The Music of Spain

by Carl Van Vechten

There is a singular similarity to be observed between this heel-tapping and the complicated drum-tapping of the African negroes of certain tribes. In his book "Afro-American Folksongs" H. E. Krehbiel thus describes the musical accompaniment of the dances in the Dahoman Village at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago: "These dances were accompanied by choral song and the rhythmical and harmonious beating of drums and bells, the song being in unison. The harmony was a tonic major triad broken up rhythmically in a most intricate and amazingly ingenious manner. The instruments were tuned with excellent justness. The fundamental tone came from a drum made of a hollowed log about three feet long with a single head, played by one who seemed to be the leader of the band, though there was no giving of signals. This drum was beaten with the palms of the hands. A variety of smaller drums, some with one, some with two heads, were beaten variously with sticks and fingers. The bells, four in number, were of iron and were held mouth upward and struck with sticks. The players showed the most remarkable rhythmical sense and skill that ever came under my notice. Berlioz in his supremest effort with his army of drummers produced nothing to compare in artistic interest with the harmonious drumming of these savages. The fundamental effect was a combination of double and triple time, the former kept by the singers, the latter by the drummers, but it is impossible to convey the idea of the wealth of detail achieved by the drummers by means of exchange of the rhythms, syncopation of both simultaneously, and dynamic devices. Only by making a score of the music could this have been done. I attempted to make such a score by enlisting the help of the late John C. Filmore, experienced in Indian music, but we were thwarted by the players who, evidently divining our purpose when we took out our notebooks, mischievously changed their manner of playing as soon as we touched pencil to paper."

The resemblance between negro and Spanish music is very noticeable. Mr. Krehbiel says that in South America Spanish melody has been imposed on negro rhythm. In the dances of the people of Spain, as Chabrier points out, the melody is often practically nil; the effect is rhythmic (an effect which is emphasized by the obvious harmonic and melodic limitations of the guitar, which invariably accompanies all singers and dancers). If there were a melody or if the guitarists played well (which they usually do not) one could not distinguish its contours what with the cries of Olé! and the heel-beats of the performers. Spanish melodies, indeed, are often scraps of tunes, like the African negro melodies. The habanera is a true African dance, taken to Spain by way of Cuba, as Albert Friedenthal points out in his book, "Musik, Tanz, und Dichtung bei den Kreolen Amerikas." Whoever was responsible, Arab, negro, or Moor (Havelock Ellis says that the dances of Spain are closely allied with the ancient dances of Greece and Egypt), the Spanish dances betray their oriental origin in their complexity of rhythm (a complexity not at all obvious on the printed page, as so much of it depends on dancer, guitarist, singer, and even public!), and the fioriture which decorate their melody when melody occurs. While Spanish religious music is perhaps not distinctively Spanish, the dances invariably display marked national characteristics; it is on these, then (some in greater, some in less degree), that the composers in and out of Spain have built their most atmospheric inspirations, their best pictures of popular life in the Iberian peninsula. A good deal of the interest of this music is due to the important part the guitar plays in its construction; the modulations are often contrary to all rules of harmony and (yet, some would say) the music seems to be effervescent with variety and fire. Of the guitarists Richard Ford ("Gatherings from Spain") says: "The performers seldom are very scientific musicians; they content themselves with striking the chords, sweeping the whole hand over the strings, or flourishing, and tapping the board with the thumb, at which they are very expert. Occasionally in the towns there is some one who has attained more power over this ungrateful instrument; but the attempt is a failure. The guitar responds coldly to Italian words and elaborate melody, which never come home to Spanish ears or hearts." (An exception must be made in the case of Miguel Llobet. I first heard him play at Pitts Sanborn's concert at the Punch and Judy Theatre (April 17, 1916) for the benefit of Hospital 28 in Bourges, France, and he made a deep impression on me. In one of his numbers, the Spanish Fantasy of Farrega, he astounded and thrilled me. He seemed at all times to exceed the capacity of his instrument, obtaining a variety of colour which was truly amazing. In this particular number he not only plucked the keyboard but the fingerboard as well, in intricate and rapid tempo; seemingly two different kinds of instruments were playing. But at all times he variated his tone; sometimes he made the instrument sound almost as though it had been played by wind and not plucked. Especially did I note a suggestion of the bagpipe. A true artist. None of the music, the fantasy mentioned, a serenade of Albéniz, and a Menuet of Tor, was particularly interesting, although the Fantasia contained some fascinating references to folk-dance tunes. There is nothing sensational about Llobet, a quiet prim sort of man; he sits quietly in his chair and makes music. It might be a harp or a 'cello—no striving for personal effect.)

