos) which are typical of work songs (see §3 below). The melodies are based on scales of varying types; these are rarely tonal and are often chromatic or made up of intervals which are close to an augmented 2nd.
Brăiloiu's term ‘giusto syllabic’ describes a sung metric-rhythmic device over an established base of a syllabic pattern, with stable accentuation that combines short and long rhythmic values in measured succession. This pattern is typical of a great number of ballads and romances (see §3). Among the variations of this device are found melodies in strict tempo giusto and others with some flexibility. The possibilities inherent in giusto syllabic allow for the combination of rhythmic patterns known throughout Europe with more unusual arrangements such as the asymmetrical metre, aksak or binary-ternary combinations (see C. Brăilou: ‘Le rythme aksak’, RdM, xxx, 1951, pp.71–108). It is common in both individual and collective, monodic or heterophonic songs and can employ diverse tonal or modal structures. In addition to its use in ballads, it is often found in sacred repertory (such as goigs, see §3) and in some sung dances. Giusto syllabic is only rarely interpreted instrumentally.
Children's rhythm may be observed in group songs and more specifically during certain children's games. In this case the number of syllables is combined with the duration of the musical period. In a way, this is the reverse procedure to that of giusto syllabic, in that it works with a variable number of syllables which can be fitted into a musical period of fixed duration. Similar procedures are found in various cases of collective expression, including games or children's challenges, charivaris, protest or demonstration slogans, sports-fans' chants, and group participation at large-scale concerts. These are collective chants that are rhythmically similar, but with diverse melodic patterns: from slogans with a barely defined and structurally irrelevant melody to two- or three-level patterns and, finally, strictly tonal melodies. Any musical accompaniment to these collective forms of expression is incidental.
The rhythmic patterns of dances present considerable and variable characteristics and offer a large number of possibilities. These are found principally in collective dances but also in parades (processions, pasacalles, cavalcades, ronda serenades, collections, carnivals etc.), at other ritual moments and in various song types (e.g. ballads, cuartetas, tonadillas, seguidillas). These can be purely instrumental, vocal with instrumental accompaniment, sung by a group or by a soloist. The melodies are mostly tonal and anacrusic, frequently multi-part and of harmonic arrangement, although they can also include other types of scale patterns (e.g. modal, chromatic). They show three basic rhythmic structures. First, some coincide with the models of Western musical theory. Secondly, some structures exhibit polyrhythms similar to hemiola: these consist in playing with the accentuation on a ternary metric base (the percussive base of dance steps) and with a melody in double time or combined double-triple time, over a minimum period of 12 beats (as found in the danses of southern Valencia, a number of boleros, jotas, fandangos and some flamenco styles common in Andalusian dances). Finally, the melodies of dances using the aksak form, more common than most collections imply, have developed into a more regular rhythmic structure working within rules of written music. There are well-known examples of quintuple metre, found in the rueda of Castile or the Basque zortziko (see Basque music) and also observed in Extremadura, Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia with different melodic forms (Torrent, A1994). Dances in metres of seven, ten or 11 were observed in Castellón de la Plana (Torrent, A1994), in Castile and Extremadura (García Matos, 1982: see D1944). Ex.2 shows the rhythmic patterns of the charrada of Salamanca with its two variants: aksak in (a) and the polyrhythm between shawm and percussion in (b).
The four categories used as metric-rhythmic models may coincide and overlap and are therefore useful only as general points of reference to demonstrate the potential panorama of possible patterns.
Melodic configuration, a privileged parameter in Western music theory, has often been the only element considered in collections of traditional Spanish music. The great variety and complexity of melodic patterns and possible scale models offered by the oral tradition, as indicated by García Matos (D1944), has given rise to broad speculation on historical origin and melodic types. Apart from a large proportion of melodies in major and minor keys, there are many others that do not conform to these systems of tonal organization: these are not easily classifiable. In 1931 Torner commented on the tonal and modal ambiguity of many melodies but, so far, research has not offered descriptions of these beyond using basic techniques of comparative musicology. Many publications continue to provide oversimplified explanations that make unverifiable links between a given type of melodic element and certain historical periods and contexts. Thus it has been argued that simplified notations of oral melodies are related to plainchant or to ecclesiastical modes. In other cases these same melodies have been related to ancient Roman or Greek modes. Arab influences or the use of Persian modes have been assumed in melodic notations including augmented 2nds or changing chromatic elements. The rich expressiveness of cante jondo and flamenco dance has been attributed to a variety of origins, which inextricably link the genre to its performer, the Gypsy, tracing back to Byzantine or North African beginnings. These relations between periods, models, origins and cultures are rarely based on verifiable criteria, and almost always refer to a written version of a musical form, ignoring the performance context, possible variants and the whole host of elements which may coincide in the melodic configuration (e.g. sonority, vocal or instrumental timbre, attack, intensity).
Within the context of simple melodic features, children's or collective melodies have already been mentioned that can sometimes be limited to two or three degrees and which do not always have stable pitches. A rare example of anhemitonic pentatonic music was pointed out by García Matos (C1954) in a sonada de xeremies (double clarinet) from the island of Ibiza.
Melodies using four to seven pitches can be divided into two large groups, one tonal, the other presenting a great diversity of modal variation. The latter is distinguished by melodies on a descending A–E tetrachord, which Donostia classified as E-mode (i.e. melodies that end on E). Ex.3 shows a number of E-mode types (only the lower part of the scale is given, though the range of actual melodies may vary between a 4th and over an octave; for more examples see Donostia). The first (ex.3a, which contains a leap of an augmented 2nd, has been attributed unquestioningly to Arab influence, even though it occurs not only in Andalusia (where Arab culture was implanted for several centuries) but as far away as Catalonia (where the Arabs exercised less influence). More common is an E mode whose third degree can be either natural or raised (ex.3c) the melodic contour of songs in this mode frequently shows a terraced descent (as in ex.4), centring successively on A, G, F and cadencing on E; apart from this formula the natural and sharpened third degrees are used in complementary distribution throughout the rest of the melody. This E mode is found in accompanied song, where the cadential formula outlined in ex.3e occurs; this, with its parallel triads, serves to dissociate the mode definitively from the tonality of modern European art music. Torner (A1931) pointed to this mode as the most obvious defining feature of Andalusian music; it, too, has generally been regarded as Arabic, but for García Matos (D1944) the natural third degree was a Spanish introduction, resulting from the fusion of the ‘Arabic’ mode (ex.3a) with the diatonic mode on E (ex.3b).
Another variety of E mode, found in Andalusia, Extremadura, Castile and León, includes the alternative of a sharpened or natural second degree (ex.3d). This scale probably resulted from the introduction of modern tonal elements into the Andalusian E mode (ex.3c), but it should be observed that ex.4, which uses the mode of ex.3d, never alludes to the major or minor scale. The central and central northern areas (Castile and León), in addition to possessing examples of all the modes so far discussed, also have other hybrid types, as when a terraced descent ends in A minor. Fusion of the E mode with elements of major and minor in some melodies is thus a distinctive feature of this area.
Ornaments are important in performance, and grace notes (as in ex.5 and ex.1 above) are included spontaneously even when a group of singers perform together.
Unaccompanied songs have been habitually described as monodic, the result of collections compiled by individuals with preconceived ideas about the simplicity of popular songs. Recent research has uncovered a variety of heterophonic and polyphonic practices that are not, as previously thought, exclusive to the religious repertory, but are found in the music of ballads and dances of certain areas. The most common arrangement is a single rhythm for two voices in parallel 3rds over a melody in major key. In some religious repertories the same model can be found over a minor-key melody. This formula is present unevenly in virtually all areas of Spain. It shows a marked presence within the territories of the old Kingdom of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands): a large part of the tonal repertory uses this heterophony, whether in religious or ballad repertories or jotas and other types of dance. The 3rds can be completed with parallel 6ths (realized in contrary movement to the 3rds) and with a brief harmonic bass motif (as a dominant–tonic movement on the cadence). In some instances three voices in parallel 3rds and 5ths can appear. One example of this is the use of ornamented motifs in progressively superimposed 3rds found in the Misteri d'Elx, an exceptional example of religious theatre combining religious and oral traditions. In the jotas aragonesas the voice imitates the arpeggiated chords played by the string instruments. In Mallorca the use of parallel 5ths between male and female singers has been observed. Murcia has the most complex polyphony: the Auroros (a religious brotherhood) sing in parallel 3rds contained by lines above and below the dominant note; during the performance a sudden change is made to the minor mode or to the dominant key, to follow the same pattern. In Castile, the Cantabrian coast and Galicia parallel 3rds are strict and are of less importance. Towards the south in Extremadura and Andalusia the verified incidence of parallel 3rds is rare. In the Basque country there is a great tradition of songs for more than one voice (see Basque music). Instrumental music is divided into music where the melody is strictly monodic (restricted to a single wind instrument with percussion), and that which follows patterns similar to those for song, often transformed and used in the modern wind band. The guitar uses a simple chord repertory often rigidly prescribed by the genre (in flamenco, however, discords typical of the guitar are used). The repertory of the Catalan cobla (see §4) betrays its 19th-century origins in more complex harmony, including frequent chromatic passages.
