them make an attempt at Spanish colouring, more do not. Massenet wrote
no less than five operas on Spanish subjects, _Le Cid_, _Cherubin_,
_Don César de Bazan_, _La Navarraise_ and _Don Quichotte_ (Cervantes’s
novel has frequently lured the composers of lyric dramas with its
story; Clément et Larousse give a long list of _Don Quixote_ operas,
but they do not include one by Manuel Garcia, which is mentioned in
John Towers’s compilation, “Dictionary-Catalogue of Operas.” However,
not a single one of these lyric dramas has held its place on the
stage). The Spanish dances in _Le Cid_ are frequently performed,
although the opera is not. The most famous of the set is called simply
_Aragonaise_; it is not a jota. _Pleurez, mes yeux_, the principal air
of the piece, can scarcely be called Spanish. There is a delightful
suggestion of the jota in _La Navarraise_. In _Don Quichotte_ la belle
Dulcinée sings one of her airs to her own guitar strummings, and much
was made of the fact, before the original production at Monte Carlo,
of Mme. Lucy Arbell’s lessons on that instrument. Mary Garden, who
had learned to dance for _Salome_, took no guitar lessons for _Don
Quichotte_. But is not the guitar an anachronism in this opera? In a
pamphlet by Señor Cecilio de Roda, issued during the celebration of
the tercentenary of the publication of Cervantes’s romance, taking
as its subject the musical references in the work, I find, “The harp
was the aristocratic instrument most favoured by women and it would
appear to be regarded in _Don Quixote_ as the feminine instrument
par excellence.” Was the guitar as we know it in existence at that
epoch? I think the _vihuela_ was the guitar of the period.... Maurice
Ravel wrote a Spanish opera, _L’heure Espagnole_ (one act, performed
at the Paris Opéra-Comique, 1911). Octave Séré (“Musiciens français
d’Aujourd’hui”) says of it: “Les principaux traits de son caractère
et l’influence du sol natal s’y combinent étrangement. De l’alliance
de la mer et du Pays Basque (Ravel was born in the Basses-Pyrénées,
near the sea) est née une musique à la fois fluide et nerveusement
rythmée, mobile, chatoyante, amie du pittoresque et dont le trait
net et précis est plus incisif que profond.” Hugo Wolf’s opera _Der
Corregidor_ is founded on the novel, “Il Sombrero de tres Picos,” of
the Spanish writer, Pedro de Alarcon (1833-91). His unfinished opera
_Manuel Venegas_ also has a Spanish subject, suggested by Alarcon’s
“El Nino de la Bola.” Other Spanish operas are Beethoven’s _Fidelio_,
Balfe’s _The Rose of Castille_, Verdi’s _Ernani_ and _Il Trovatore_,
Rossini’s _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_, Mozart’s _Don Giovanni_ and _Le
Nozze di Figaro_, Weber’s _Preciosa_ (really a play with incidental
music), Dargomijsky’s _The Stone Guest_ (Pushkin’s version of the Don
Juan story. This opera, by the way, was one of the many retouched and
completed by Rimsky-Korsakow), Reznicek’s _Donna Diana_--and Wagner’s
_Parsifal_! The American composer John Knowles Paine’s opera _Azara_,
dealing with a Moorish subject, has, I think, never been performed.
II
The early religious composers of Spain deserve a niche all to
themselves, be it ever so tiny, as in the present instance. There is,
to be sure, some doubt as to whether their inspiration was entirely
peninsular, or whether some of it was wafted from Flanders, and the
rest gleaned in Rome, for in their service to the church most of them
migrated to Italy and did their best work there. It is not the purpose
of the present chronicler to devote much space to these early men,
or to discuss in detail their music. There are no books in English
devoted to a study of Spanish music, and few in any language, but
what few exist take good care to relate at considerable length (some
of them with frequent musical quotation) the state of music in Spain
in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the golden
period. To the reader who may wish to pursue this phase of our subject
I offer a small bibliography. There is first of all A. Soubies’s two
volumes, “Histoire de la Musique d’Espagne,” published in 1889. The
second volume takes us through the eighteenth century. The religious
and early secular composers are catalogued in these volumes, but there
is little attempt at detail, and he is a happy composer who is awarded
an entire page. Soubies does not find occasion to pause for more than a
paragraph on most of his subjects. Occasionally, however, he lightens
the plodding progress of the reader, as when he quotes Father Bermudo’s
“Declaracion de Instrumentos” (1548; the 1555 edition is in the Library
of Congress at Washington): “There are three kinds of instruments in
music. The first are called natural; these are men, of whom the song
is called _musical harmony_. Others are artificial and are played
by the touch--such as the harp, the _vihuela_ (the ancient guitar,
which resembles the lute), and others like them; the music of these
is called _artificial_ or rhythmic. The third species is pneumatique
and includes instruments such as the flute, the douçaine (a species of
oboe), and the organ.” There may be some to dispute this ingenious and
highly original classification. The best known, and perhaps the most
useful (because it is easily accessible) history of Spanish music is
that written by Mariano Soriano Fuertes, in four volumes: “Historia
de la Música Española desde la venida de los Fenicios hasta el año de
1850”; published in Barcelona and Madrid in 1855. There is further the
“Diccionario Tecnico, Historico, y Biografico de la Música,” by Jose
Parada y Barreto (Madrid, 1867). This, of course, is a general work on
music, but Spain gets her full due. For example, a page and a half is
devoted to Beethoven, and nine pages to Eslava. It is to this latter
composer to whom we must turn for the most complete and important
work on Spanish church music: “Lira Sacro-Hispana” (Madrid, 1869),
in ten volumes, with voluminous extracts from the composers’ works.