The Spanish dances are infinite in number and for centuries back they seem to form part and parcel of Spanish life. Discussion as to how they are danced is a feature of the descriptions. No two authors agree, it would seem; to a mere annotator the fact is evident that they are danced differently on different occasions. It is obvious that they are danced differently in different provinces. The Spaniards, as Richard Ford points out, are not too willing to give information to strangers, frequently because they themselves lack the knowledge. Their statements are often misleading, sometimes intentionally so. They do not understand the historical temperament. Until recently many of the art treasures and archives of the peninsula were but poorly kept. Those who lived in the shadow of the Alhambra admired only its shade. It may be imagined that there has been even less interest displayed in recording the folk-dances. "Dancing in Spain is now a matter which few know anything about," writes Havelock Ellis, "because every one takes it for granted that he knows all about it; and any question on the subject receives a very ready answer which is usually of questionable correctness." Of the music of the dances we have many records, and that they are generally in 3-4 time or its variants we may be certain. As to whether they are danced by two women, a woman and a man, or a woman alone, the authorities do not always agree. The confusion is added to by the oracular attitude of the scribes. It seems quite certain to me that this procedure varies. That the animated picture almost invariably possesses great fascination there are only too many witnesses to prove. I myself can testify to the marvel of some of them, set to be sure in strange frames, the Feria in Paris, for example; but even without the surroundings, which Spanish dances demand, the diablerie, the shivering intensity of these fleshly women, always wound tight with such shawls as only the mistresses of kings might wear in other countries, have drawn taut the real thrill. It is dancing which enlists the co-operation not only of the feet and legs, but of the arms and, in fact, the entire body.

The smart world in Spain today dances much as the smart world does anywhere else, although it does not, I am told, hold a brief for our tango, which Mr. Krehbiel suggests is a corruption of the original African habanera. But in older days many of the dances, such as the pavana, the sarabande, and the gallarda, were danced at the court and were in favour with the nobility. (Although presumably of Italian origin, the pavana and gallarda were more popular in Spain than in Rome. Fuertes says that the sarabande was invented in the middle of the sixteenth century by a dancer called Zarabanda who was a native of either Seville or Guayaquil.) The pavana, an ancient dance of grave and stately measure, was much in vogue in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An explanation of its name is that the figures executed by the dancers bore a resemblance to the semi-circular wheel-like spreading of the tail of a peacock. The gallarda (French, gaillard) was usually danced as a relief to the pavana (and indeed often follows it in the dance-suites of the classical composers in which these forms all figure). The jacara, or more properly xacara, of the sixteenth century, was danced in accompaniment to a romantic, swashbuckling ditty. The Spanish folias were a set of dances danced to a simple tune treated in a variety of styles with very free accompaniment of castanets and bursts of song. Corelli in Rome in 1700 published twenty-four variations in this form, which have been played in our day by Fritz Kreisler and other violinists.

The names of the modern Spanish dances are often confused in the descriptions offered by observing travellers, for the reasons already noted. Hundreds of these descriptions exist, and it is difficult to choose the most telling of them. Gertrude Stein, who has spent the last two years in Spain, has noted the rhythm of several of these dances by the mingling of her original use of words with the ingratiating medium of vers libre. She has succeeded, I think, better than some musicians in suggesting the intricacies of the rhythm. I should like to transcribe one of these attempts here, but that I have not the right to do as I have only seen them in manuscript; they have not yet appeared in print. These pieces are in a sense the thing itself—I shall have to fall back on descriptions of the thing. The tirana, a dance common to the province of Andalusia, is accompanied by song. It has a decided rhythm, affording opportunities for grace and gesture, the women toying with their aprons, the men flourishing hats and handkerchiefs. The polo, or ole, is now a gipsy dance. Mr. Ellis asserts that it is a corruption of the sarabande! He goes on to say, "The so-called gipsy dances of Spain are Spanish dances which the Spaniards are tending to relinquish but which the gipsies have taken up with energy and skill." (This theory might be warmly contested.) The bolero, a comparatively modern dance, came to Spain through Italy. Mr. Philip Hale points out the fact that the bolero and the cachucha (which, by the way, one seldom hears of nowadays) were the popular Spanish dances when Mesdames Faviani and Dolores Tesrai, and their followers, Mlle. Noblet and Fanny Elssler, visited Paris. Fanny Elssler indeed is most frequently seen pictured in Spanish costume, and the cachucha was danced by her as often, I fancy, as Mme. Pavlowa dances Le Cygne of Saint-Saëns. Marie-Anne de Camargo, who acquired great fame as a dancer in France in the early eighteenth century, was born in Brussels but was of Spanish descent. She relied, however, on the Italian classic style for her success rather than on national Spanish dances. The seguidilla is a gipsy dance which has the same rhythm as the bolero but is more animated and stirring. Examples of these dances, and of the jota, fandango, and the sevillana, are to be met with in the compositions listed in the first section of this article, in the appendices of Soriano Fuertes's "History of Spanish Music," in Grove's Dictionary, in the numbers of "S. I. M." in which the letters of Emmanuel Chabrier occur, and in collections made by P. Lacome, published in Paris.