The remaining formal elements of Spanish traditional music have rarely been studied. The timbre, modulation of intensity and of attack, changes in voice register and the particular sonority of each expressive situation are all essential elements of musical communication of obvious importance to styles such as the cante jondo. However, they have rarely attracted the interest of researchers and await future study.
Spain, §II, 2: Traditional and popular music: General features
In Spain the prevalence of music conventionally known as ‘traditional’ has declined. 20th-century changes in Spanish society have resulted in the disappearance of many musical practices: remaining practices have become part of passive repertories recycled or revived within the phenomena of folkloric performance or, more exceptionally, assimilated into urban popular music as in the case of flamenco.
When talking about musical cultures, we may define the word ‘moment’ as the actualization of a musical product for a given time and place with specific agents, meanings and objectives. Moments related to the performance of traditional music are varied and, in Spain, are closely linked to traditional life and custom. Some musical moments belong to everyday life and periods of leisure; these are governed by less precise determinants and it is difficult to find musical genres that are specific or exclusive to these occasions.
Everyday life is the context for a great portion of songs belonging to the rich tradition of Spanish balladry. Until the beginning of the 20th century this genre still fulfilled its functions of entertainment and the communication of news. Often including texts with obvious enculturation functions coinciding directly with the social values of the time, these songs were disseminated by itinerant singers and in printed form by vendors of popular printed sheets.
The children's song repertory, which has a more specific context, is very varied within Spanish folk music. Simple in form, these songs have both a playful and didactic character. In the late 20th century the repertory of children's songs became heavily influenced by the media. Songs for children, including lullabies sung by adults, have much more varied formal patterns. Within the framework of everyday life, work songs form another important category. Songs sung traditionally to accompany work such as ploughing, harvesting and grape-picking were of great interest to early researchers for their archaic features and formal and specific characteristics. Traditionally the tasks of the home, factory and workshop were also accompanied by song. Today, owing to the disappearance or mechanization of traditional working methods, such musical genres have declined. In many working environments, radio and recorded music provide background musical accompaniment at work.
In addition to the examples mentioned above, musical products, in all cultures, happen at specific moments determined by time and space and produced by people with meanings and objectives laid down by tradition. These are festive moments, religious or secular, associated with traditional life-cycle and calendrical customs. The importance of religion in traditional Spanish life gives rise to many well-defined moments which engender a characteristic musical repertory: the Christmas repertory is an especially rich example. Within the sacred repertory songs for Lent and music for Easter week are particularly noteworthy. These range from the most traditional to more modern manifestations, such as the playing of drums during Holy Week in several localities of lower Aragon. But these are not the only moments marked by religious feeling. In addition to pilgrimage and processional chants there are liturgical and paraliturgical repertories. Hymns for the saints, which differ in name and kind from region to region, have an important place in the Spanish musical tradition. Also important are the sung rogations dedicated to the Virgin or to the patron saints of towns and villages, through which requests related to the health of the community, especially in the past during epidemics, are made. Sung rogations with regard to work in the fields and requests for rain also exist. These songs are less and less common owing to the modernizing reforms adopted by the church and the increasingly secular character of Spanish society as a whole.
Youthful songs related to courtship and marriage make an important contribution to Spanish repertories related to the life cycle. Funeral repertories are not common in Spain, although they did exist once. The cançó de mort in Mallorca was performed when one partner of an engaged couple died; a song would be composed by or for the surviving partner (by a glossador) to sing as a lament. Among the more secular calendar festivals, the most important without a doubt, are the Carnival celebrations. During Franco's dictatorship (1939–75) these were forbidden; this resulted in a break with tradition for the towns and villages that had always celebrated Carnival. With the return to democracy many of these festivals have been recovered. With the exception of some cases that date back to ancient times, such as the Laza carnival in Galicia, the great majority of these festivals are now markedly urban in character, although on occasion they can still be of undoubted ethnological and musicological interest, as is the case of the Cádiz, Huelva, Canaries or Murcia carnivals, in which groups called comparsas perform typical carnival repertories. Another especially interesting festive context for musical manifestations is the fiesta mayor, dedicated to patron saints and celebrated over several days in many Spanish towns and villages. Although these fiestas are of religious origin, today they have been largely secularized. They give rise to specific song repertories as well as ceremonial or entertainment dances.
Apart from the entertainment or ceremonial objectives of the traditional Spanish musical repertory, music also has other functions worth noting. Petitionary songs were widespread in Spain and could be found in various contexts. The most common of these were begging songs asking for gifts at Christmas time, and also religious romances or cuartetas sung during Lent and alluding to the Passion (Guadalajara), Easter songs such as the Catalan caramelles or the canciones de ánimas which were sung in Asturias for All Saints. Certain children's songs, songs of quintos (young people who have to join the army) and wedding songs were also often used for this purpose. More unusually, some dances were sometimes also performed as supplicants' dances, as in Mallorca and Málaga.
Traditional music has also served as a vehicle for social criticism. The clearest example of this is the cencerrada (or cowbell serenade), which in many cases could include musical elements providing a symbolic inversion of love serenades. Social criticism was thus expressed by means of a cacophonous serenade in which censuring lyrics were combined with the noise of zambombas, cowbells, pots and pans and other rudimentary percussion instruments. Social criticism expressed through satirical and biting texts at times took on a more concrete form, as in the case of the cançons de picat of Mallorca, el cantalet of southern Catalonia or the Visclabat of the Catalan region of El Maresme.
Music may also have a therapeutic function in Spain, for example as part of the treatment for tarantism. The sufferer was made to perform different dances but always of fast tempo. This practice was common in Spain in the areas of La Mancha and Aragon, surviving in the latter until the 1940s.
Studies of gender within traditional Spanish music are still virtually non-existent. Songs specifically for either men or women exist, especially among children and the young. Ceremonial dances are performed mainly by men, and the traditional musician figure is also, generally speaking, male. Apart from the contributions of the tambourine or the castanets, female traditional musical activities were limited largely to singing, although in some cultures, such as the Galician, women took a more prominent role. Since the late 20th century (see §6 below) the traditional division of roles between men and women in folk music has changed radically. It is common for women to play instruments, such as bagpipes, oboes or drums, that previously had been reserved for men.
Spain, §II, 2: Traditional and popular music: General features
The musical scene in post-Civil War Spain concentrated on the over-exploitation of patriotic folk clichés, and the singers of these melodies were the Spanish equivalent of the great crooners. The backward state of the country and lack of communications with the outside world provided a poor environment for the development of cultural and musical activities, which were closely controlled by Franco's censors.
During the 1960s, television broadcasting and the rapid growth of tourism led to the relaxation of the musical scene. Foreign melodies began to make their mark and the so-called yé-yé (yeah-yeah) songs became popular, while romantic songs gave rise to the phenomenon of the fan club.
Parallel to these developments but for different reasons an important and significant movement of singer-songwriters and interpreters emerged, many of whom still enjoy widespread popularity. The songs of Paco Ibáñez, José Antonio Labordeta and Víctor Manuel, among many others, challenged the status quo. Members of the Catalan nova canço movement, such as Lluís Llach, María del Mar Bonet and Raímon (and other members of a cultural group called Els Setze Jutges), used poetic metaphor to serenade their country and their values, the lives, experiences and desire for freedom of their people, implicitly denouncing the misery, repression and violence of the regime, using the Catalan language, which had been hard-hit by Franco's repressive policies. Their performances were subject to censorship and in Llach's case resulted in a period of exile in France.
By the beginning of the 1970s, records by English-speaking rock stars were already in circulation and inspired the first rock groups, including Miguel Ríos and Los Bravos, the progressive proto-rock of Los Canarios, Máquina and Música Dispersa, who were pioneers of the musical underground. During these years the first radio programmes, music magazines, festivals and recording labels began to develop their infrastructures. The pre-history of rock was being written in Madrid, where groups such as Burning, Mermelada and Indiana were vindicated by future generations of rockers, including Loquillo, Los Ronaldos, Los Rebeldes and Desperados.
The 1980s saw the recording of the first ‘new wave’ records. It was a time of explosive creativity in all artistic environments which served as a catalyst for the general euphoria experienced after the end of years of dictatorship. In Madrid groups such as Mamá, Los Secretos, Kaka de Luxe and Radio Futura, together with the most unbridled punk rock (Ramoncín and WC), found institutional support from the socialist administration. Events and developments in the capital had repercussions in many other areas of the country: Vigo (Siniestro Total, Golpes Bajos, Os Resentidos), Barcelona (Loquillo, Los Rebeldes, Los Futuros, El Ultimo de la Fila) and Seville (Kiko Veneno, Martirio) among others. A particularly hard rock movement that called itself rock radikal basko arose in the Basque country and was fuelled by the example of hard rock groups such as Coz (later called Baron Rojo), Leño and Ñu. A handful of groups produced sounds that ranged from hard rock to punk and ska (Barricada, La Polla Records, Eskorbuto, Kortatu). Meanwhile, commercial pop produced groups of considerable stature, such as La Unión and Mecano, who sold their music successfully at home and abroad.
