The old Spanish music, that which is preserved in Andalusia under the name of cañas, rondeñas, playeras, etc., differing greatly from the boleros of comic operas and eluding the modern notation, is certainly of Arab origin. Who are they who have preserved it in the tradition of this country? An eastern race, a nomadic race, that of those Bohemians who, coming from Egypt about the fourteenth century, and perhaps before that from India, spread themselves throughout Europe and were called gitanos in Spain, zingari in Italy, gipsies in England, zigeuner in Germany, and tzigani in Russia, whilst naming themselves pharaons.
These nomads, with their immutable customs, who are still to-day not only in Spain but in Russia the same in physique and moral character as Cervantes has depicted them, have carried and retained everywhere the ancient songs of their problematic country. As the musicians of the people, formed into troupes of singers and dancers, they have everywhere spread the form and sentiment of their antique melodies. “It was through them,” concludes Viardot, “that, in Russia as in Spain, popular music took or kept the oriental character; it was from them that in Moscow, at the foot of the towers of the Kremlin, I listened to the same songs as in the gardens of the Alhambra of Granada. In both places I had heard from their lips a living echo of the Arab music.”[m]
CHAPTER XI. TRIBAL LIFE OF THE EPIC PERIOD
Specially Contributed to the Present Work
By Dr. JULIUS WELLHAUSEN[41]
Professor in the University at Göttingen