The jota is another dance in 3-4 time. Every province in Spain has its own jota, but the most famous variations are those of Aragón, Valencia, and Navarre. It is accompanied by the guitar, the bandarria (similar to the guitar), small drum, castanets, and triangle. Mr. Hale says that its origin in the twelfth century is attributed to a Moor named Alben Jot who fled from Valencia to Aragón. "The jota," he continues, "is danced not only at merrymakings but at certain religious festivals and even in watching the dead. One called the 'Natividad del Señor' (nativity of our Lord) is danced on Christmas eve in Aragón, and is accompanied by songs, and jotas are sung and danced at the crossroads, invoking the favour of the Virgin, when the festival of Our Lady del Pilar is celebrated at Saragossa."

Havelock Ellis's description of the jota is worth reproducing: "The Aragonaise jota, the most important and typical dance outside Andalusia, is danced by a man and a woman, and is a kind of combat between them; most of the time they are facing each other, both using castanets and advancing and retreating in an apparently aggressive manner, the arms alternately slightly raised and lowered, and the legs, with a seeming attempt to trip the partner, kicking out alternately somewhat sidewise, as the body is rapidly supported first on one side and then on the other. It is a monotonous dance, with immense rapidity and vivacity in its monotony, but it has not the deliberate grace and fascination, the happy audacities of Andalusian dancing. There is, indeed, no faintest suggestion of voluptuousness in it, but it may rather be said, in the words of a modern poet, Salvador Rueda, to have in it 'the sound of helmets and plumes and lances and banners, the roaring of cannon, the neighing of horses, the shock of swords.'"

Chabrier, in his astounding and amusing letters from Spain, gives us vivid pictures and interesting information. This one, written to his friend, Edouard Moullé, from Granada, November 4, 1882, appeared in "S. I. M." April 15, 1911 (I have omitted the musical illustrations, which, however, possess great value for the student): "In a month I must leave adorable Spain ... and say good-bye to the Spaniards,—because, I say this only to you, they are very nice, the little girls! I have not seen a really ugly woman since I have been in Andalusia: I do not speak of the feet, they are so small that I have never seen them; the hands are tiny and well-kept and the arms of an exquisite contour; I speak only of what one can see, but they show a good deal; add the arabesques, the side-curls, and other ingenuities of the coiffure, the inevitable fan, the flower and the comb in the hair, placed well behind, the shawl of Chinese crêpe, with long fringe and embroidered in flowers, knotted around the figure, the arm bare, and the eye protected by eyelashes which are long enough to curl; the skin of dull white or orange colour, according to the race, all this smiling, gesticulating, dancing, drinking, and careless to the last degree...

"That is the Andalusian.

"Every evening we go with Alice to the café-concerts where the malagueñas, the Soledas, the Sapateados, and the Peteneras are sung; then the dances, absolutely Arab, to speak truth; if you could see them wriggle, unjoint their hips, contortion, I believe you would not try to get away!... At Málaga the dancing became so intense that I was compelled to take my wife away; it wasn't even amusing any more. I can't write about it, but I remember it and I will describe it to you.—I have no need to tell you that I have noted down many things; the tango, a kind of dance in which the women imitate the pitching of a ship (le tangage du navire) is the only dance in 2 time; all the others, all, are in 3-4 (Seville) or in 3-8 (Málaga and Cadiz);—in the North it is different, there is some music in 5-8, very curious. The 2-4 of the tango is always like the habanera; this is the picture: one or two women dance, two silly men play it doesn't matter what on their guitars, and five or six women howl, with excruciating voices and in triplet figures impossible to note down because they change the air—every instant a new scrap of tune. They howl a series of figurations with syllables, words, rising voices, clapping hands which strike the six quavers, emphasizing the third and the sixth, cries of Anda! Anda! La Salud! eso es la Maraquita! gracia, nationidad! Baila, la chiquilla! Anda! Anda! Consuelo! Olé, la Lola, olé la Carmen! qué gracia! qué elegancia! all that to excite the young dancer. It is vertiginous—it is unspeakable!