From the end of the 1980s with the establishment of autonomous regions music was often employed by local athorities to emphasize their own regional or national identity. An example is the case of Catalonia, where institutions gave firm backing to specifically Catalan rock groups which until then had managed to survive without any kind of official help.
In the 1990s the alternative scene was consolidated with the advent of very young groups from provincial capitals who sang mostly in English. These groups, influenced by Sonic Youth, Lemonheads, the Pixies and others, have created everything from pop (La Buena Vida, Los Planetas) to punk rock and the ‘noise’ of the Getxo groups (Los Clavos, El Inquilino Communista, Cancer Moon), or the so-called Xixon Sound (Australian Blonde, Penelope Trip).
Other noteworthy phenomena of the 1990s were the jóvenes flamencos. Groups such as Pata Negra and Ketama have produced a musical hybrid based on Gypsy tradition which combines flamenco with rock or Caribbean rhythms, following the example of innovatory musicians such as El Camarón de la Isla and Paco de Lucía while echoing the caño roto sound developed by Gypsy musicians in Madrid in the 1970s.
Spain, §II: Traditional and popular music
The classification established below, in which songs are grouped according to function, cuts across that based on melody types, outlined in §2(ii) above; this dual perspective will give some idea of the complexity of Spanish folk music.
Work songs accompany labour in the fields and household chores. Some work songs are measured; in regions where the jota is sung it is sometimes used as an occupational song. More often (and characteristically among the agricultural songs) they are in free rhythm (see ex.1 above), even though the task for which they are used may be rhythmic and collective. Such songs are sung during ploughing, sowing, weeding, reaping, threshing and the picking of olives and fruits. Their texts are often amatory, and sometimes refer to the task in hand. Women usually sing when they meet to sew or embroider. Texts are arranged in octosyllabic quatrains with abba rhymes or rhyming even lines. Unmeasured work songs often begin with insignificant syllables, such as ‘Ay, ay, ay’. Work songs are traditional to all of Spain but enjoyed a greater presence in the Mediterranean areas and in León, Asturias (with the special trillo vibrato) and Galicia (with special reference here to the alalá). The texts are in Spanish, Catalan or Gallego, depending on the areas and traditions. The unmeasured and ornamented style of work song can also be found in other situations, such as the ronda de enamorados in Asturias.
The narrative ballad, of great popularity and diversity, has been generally referred to as a romance, although, strictly speaking, this term should be used only for a specific type of heroic or historical ballad with formal literary rules that are not found in all Spanish ballads. This poetic form of ballad is made up of an indefinite succession of long verses divided into two phrases, with assonance or rhyme in the second phrase. The melody can span one or, more frequently, two verses, with or without refrain. The refrain may be placed between the phrases (internal) or after each pair of verses (external). In some romances and ballads of ancient origin, the assonance or rhyme may change between episodes of the song's story. Romances are made up of octosyllabic phrase lines (occasionally hexasyllabic), like most other ballads, although they may have other patterns. Ballads in the Spanish language allow the accent to fall on the ultimate and penultimate syllable in the first phrase (with the relevant melodic results), and except for the linguistic accent at the end of the phrase, linguistic and musical accents do not always coincide. Ballads in Catalan have strict alternation of accents on the ultimate and penultimate syllables between the two phrases of the verse; likewise, in this language, linguistic and melodic accents often coincide. Catalan syllabic patterns are more diverse: lines of eight, seven, six and even five syllables, with alternating possibilities in a verse such as eight or five. Ballads have giusto syllabic rhythms (see §2(ii) above) as well as dance rhythms and commonly exploit all possibilities between these two. They very rarely have unmeasured rhythms. In melodic terms, they employ the whole range of characteristics described above, including heterophonic song.
The function of the romance (ballad) has been largely superseded by newspapers and mass entertainment. Formerly it had a dual role: it recounted heroic deeds of the past and more recent newsworthy events. Both functions survived into the 20th century in ballads that were often performed by itinerant blind singers. These singers have disappeared, however, and the ballads now sung are rarely historical, being mostly based on legends and stories, and in all but a few regions serving as children’s songs and women’s work songs. The ballad was a highly mobile genre, and of those recorded in the 20th century many occur in widely separated localities and in textually and musically variant forms; some examples of romances can be traced in literary compilations as far back as the 16th century; ballad melodies of that period, however, are distinct from modern ones. There is no rigid dividing-line between dance genres and song genres, since many dances are accompanied vocally. Moreover, some genres are executed sometimes as a sung dance, and at other times simply as a song; they are referred to in Spanish as canción bailable (‘danceable’ song), and in the present article as ‘dance-songs’.
In all regions there are lullabies based on and named after the repetition of certain syllables: in Basque country, lo-lo; in Andalusia and on the Mediterranean coast, nana; in northern and western Spain and the Canary Islands, arroró or arrolo; in Mallorca, vou-veri-vou; and in Catalonia, non-non. In addition to these special songs mothers often use whatever comes to mind: a romance with its repeated stanzas or religious songs. Other songs invoke legends or superstitions. It was generally believed that singing children to sleep drove away evil spirits.
There are numerous songs by adults for children with educational or entertainment objectives. The so-called children's rhythm is often used in melodic arrangement of this type of song. These same forms appear in a great variety of sequential songs or in children's games, although melodies of various origins are also used, from ancient ballads or fashionable songs. Skipping songs are common, as are counting-out songs: one begins Uni, doli, treli, catroli (‘Eeny meeny miney mo’). Children are advised to sing when they are afraid, in the dark or alone, a practice also followed by many adults. Ritual singing is sometimes associated with children; it is common to have a child’s hair or nails cut for the first time by one who can sing well and does so while cutting. In Andalusia rites used to be performed to give newborn children the ability to sing and dance well.
Unlike cognate words that refer to a dance in other languages, the Spanish ronda is a custom, in which a group of young men visit the houses of young ladies during the evening to serenade them. Song texts are generally amatory, sometimes satirical or religious; accompanying instruments are described below (see §5). The songs are those typical of the region, for example, ballads, the jota etc. The men also sing pasacalles (from pasar: ‘to walk’, calle: ‘street’) while walking from house to house. The ronda just described, the ronda de enamorados (lovers’ ronda), which is sung in country districts, has been institutionalized by the tuna, a rondalla composed of university students who dress in 16th-century student garb to perform their serenades and pasacalles. Even in large cities the local university, and perhaps each faculty, will have its tuna. The repertory of the tuna tends away from traditional material towards popular song. Variants of the ronda de enamorados include the ronda de quintos, sung by young men as a farewell to a comrade going off to military service; a collection may be made during such a ronda to provide a party for the conscript. Other rondas include those sung at dawn on Sundays (again by young men to their girlfriends), called in different regions alboradas (though this name can also refer to an instrumental genre), albades or albas. On some occasions young people of both sexes may sing in a ronda, as on the eves of certain feasts, and during a romería (pilgrimage). Among festival songs, the generalized use in Mallorca of a ximbomba (friction drum) accompaniment is worthy of note.
Religious songs are important expressions of popular devotion. Foremost among the songs of the liturgical year are villancicos (in the broad modern sense of Christmas carols), whose usual structure is an octosyllabic quatrain with or without a refrain. During Lent and particularly Holy Week, Passions are sung, either in simple narrative ballad form or as a baraja (using playing-cards as an aide-mémoire to tell the Passion story), a reloj (‘clock’, a narration of the events of the Passion in chronological order), the Siete palabras (Seven Last Words) or the Viacrucis (Way of the Cross). Such Passions are sung in church or in outdoor processions (see also Saeta). The Passion story is also found as a text for aradas (ploughing songs), in which the parts of the plough are used as an aide-mémoire. The goigs (in Catalan) or gozos, which praise life, the miracles and celestial ascension of the Virgin Mary or of the local patron saint (ex.6), are perhaps better known. These are invocations sung by the entire community congregated in a sanctuary or chapel on the feast day of the Virgin or the patron saint. They are sung in the area of the old Kingdom of Aragon (including the island of Sardinia) and contribute to maintaining a sense of community. The melodies generally use the giusto syllabic metric-rhythmic pattern (except in new compositions) and are often sung in a heterophony of parallel 3rds.
Other religious genres are similar to the ronda. The aurora is performed at dawn by a small group (usually members of a religious confraternity) to call people to the Rosario de la aurora (Dawn Rosary, a devotional practice dating from the 17th century). Some auroras are related to specific feasts; others are general devotional exhortations. Singers are known as auroros (dawn singers), despertadores (awakers), rosarieros (rosary tellers) or campanilleros (bellringers). Aguinaldos are a seasonal ronda (usually for Christmas but sometimes for Epiphany or Easter) usually performed by children, asking sometimes for food or sweets for themselves. At Easter, the Ses Panades in Mallorca and the caramelles in Catalonia are exceptional examples. These are processions which combine the celebration of Easter with ancient celebrations of spring, alternating goigs to the Virgin with amatory songs, balls de bastons (stick dances) and with corrandes (quatrains improvised by a soloist, either satirical or on the theme of love). In Catalonia, the textual improvisations of the cançons de pandero (tambourine songs) are sung by women. In some villages the confraternity of Animas (Holy Souls) sings similar songs (cantares de Animas) on November evenings when collecting alms; cantares de ayuda are sung to raise funds for church functions.
Ritual songs include endechas (laments), which have a long history in Spain (see Endechas). Some are still performed by the Sephardi Jews (see Jewish music, §IV, 2(ii)); but despite the survival into the 20th century of the plañideras (women mourners), no modern occurrence has been written down, either of the endecha or of the songs that were once performed during velatorios, wakes with song and dance held at the death of a child in parts of Andalusia, Valencia and New Castile. Marriage songs are still in use, however, and consist of a morning ronda or alborada to greet the bride on her wedding day. The subject of such songs is generally Christian, but the Gypsy alborá celebrates the bride’s virginity. Various regional festivals include the marzo (1 March) and mayo (night of 30 April), probably remnants of pre-Christian spring fertility rites. The ronda de quintos may perhaps be considered also a ritual farewell. Other annual events such as St John’s and St Peter’s days, kept in certain areas as ostensibly Christian feasts, have an atmosphere of Carnival festivity. All these festivals have their appropriate songs.
Solo renditions of a more or less improvised text appropriate to the occasion are often encountered at local festive occasions. These songs may arise during the rondas, in the form of a copla (octosyllabic quatrain with assonance or rhyme between the second and fourth verses) or a seguidilla (a quatrain with a 7 + 5 + 7 + 5 syllabic distribution with rhymes on even lines; and sometimes consisting of three verses, 5 + 7 + 5), or in the previously mentioned corrandes de caramelles in Catalonia. But these improvisations become more important in the Basque bertsulari (see Basque music), in the troveros of Murcia and in the gloses of Mallorca: in these three cases, encounters and competitions take place between singers who are required to give a demonstration of wit and inventiveness. The structure of the text becomes much more complicated: for example, the gloses can have between four and six verses and as many as 15 in exceptional cases.
The cançó pagesa or redoblades of Ibiza deserve a special mention. They include a guttural sound effect unique to the Mediterranean. These songs are sung at Christmas or at weddings by a soloist. The text is syllabic with notes of equal length and stress; drum beats which may accompany the performance are sporadic, with no apparent metre. At the beginning of the phrase the singer ascends to the highest note and gradually descends often using intervals of imprecise magnitude. At the end of the stanza there is a redoble, a stammer or yodel of imprecise pitch. The genre has no known parallel.
At the very limits of what is commonly held as music is the modulated shout, such as the typical ajijido of the Canary Islands. This stylized shout, which is used over an extended geographical area, is a shrill vocal emission rather like a high trill or a cascading forced laugh; one of its names means ‘neigh’. It is used as a cry of defiance (as to competing serenaders in a ronda) or simply as a shout of joy at the end of a song or dance.
Spain, §II: Traditional and popular music
Spain probably has over 1000 choreographically different dances (over 200 were known in the 19th century in Catalonia alone). What follows is a schematic account of various categories of dance practised in different regions of Spain; singled out with detailed examination of their musical characteristics are the jota, fandango and seguidillas, whose diffusion covers practically all of the Spanish territory. Two broad classes can be conveniently distinguished: danza ritual (ritual dance) and non-ritual dance. The Spanish terms ‘danza’ and ‘baile’, sometimes used with these senses respectively, are now used indiscriminately for both.
Ritual dances are performed by a fixed number of specially rehearsed performers; they were evidently once symbolic or commemorative, though their meanings have been changing under the pressures of modernization and secularization. This is also true for the specific occasions with which most dances were originally connected. Indeed, the phenomenon of folklorism includes a delegation of traditional community practices into formally constituted dance groups; these conjuntos (ensembles) are integrated usually by young people in their twenties or thirties; the realm of action of these groups often transcends the limits of the village; their repertory regularly includes a selection of the traditional musical practices of the village and the region, privileging those which are considered to be emblematic of the identity of a community.
The main categories of traditional dance have connotations of war, religious ceremonies and courtship. A frequent feature of all types is the use of aparatos (‘props’ or ‘paraphernalia’); there are many handkerchief and hoop-arch dances in northern Spain, and some involving caballitos (hobby horses) in Mallorca and parts of Catalonia. Sticks and swords are often used, and are sometimes held between adjacent performers in a chain-dance (fig.7. Both are common in war dances; sticks may be beaten on the ground or used in stylized combat, often with vaulting. Swords are brandished to simulate combat, and the free hand in some dances carries a shield, stick or dagger. In some cases the texts of accompanying songs can be traced to specific wars or campaigns between the 16th and 19th centuries.
A flourishing medieval tradition of ritual dance performed in cathedrals during Mass lapsed in the 17th century; only the danza de los seises (‘dance of the sixes’) survives, still performed by boys in Seville Cathedral for Corpus Christi. Other ritual dances associated with the processions of Corpus Christi were the danza de águilas (eagles' dance) which used to be popular in the Catalonian-speaking area; and the Tarasca, a woman-mime dancing on a monstrous animal during Corpus Christi processions in such cities as Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Seville and Valencia. Other expressions of popular devotion are the dances simulating fights of Christians and Moors, as are dances representing giants and big-headed figures, biblical characters and evangelists or theological ‘forces’ (vices, virtues, demons), and scenes from the Passion. Mime is present in some of these dances. In spite of past prohibitions (the strongest was by Charles III in 1780), some are performed in close association with the liturgy, after or even during Mass, and in processions.
The old sword and stick dances (danzas de espadas, danzas de bastones) also have a ritual character. They are among the oldest and most widespread dances in Spain, where their practice has been documented since the 15th century; variants of these dances are found all over the world. They are often performed by eight men accompanied by a dulzaina or gaita (shawm) and a tambor or tabalet (drum), and a characteristic figure of some variants can be seen in the Danza guerrera of Todolella (Castellón province) when the symbolic beheading (degollada) of the main dancer is followed by his being lifted on the shoulders of the other dancers (Covarrubias Orozco, B(i)1611). In Aragon, sword and stick dances and the villano are often integrated into religious representations called dances, some of which were performed in church. In León the baile de la rosca is danced on solemn occasions; a rosca (curled loaf of bread) and wine are present on a table, giving the dance liturgical, even eucharistic overtones. The Maragatos, an isolated mountain community, preserve many old customs and ceremonial dances such as the peregrina, a wedding dance in which each man takes two partners. In Morella (Castellón), another isolated mountain community, ritual dances such as Els torners and Els llauradors are performed every six years in honour of the Virgin María of Vallivana. Catalonia possesses numerous ritual dances of interest: on Maundy Thursday, a Dansa de la mort is still performed at Verges (Gerona), and the moixiganga, associated particularly with Sitges (Barcelona), is an acrobatic dance with elements of pantomine which stops periodically in a number of tableaux symbolizing scenes of the Passion. In Tarragona the jota foguejada (‘fiery jota’) is a seemingly non-ritual dance which has acquired ritual connotations; fireworks are thrown by the male dancers who are expected to perform energetic feats. The dance takes place around a tree, real or artificial, to which phallic significance may be attributed.
Courtship dances are rarer and may involve a greater number of women than men. The men are expected to perform energetic and acrobatic feats. Examples of such dances are the pericote and corri-corri of Asturias. The pericote is performed by four men and eight women; in the corri-corri a single man performing agile feats courts six to eight women who carry olive branches (a symbol of fertility); the dance ends when he chooses one of them. Another example of courtship dance is the zángano; in its Andalusian variant as a fandango, a man is supposed to keep dancing in front of two women who try to turn their back to him (Berlanga, A1997). Sometimes courtship dances appear curiously mingled with devotional elements, as is the case of damas y galanes (ladies and courtiers); when danced at the village of Santa Cristina de Lavadores (Galicia) it involves four women and eight men who, after Mass on the feast of the Assumption, walk backwards out of the church to perform their dance.
Non-ritual dances are generally known over a wide area and, having no symbolic meaning, are danced on any festive occasion. Non-ritual dances are for participation rather than spectacle; their steps are simple and repetitive and can be danced by untrained performers. In contrast to the usually complicated choreography of ritual dances, the non-ritual present a repeated series of relatively simple steps. Circle-, line- and couple-dances are the most common. Circle-dances (rueda or corro) are widespread and vary greatly, from those performed with solemn regard for the correct execution of the steps (e.g. the Catalan sardana) to others which are freer (the resbalosa and other Castilian forms). Children’s games are usually based on a circle-dance, as are a number of balancing-dances for drinkers (mampullé, escoba, gayata). Line-dances, performed by two parallel rows (sometimes one of men, the other of women) may be regarded as a variant of circle-dances; among them the Villano, mentioned in literary sources of the 16th and 17th centuries, may still be seen in some villages. Important also are the couple-dances. A form which fits none of these categories is the amusing jerigonza (or jeringonza, jeringosa), which goes back to the 16th century (Fuenllana, B(i)1554); with many local variants, it used to be very popular throughout Spain and in Latin America at family and public festivities until the 1970s (Gil García, A1958). The jerigonza is performed to a song which alludes to a friar’s exploits; the text is delivered at a fast patter to a repetitive melody in major tonality and ternary rhythm; meanwhile, members of the company are brought in turn into the dance (or perhaps rather the game), each at first following the one before, then dancing alone, then leading a successor.
The jota, fandango and seguidillas are all widely known and transcend regional classification. All are dance-songs (see §3); dancers are grouped in pairs, though sometimes in competition and festival performance elements of formation dancing are introduced. These dances are usually accompanied by guitars, bandurrias, laúdes (lutes), castanets, panderetas and, sometimes, violins.
The jota, regarded as primarily Aragonese, is nevertheless common in Navarre, Old and New Castile, Murcia and in Valencia (where the local variant is sufficiently differentiated to merit the name jota valenciana); it also occurs in local versions in most of the other Spanish regions (Manzano, A1995). The jota is invariably in rapid triple time, with four-bar phrases. Its core section called copla, whose text is an octosyllabic quatrain; this is accommodated to the seven musical phrases of the copla by singing the lines in the order babcdda (see Copla). Only two chords are used in the accompaniment: the even-numbered phrases have tonic harmony cadencing on the dominant, and the odd-numbered phrases have dominant harmony cadencing on the tonic. The copla is preceded by an instrumental introduction in which this harmonic pattern is reversed. Several coplas are generally performed in succession, and the last may be a despedida (farewell) with a suitable closing text, sometimes involving a pious dedication. The jota may also include other sections among which the coplas may be interspersed: these are estribillos, which are musically and sometimes textually distinct, and instrumental interludes known as variaciones. Where coplas are outnumbered by such additions, the estribillos and variaciones may be danced even if the coplas are not, and this may be an older manner of performance.
The fandango, performed in Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands and adjacent regions, is known from the beginning of the 18th century. In its basic form it is similar to the jota; the essential difference lies in the length of the text, the number of musical phrases in the copla, and the fandango’s special modal characteristics and greater harmonic diversity. After the fandango’s instrumental introduction comes the copla, whose text is mostly four (usually five in the fandango flamenco) octosyllabic lines, sung to six musical phrases in the order abcdea or babcde. The fandango follows a rigid harmonic pattern: the introduction cadences in the E mode (an expansion of the formula given in ex.3e above), after which the first phrase of the copla cadences on a major chord a major 3rd lower than the final chord of the E mode. This new chord is the harmonic centre for the duration of the copla; within this new harmonic centre the second phrase cadences on the fourth degree, the third on the harmonic centre, the fourth on the fifth degree, the fifth again on the harmonic centre; the sixth phrase leads back to the original E mode, where the copla ends. The fandango incorporates some of the same modifications that affect the jota, in particular the insertion between coplas of instrumental passages, which in the fandango flamenco are called falsetas. As with the jota and seguidilla, the fandango has different names depending on the places in which it is practised: these include the rondeña (from Ronda), malagueña (Málaga), granadina (Granada), fandangos alosneros (after the small town of Alosno) and the fandangos de verdiales (typical of the hills of Málaga; Berlanga, A1997).
The dance-song seguidillas (always plural in this sense) is typical of New Castile where it occurs notably as seguidillas manchegas (from La Mancha); it also occurs in other regional variants such as seguidillas murcianas (Murcia) and sevillanas (Seville) (see Flamenco). (For the seguiriya gitana, ‘gypsy seguidillas’, see Flamenco, Table 1.) The literary metric form seguidilla (7–5a–7–5a), used in the homonymous dance-song, occurs also in many other popular songs (nanas, harvesting songs, estribillos etc.). Seguidillas are in moderately fast triple time and tonality is usually major. Typical features are four introductory strummed chords, melodic phrases beginning on the second or fourth quaver of a 3/4 bar and melismas often sung to a weak syllable at the ends of phrases. An initial section (not repeated during the performance) consists of a brief instrumental introduction followed by the salida, a ‘false’ entry for the vocalist, who sings a short portion of the text. The main section (repeated ad libitum) consists of a further brief instrumental passage (called falseta, estribillo or interludio) followed by the copla, the vocal section proper. Each copla normally accommodates five lines of the text, which consists of a series of seguidilla quatrains and sometimes tercets (see §3). The deployment of the text may follow many patterns, but constant features are the frequent repetition of lines and inversion of their order, and transition from one stanza to the next in the middle of a musical copla. In performance a second singer may ‘jump in’ with a new stanza in the middle of a copla section, thus obliging a further repetition of the whole main section to accommodate the text. A stricter variety of seguidillas (seen chiefly in the sevillanas) permits only three repetitions of the main section; the text in this case is a seguidilla quatrain (abcd) followed by a tercet (efg, sometimes referred to as the estribillo); a, c and f are long lines. A typical deployment of the text in sevillanas is as follows: bb (salida); babab (first copla); bcdce (second copla); efefg (third copla). After fandango, seguidilla and jota, the bolero deserves special mention. Already known in the 18th century, it is still present in folk music, although sometimes under other names, particularly in the Levante and in the south. Besides these song-dances, there are numerous regional and local non-ritual dances whose use is often associated with the construction and celebration of collective identities.
Galician dances are characterized by a lively 6/8 rhythm (at times 2/4 with the occasional triplet), a persistent and unvaried rhythmic support on a percussion instrument, and regular phrase lengths with repetition of at least the first pair of phrases. The most popular dance is the muiñeira (from muiño: ‘mill’); sometimes accompanied by a gaita gallega (Galician bagpipe) and tambor, sometimes by songs (which may also be performed without dancing) whose text is an unusual decasyllabic quatrain with an anapaestic rhythm, referred to as ritmo de gaita gallega (Galician bagpipe rhythm). Another popular song-dance is the Pandeirada, in which a solo voice alternates with a choir of women playing the pandero (tambourine). Among Galician dances which have crossed regional borders the Farruca is the best-known (Crivillé, 1983, pp.226–8). Purely instrumental pieces for sanfona, pito y tambor (short vertical flute, flute and drum), chirimía and gaita include the alborada (dawn song) and preludes to dances and processional marches.
Popular in Asturias is the giraldilla (from girar: ‘to turn round’), which means to turn around rhythmically; it is also known in neighbouring León; the danza prima is a communal circle-dance whose origins may be Celtic; it alternates verses of a romance (ballad) with religious exclamations such as ‘¡Viva la Virgen del Carmen!’ (Crivillé, A1983, pp.229–31).
Non-ritual dances of Castile and León include the fandango, the jota and the formerly more popular bolero, as well as those referred to simply as a lo llano or asentao. The charrada, associated particularly with Salamanca, is one of the most rhythmically interesting of all Spanish dances. The first form of the dance, transcribed by early collectors (Ledesma, Sánchez Fraile) in 6/8, 9/8 or 3/4 time, has been shown (García Matos, E1960–61) to be in compound quintuple time (some typical rhythms are shown in ex.2a above). Quintuple metre in forms related to the charrada is found in neighbouring areas of Extremadura and Old Castile. The second form of charrada is in 2/4 time, but has a polyrhythmic percussion accompaniment (played on the tambor): while the melody (played on the shawm) keeps regular 2/4 time, the percussion pattern is 3 + 2 + 3 quavers (which also defied early collectors). The combination of this rhythm with a melodic pattern in 2/4 time is shown in ex.2b. Very popular in the Castilian region of La Mancha is the bolero manchego, an art of seguidilla manchega which is usually danced at slower pace by eight couples, man and woman, accompanied by a rondalla (ensemble of plucked instruments).
Extremadura shares the musical characteristics of its neighbours (León and Castile in the north and Andalusia in the south). Here the jota is the most widespread dance; the so-called fandango, performed in some areas of Extremadura, is really a jota; typical dances are the son or son brincao (leaping dance), and the quita y pon (‘take and put’), both sung and danced at a lively pace. Some ceremonial dances are performed by men with blackened faces wearing white smocks.
The repertory of Navarre, situated between Aragon and Basque country, reflects its geographical situation. In the mountainous areas folksong is musically and linguistically Basque. The lower regions show affinity with Aragon; for instance, the popular Navarrese jota differs from the Aragonese only in its greater use of melisma and instrumental virtuosity (see Basque music for a discussion of dances in Navarre).
In Aragon, the jota is the most important and widely used form. In spite of its simple structure, it is an adaptable form which can suit moods, and with simple harmonies lends itself to improvisation. Although there are many minor local variants, a broad division may be made between the jota of upper Aragon which is more lively, the dancers touching the ground only with the toes, and that of lower Aragon which is slower and has fewer leaps. The jota sometimes invades the domain of other genres (e.g. agricultural work songs). Ceremonial dances include the señoríos y reiñados (lordships and those who reign) and the contradanza, noted for its complexity. In the province of Teruel the baile de las gitanillas (‘ball of the Gypsies’), performed by women holding ribbons around a pole carried by a man, is popular. In the province of Huesca, the dance is a favourite sword dance which may also include dialogue and theatrical representations through stereotypical figures (Christian and Moorish generals, the mayoral, the gracioso, four flying children, etc.). Huesca has musical affinities with Catalonia, as does Teruel with neighbouring Valencia.
The cultural separateness of Catalonia is based mainly on language; the Catalan language is closer to Provençal than to Castilian and for many centuries Catalan culture was influenced from the north rather than from the south. The ball pla is popular in Catalonia and in the Valencian province of Castellón. Although it is performed on ceremonial occasions, it is an open dance in which everybody can participate. Guitars, lutes, bandurrias and castanets provide the accompaniment. It has three parts: an ‘invitation to the ball’, in which the dancers walk to the rhythm of a jota or a pasodoble, the jota with at least three different figures, and the bolero danced in a circle with joined hands. This last figure is similar to the basic sardana, the national dance of the Catalans (Crivillé, A1983; Martí, E1994 and A1995). It is a circle-dance for alternate men and women holding hands (fig.8). Although not an ancient form (the modern sardana owes much to the 19th-century enthusiast Pep Ventura), it derives from the medieval ball rodó (round dance). Despite the strictness with which the steps are executed, few Catalans do not dance it and in city and village alike the sardana has become the symbol of Catalan identity. The dance is accompanied by the cobla, usually with 11 musicians (see fig.14 below). The opening ‘introit’ on the flabiol serves to announce that the dance is about to begin. The curts (short steps), each four beats long, occupy the first section, followed by the llargs (long steps), each eight beats long; meanwhile, the music becomes louder and more energetic until the final section in which the llargs are adorned amb salts (with leaps). Popular at feasts in various villages and cities of Catalonia is the acrobatic building of a human tower or pyramid some six ranks high; although it is a game rather than a dance, its construction is accompanied by a toc (toccata) played on the gralles (shawms).
Some of the dances of the Balearic Islands are evidently importations, such as the jota and, particularly in Mallorca, the bolero; more typical are two dances called sa mateixa and copeo. The mateixa (meaning ‘same’ for no obvious reason) is similar to the jota but has the gentler style of Mallorca; the copeo is another couple-dance, in which the woman dictates the movements (which are very fast) and the man imitates them to the best of his ability (fig.9). An old wedding custom in Mallorca was the auctioning of dances with the bride, the object being to raise funds to pay for the feast; it was, of course, arranged for the groom to win the first bid. The chief dances of Ibiza are sa llarga and sa curta (the long and the short), which differ only in speed; particularly large castanets are used, and while the woman dances coyly, the man leaps about and demonstrates his agility, never turning his back on his partner.
Valencia possesses a great richness of local dance traditions which include ritual (like those performed around a fire on St Anthony's day), processional and pantomimic dances representing different occupations etc. Particularly important are the local variants of the fandango and the jota. The Valencian jota accompaniment has the structure and harmonic simplicity of the Aragonese jota, but its melodic characteristics are often surprisingly free. Tending towards syncopation and ornament, its tonality is frequently ambiguous, so that if the melody were sung alone it would scarcely suggest the well-defined harmonic pattern typical of the jota. Other dances of the region include el u i el dos (the one and the two) and el u i el dotze (the one and the twelve), a double circle-dance with the men forming the inner circle. Popular in the eastern regions of Valencia, as well as in Catalonia, is the ball pla: an open dance with a variable number of participants and performed on the plaça (square) of the village during its main festivities. In some villages of Castellón the ball rodat (round dance) is still performed; it consists of a ‘walking dance’ through the festive space until the dancers find a broad space in which they can dance a jota in a double circle. Castellón is also known by the relative frequence of aksak (or asymmetric) rhythms in its dances and songs, although this trait can also be found in other regions of Spain (León, Catalonia, Basque country).
Murcia has lively and fast dances similar to those of Andalusia. Most popular are the fandango, known usually as the malagueña, the jota, danced at a lively pace, and the seguidillas in its local variant forms of parrandas, gandulas or paradicas.
Andalusia has the richest treasury of folk dances in Spain. Its chief dances are fandangos and sevillanas (usually composed in the metric form of the seguidillas) and variants. The fandangos in particular appear in many variants according to local traditions. One of these variants is the verdiales of the Montes de Málaga, which are danced by the pandas (bands); these dancers are called tontos (fools) and collect money for the celebration of religious feasts. They wear hats decorated with ribbons and pieces of mirror and are accompanied by violin, tambourine and miniature cymbals (see Verdiales). The style of the fandangos verdiales is seen along the Mediterranean coast from Tarifa to Valencia (Berlanga, A1997). Sevillanas are the seguidillas of Seville; whether they speak of love or extol the beauty of Seville they are often praised for their high literary merit. Some examples, bearing a 17th-century imprint and locally called antiguas (old) or bíblicas (biblical), take their subjects from history, mythology or the Bible. Sevillanas are not fossilized: new ones began to be recorded in the 1960s and are still composed in abundance for fiestas and romerías (pilgrimages undertaken in a spirit of profane festivity). Purely popular dances are sometimes put to functional use: the jotilla (little jota) is danced in the province of Córdoba to celebrate the end of the olive harvest, just as the fandangos verdiales are used in eastern Andalusia after grapes have been harvested. Collection for the All Souls is made using verdiales by groups from Málaga to Murcia; in Andalusia they may dance as well as sing.
A common dance on the larger of the Canary Islands is the isa; musically it is similar to the Aragonese jota, to which it is probably related (although the name isa and the steps of the dance are probably of the pre-Spanish guanche origin). The folía is a very important sung dance, a curious mixture of the idyllic and the passionate, accompanied by a group resembling the rondalla. The tango, performed on the island of Hierro, is a ritual dance whose limited melodic range and often forced underlay of Spanish texts suggest non-peninsular origin. Seguidillas and malagueñas, and also polkas and mazurkas, are popular too. Two instruments deserve special mention: the timple, a small guitar used in the folía, and the transverse flute used in the tango.
Dances are the best-kept domain of Spanish traditional music. From the 1980s, their practice has been promoted by autonomous administrations who saw in the support of dance a way of strengthening regional cultural identity.
See also Fandango and Seguidilla.
Spain, §II: Traditional and popular music
Foremost among struck idiophones are castanets (castañuelas, see fig.9 above; also palillos, postizas), the most common being those with both parts tied to the thumb. A very small type, pulgaretas (from pulgar: ‘thumb’), is found in Aragon. A large type, fastened to the wrist, is found in Jaca (province of Huesca), Ibiza and in Gomera (Canary Islands) where they are called chácaras. Platillos are cymbals, of which a miniature type, chinchines, is found in Málaga and Almería, and parts of Andalusia and New Castile. Other struck idiophones include the hierrillo (‘little iron’ or triangle) and campanas (bells) of various sizes, sometimes mounted on frames of different designs (a wheel, a cross) for use in religious contexts; cencerros (animal bells), known sometimes as esquilas, are also common.
Shaken idiophones include cascabeles (small spherical bells, worn by dancers or tied to the end of a stick which is shaken); the carraca (cog rattle or ‘corncrake’); the matraca (various types of clapper or castanet on a handle) and other types of sonajero (rattle); and the aro de sonajas (like a tambourine with jingles, but without a membrane; it may be beaten or shaken). Finally, scraped idiophones include the carrañaca or raspadero (a notched piece of wood rubbed with a stick; there are also some hollowed-out, gourd-like varieties called güiro, of Cuban provenance) and conchas or conchas de peregrino (pilgrim shells), used in Galicia, the knurled surfaces of two shells being rubbed together.
Besides these instruments, percussion is frequently improvised on household objects; a mortar (almírez) may serve as a bell; a frying pan (sartén), spoons (cucharas, usually wooden), a grater (rallador) or a key and a bottle may be used to keep rhythm. Other percussion instruments may be tools, such as a hammer and anvil, yoke, or tejoleta (piece of tile, which may also be used as a tradesman’s or other signal); even the rhythmic creaking of a farm cart may be used to mark time.
The most important membranophone is the pandereta (tambourine with jingles; fig.10). A larger tambourine, the pandero (usually without jingles), has a square variety sometimes called adufe or alduf, among other names; both are often used by women in dances. The nomenclature of drums is complicated, since different sizes are known by the same names. The generic term is tambor, with large types known as tamboril (about 50 cm in both height and diameter) and caja (larger in diameter but not as deep), both built like side drums. Smaller instruments may also be referred to as tamboril; a very small drum, called tamboret in Catalan, is used in the cobla. Ritual processions sometimes demand the use of timbales (kettledrums). The zambomba, used above all in Christmas festivities, is a friction drum, the membrane being pierced with a stick which the player rubs up and down. The groups of drummers have become emblematic of lower Aragon. One of the most important celebrations is the tamborinada, during which a multitude of drums are played continuously.
The guitar, commonly called guitarra, is the most important chordophone and is popular in all regions. In ensembles smaller varieties are used, including the requinto and tiple or timple, which have fewer strings and are only strummed. The guitarro is a type with 12 strings. Two instruments are used with a plectrum (púa) to pick out a melody: the laúd (lute) and bandurria (a large instrument of the mandolin family). The bowed violin appears sometimes (mainly in Valencia and Murcia); the rabel, a rebec with only one string, is rarer. The sanfona (hurdy-gurdy; also chanfona, zanfona among other names) is used in Galicia. The salterio is beaten like a drum: a type of dulcimer consisting of a number of thick strings stretched over a box resonator; it is used in ritual dances in some localities in the Huesca province (Aragon).
A common name among aerophones is ‘gaita’, which is used for a confusing array of instruments. Although the name usually means bagpipe (fig.11), in some areas of the country the gaita is a conical wind instrument with a double reed, known also by the names of dolçaina or gralla. The most important pipe is the one with three holes and given various names: chiflo in Aragon, pito in Castile, txistu in Basque country, where it has become an emblem of Basque nationalism. In Basque country a bass flute, silbote, is also used (in Basque, txistu aundi). Catalonia has the flabiol, a small seven-hole flute, and in the Canary Islands a transverse flute is used. A double-reed instrument, called variously gaita, dulzaina or chirimía (shawm) is played in most areas of Spain; gralla is the Catalan name, and in this region two varieties, tenora and tiple (tenor and treble shawm), are used in the cobla. The xeremía and gaita (or gaita serrana) are pastoral instruments from Ibiza and Castile respectively, though both are now rare; the former is a double clarinet made from a single piece of wood, and is sometimes pentatonic; the latter is a capped single-reed hornpipe (see Wind-cap instruments), with an animal-horn bell. The large class of instruments made by children includes some similar ones such as the double-reed Basque alboka (Sp. albogue, fig.12; see also fig.10 above). In most of Spain, gaita or gaita de fuelle are generally understood to mean an instrument of the bagpipe family found in Asturias, León, Aragon, Catalonia (where it goes by the name sac de gemecs: ‘bag of groans’), Mallorca (xeremies) and particularly in Galicia, where it is now considered a symbol of regional identity.
The flauta de Pan (panpipes) is used to warn of the approach of tradesmen such as knife grinders and pig gelders (hence the instrument’s vulgar name of castrapuercas). Various types of shell or horn, all with extremely narrow range, are also used for giving warning signals. Among the brass instruments traditionally used are the corneta and trompeta, used to attract attention particularly by pregoneros (town criers). Brass instruments of several sizes are used in the modern cobla in Catalonia. The guimbarda or birimbao (jew’s harp) is a shepherd’s instrument.
The most usual combinations of instruments are flute and drum, played by the same player (fig.13), and gaita (either bagpipes or shawm) with drum or tambourine(s), played by different players. Such groups commonly accompany dancing. The rondalla is a street band which performs for the ronda (see §3), comprising some or all of the following: guitars of various sizes, laúd, bandurria, triangle, tambourine or aro de sonajas, and perhaps a cántaro (a large jug which may be either struck or rhythmically blown into). Similar to the rondalla, the banda is a group composed of various combinations of aerophones. These groups are very popular throughout the country particularly in the area of Valencia. In Catalonia an ensemble comprising three gralles and drum is no longer found, but the cobla persists. The standard instrumentation dating from the beginning of the 20th century is composed of flabiol and tambori, two tenores and two tiples (instruments derived from the old tarota), two cornets (now replaced by trumpets), a trombone, two fisicornos (flugelhorns) and one berra (a three-string double bass; see fig.14).
Spain, §II: Traditional and popular music
Despite the fact that in many parts of Europe traditional folk music began rapidly disappearing at the end of the 19th century, giving way to a new model of society marked by urban culture, in Spain awareness of the progressive disappearance of traditional culture, coupled with the importance people have placed on the maintenance of a collective identity, particularly as a result of the development of autonomous regions, has produced a generalized interest in folklore – hence the discovery, preservation and popularization of traditional music, often through its involvement with political and economic objectives. In this way, many of the diverse manifestations of traditional culture, originally an integral part of a concrete way of life, has become part of urban society. As people have assigned it aesthetic, commercial and ideological value, folklore has become folklorism.
At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, folklorism attained certain social relevance within Spanish society. Interest in what was then a fading tradition was not confined to those intellectuals who had begun collecting some decades earlier, but included people from diverse sections of society. Traditional song repertories had been embraced by choral societies by the end of the 19th century, with the first choreographic groups for traditional dances, such as the Esbart de Dansaires de Vic in Catalonia, appearing in 1902. All such groups were engaged in the task of recuperating and disseminating the traditional dances of the country.
By the beginning of the 20th century a well-configured series of narratives could be found around particular musical and choreographic genres, which through folklorism became markers of regional identity: the jota for Aragon, the zortziko for Basque country, the muiñeira for Galicia, the sardana for Catalonia, etc. Each of these dances contributed to the emergence of similar mythologies, which by emphasizing their rural origin and claiming ancient precedence (often back to unprovable Greek or Roman times) aim to establish them as quintessentially ethnic.
The Franco dictatorship, in common with other European totalitarian political regimes, found the exploitation of folklore one way of promoting state nationalism. For ideological reasons the women's section of the Falange party assumed the task of collecting and disseminating folk music and dance throughout Spain. As a result, during the dictatorship such folklorism became (because of its opportunistic use by the government) socially discredited, particularly among sectors of the population most opposed to the political regime. However with the restoration of democracy folklorism regained its value. Spain became a state constituted by autonomous communities, many of them with strong regionalist traditions, others with artificial ones, but each with a need to recover or invent regional identities. Flags and official anthems appeared, and people sought in folklore, especially in music, ethnic justification for the newly shaped administrative boundaries. In contrast with the period of Franco's dictatorship, new democracy led to a revaluation of folklore not only by the public administration but also by the broadest sectors of society. The result has been not only the proliferation of festivals and competitions for folk music and dance throughout the country but also the creation of numerous groups and associations with the objective of recovering and popularizing local traditional music and dance. At the end of the 20th century, expressions of local folklore, rare in previous decades, were seldom missing from festivities of big cities such as Madrid and Barcelona to Zaragoza and Valencia. In urban areas, the associations called the casas regionales, important focal points for immigrants from many Spanish provinces, maintain the ties of immigrants with their home region, thus acting as an important focus for musical folklorism.
The presence of folklorism on Spanish streets has never been as strong as it is at the beginning of the 21st century. But this should be understood as much for political reasons as for the positive values tradition implies for society. The importance of tourism for Spain fosters such music not only in areas of touristic affluence such as the east and south coasts but also in the interior regions of Spain, which appreciate cultural tourism as an important economical resource. Typical festivities associated with the colourful processions of Holy Week, particularly in south and central Spain in cities such as Seville, Toledo or Zamora, have been strongly revitalized despite the steady decrease in religious feelings throughout Spanish society; in addition new festivities have been fashioned from the re-elaboration of traditional elements, as in the case of the ruta del tambor y bombo (route of drum and bass drum) in lower Aragon, an economically depressed zone which has made Holy Week its main festivity and an important tourist attraction. Another reason for the significance of folklorism in Spain is the relative delay in the incorporation of many Spanish regions into post-industrial society, which has ensured the greater survival of cultural elements of a pre-industrial nature. Many folkloric events have not lost the thread of history, as with many ceremonial dances seen at local festivities. At the same time these dances have become objects of folklorism experiencing important modifications, particularly in both semantics and function. In earlier periods it was not necessary to stress any ethnic connotations or to appeal to a sense of local heritage, but at the end of the 20th century such dances were being performed outside traditional spatial and temporal frames, although their forms have remained more or less constant because of a modern, aesthetic stress on purism and ethnic fidelity. As a result people have recuperated archaic rhythms such as those of aksak type, which had been replaced by more regular rhythms; band instruments have been supplanted by more traditional instruments such as bagpipes or dulzainas (shawms); and dancers often use regional dress belonging to the 19th century.
The reiteration of particular versions by the mass media, coupled with the social prestige implied by commercial diffusion, has influenced bearers of traditional culture to alter what they have learnt through oral transmission. This is easy to observe in balladry and traditional children's repertory. Although these songs have been passed down from one generation to another, modern modification is influenced by particular variants which circulate in the mass media. In this way traditional repertories, apart from the problems they have to overcome to survive in the modern world, undeniably undergo a process of qualitative and quantitative impoverishment because of restrictive and selective modifications by their interpreters. Thus a tourist flamenco has emerged, modifying the traditional relationship between song and dance, with more importance given to dance for reasons of spectacle. The flourishing situation of the Catalan haranera, including the encouragement of new compositions according to traditional patterns, has led to a much broader diffusion than was enjoyed in earlier decades of the 20th century.
At the end of the 20th century a preoccupation with ripproposta became evident, in which different levels are distinguished. One level implies the simple task of restoration with absolute fidelity to tradition; another considers the traditional as raw material or a source of inspiration for musical creation. Besides numerous groups playing traditional music, modern bands consciously incorporate elements of tradition, most of all melodic and timbric features, creating music known as etno-pop, jazz-folk, folk-rock and folk eléctrico.
Spain, §II: Traditional and popular music
M. Soriano Fuertes: Historia de la música española desde la venida de los Fenicos hasta el año de 1850 (Madrid, 1855–9)
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I.J. Katz: ‘The Traditional Folk Music of Spain: Explorations and Perspectives’, YIFMC, vi (1974), 64–85
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A. Noguera: Memoria sobre los cantos, bailes y tocatas populares de la isla de Mallorca (Palma de Mallorca, 1893)
A. Capmany: Cançoner popular (Barcelona, 1901–13)
F. Olmeda: Cancionero popular de Burgos (Seville, 1903)
J. Verdú: Cantos populares de Murcia (Madrid, 1906)
D. Ledesma: Cancionero salamantino (Madrid, 1907)
A. Carrera: Cançons populars catalanes (Barcelona, 1910–16)
F. Echevarría: Cantos y bailes populares de Valencia (Valencia, 1912)
N. Otaño: El canto popular montañés (Santander, 1915)
F. Camps y Mercadal: Folklore menorquí (Mahón, 1918)
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F. Pedrell: Cancionero musical popular español (Valls, 1918–22, 3/1958)
E.M. Torner: Cancionero musical de la lírica popular asturiana (Madrid, 1920)
J.A. de Donostia: Euskel eres-sorta (cancionero vasco) (Madrid, 1921)
R.M. de Azkue: Cancionero popular vasco(Barcelona, 1923)
R.M. de Azkue: Las mil y una canciones populares vascas (Barcelona, ?1923)
M. Arnaudas Larrodé: Colección de cantos populares de la provincia de Teruel (Zaragoza, 1927)
B. Gil García: Cancionero popular de Extremadura, i (Valls, 1931, 2/1961); ii (Badajoz, 1956)
M. Fernández y Fernández Núñez: Folk-lore leonés: canciones, romances y leyendas (Madrid, 1931)
S. Llorens de Serra: El cançoñer de Pineda (Barcelona, 1931)
C. Sampedro y Folgar and J. Filgueria Valverde, eds.: Cancionero musical de Galicia (Madrid, 1942)
K. Schindler: Folk Music and Poetry of Spain and Portugal (New York, 1941)
A. Sánchez Fraile: Nuevo cancionero salamantino: colección de canciones y temas folklóricos inéditos (Salamanca, 1943)
M. Arnaudas: Colección de cantos populares de la Provincio de Teruel (Teruel, 1982)
M. García Matos: Lírica popular de la Alta Extremadura, i (Madrid, 1944); ii (Barcelona, 1982)
S. Córdova y Oña: Cancionero popular de la provincia de Santander (Santander, 1948–55)
A. Galmés: Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza: folklore: danzas, costumbres, canciones (Palma de Mallorca, 1950)
A. Mingote: Cancionero musical de la provincia de Zaragoza (Zaragoza, 1950, 3/1981)
J. Amades: Folklore de Catalunya: cançoner (Barcelona, 1951, 2/1982)
P. Echevarría Bravo: Cancionero musical popular manchego (Madrid, 1951)
M. García Matos: Cancionero popular de la provincia de Madrid (Barcelona and Madrid, 1951–60)
J. Menéndez de Estéban and P.M. Flamarique: Colección de jotas navarras (Pamplona, 1967)
A. Mingote: Cancionero musical de la provincia de Zaragoza (Zaragoza, 1967)
A. Capdevielle: Cancionero de Cáceres y su provincia (Cáceres, 1969)
A. Aragonés Subero: Danzas, rondas y música popular de Guadalajara (Guadalajara, 1973)
E.M. Torner and J. Bal y Gay: Cancionero gallego (La Coruña, 1973)
S. Seguí: Cancionero musical de la provincia de Alicante (Alicante, 1974)
B. Gil: Cancionero popular de la Rioja (Barcelona, 1987)
M. Manzano: Cancionero leonés (Madrid, 1988)
M. García Matos and others: Páginas inéditas del cancionero de Salamanca (Salamanca, 1995)
J. Ribera: ‘De música y métrica gallegas’, Homenaje ofrecido a Ramón Menéndez Pidal (Madrid, 1925), iii, 7–35
F. Pujol and others, eds.: Obra del cançoner popular de Catalunya: materials (Barcelona, 1926–9)
J. Ribera y Tarragó: La música de la jota aragonesa (Madrid, 1928)
F. Baldelló: Cançoner popular religiós de Catalunya (Barcelona, 1932)
A. de Larrea Palacín: ‘Preliminares al estudio de la jota aragonesa’, AnM, ii (1947), 175–90
M. Palau i Boix: Cuadernos de música popular valenciana (Valencia, 1950)
J. Amades: ‘Las danzas de espadas y de palos en Cataluña, Baleares y Valencia, AnM, x (1955), 163–90
M. García Matos: ‘Sobre algunos ritmos de nuestro folklore musical’, AnM, xv (1960), 101–31; xvi (1961), 27–54
B. Gil García: ‘Panorama de la canción popular burgalesa’, AnM, xviii (1963), 85–102
J. Mainar, A. Jane and J. Miracle: La sardana (Barcelona, 1970, 2/1972)
J. Benito and A. Buylla: La canción asturiana (Gijón, 1977)
J. Crivillé: ‘Ethnomusicologie d'un village catalan: Tivissa’, AnM, xxxiii–xxxv (1978–80), 171–254
D. Schubarth and A. Santamarina: Cántigas populares (Vigo, 1983)
S. Schmitt: Arbeitslieder auf Mallorca (Tutzing, 1984)
H. Schmidt: Die Sardana: Tanz der Katalanen (diss., U. of Hamburg, 1985)
M.A. Juan: ‘Folk Music Research and the Development of Ethnomusicology in Catalonia since 1850’, European Studies in Ethnomusicology: Historical Development and Recent Trends, ed. M.P. Baumann, A. Simon and U. Wegner (Wilhelmshaven, 1992), 42–51
J. Martí: ‘The Sardana as a Socio-Cultural Phenomenon in Contemporary Catalonia’, YTM, xxvi (1994), 39–46
R. Pelinski: Presencia del pasado: reestudio de un cancionero castellonense (Castellón de la Plana, 1996)
D.A. Manrique: De qué va el rock macarra (Madrid, 1977)
C. López: La edad de oro del pop español (Madrid, 1992)
M. Muniesa: ‘El heavy metal en España’, Historia del heavy metal (Madrid, 1993), 85–100
P. Calvo and J.M. Gamboa: Historia-guía del nuevo flamenco (Madrid, 1994)
M. Román: Canciones de nuestra vida: de Antonio Machín a Julio Iglesias (Madrid, 1994)
I. Julià: Grunge, noise, rock alternativo (Madrid, 1996)
Magna antología del folklore musical de España, Hispavox S-66171 (1977) [incl. notes by M. García Matos]
Magna antología del cante flamenco, Hispavox S-66201 (1982) [incl. notes by J.B. Vega]
Fonoteca de materials: tallers de música popular, Conselleria de cultura, Generalitat Valenciana, Discos CBS LP TMP1–24 (1985–) [incl. notes ed. V. Torrent]
Madrid tradicional: antología, Tecnosaga, series issued outside numbered sequence (1985–98) [incl. notes by J.M. Fraile Gil]
Fonoteca de música tradicional catalana, Centre de Documentació i Recerca de la Cultura Tradicional i Popular, Tecno CD DT001–9 (1991–) [incl. notes ed. J. Crivillé]
Romancero panhispánico: antología sonora, Centro de Cultura Tradicional de Salamanca, Tecnosaga 5LP AD(5) 10–9004 (1991) [incl. notes by J.M. Fraile]
Antología de la música tradicional salmantina, Centro de Cultura Tradicional de Salamanca, Sonopress-Ibermemory KPD-(5) 10/9005 (1996) [incl. notes by A. Carril]