This collection of Spanish church music from the sixteenth century
through the eighteenth, with biographical notices of the composers is
out of print and rare (there is a copy in the Congressional Library
at Washington). As a complement to it I may mention Felipe Pedrell’s
“Hispaniae Schola Música Sacra,” begun in 1894, which has already
reached the proportions of Eslava’s work. Pedrell, who was the master
of Enrique Granados, has also issued a fine edition of the music of
Victoria.
The Spanish composers had their full share in the process of
crystallizing music into forms of permanent beauty during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rockstro asserts that during the
early part of the sixteenth century nearly all the best composers for
the great Roman choirs were Spaniards. But their greatest achievement
was the foundation of the school of which Palestrina was the crown. On
the music of their own country their influence is less perceptible. I
think the name of Cristofero Morales (1512-53) is the first important
name in the history of Spanish music. He preceded Palestrina in Rome
and some of his masses and motets are still sung in the Papal chapel
there (and in other Roman Catholic edifices and by choral societies).
Francesco Guerrero (1528-99; these dates are approximate) was a pupil
of Morales. He wrote settings of the Passion choruses according to
St. Matthew and St. John and numerous masses and motets. Tomas Luis
de Victoria is, of course, the greatest figure in Spanish music, and
next to Palestrina (with whom he worked contemporaneously) the greatest
figure in sixteenth century music. Soubies writes: “One might say that
on his musical palette he has entirely at his disposition, in some
sort, the glowing colour of Zurbaran, the realistic and transparent
tones of Velasquez, the ideal shades of Juan de Juarez and Murillo. His
mysticism is that of Santa Theresa and San Juan de la Cruz.” The music
of Victoria is still very much alive and may be heard even in New York,
occasionally, through the medium of the Musical Art Society. Whether
it is performed in churches in America or not I do not know; the Roman
choirs still sing it....
The list might be extended indefinitely ... but the great names I
have given. There are Cabezon, whom Pedrell calls the “Spanish Bach,”
Navarro, Caseda, Comes, Ribera, Castillo, Lobo, Duron, Romero, Juarez.
On the whole I think these composers had more influence on Rome--the
Spanish nature is more reverent than the Italian--than on Spain. The
modern Spanish composers have learned more from the folk-song and dance
than they have from the church composers. However, there are voices
which dissent from this opinion. G. Tebaldini (“Rivista Musicale,” Vol.
IV, Pp. 267 and 494) says that Pedrell in his studies learned much
which he turned to account in the choral writing of his operas. And
Felipe Pedrell himself asserts that there is an unbroken chain between
the religious composers of the sixteenth century and the theatrical
composers of the seventeenth. We may follow him thus far without
believing that the theatrical composers of the seventeenth century had
too great an influence on the secular composers of the present day.
III
All the world dances in Spain, at least it would seem so, in reading
over the books of the Marco Polos who have made voyages of discovery
on the Iberian peninsula. Guitars seem to be as common there as
pea-shooters in New England, and strumming seems to set the feet
a-tapping and voices a-singing, what, they care not. (Havelock Ellis
says: “It is not always agreeable to the Spaniard to find that dancing
is regarded by the foreigner as a peculiar and important Spanish
institution. Even Valera, with his wide culture, could not escape
this feeling; in a review of a book about Spain by an American author
entitled ‘The Land of the Castanet’--a book which he recognized as full
of appreciation for Spain--Valera resented the title. It is, he says,
as though a book about the United States should be called ‘The Land of
Bacon.’”) Oriental colour is streaked through and through the melodies
and harmonies, many of which betray their Arabian origin; others are
_flamenco_, or gipsy. The dances, almost invariably accompanied by
song, are generally in 3-4 time or its variants such as 6-8 or 3-8;
the tango, of course, is in 2-4. But the dancers evolve the most
elaborate inter-rhythms out of these simple measures, creating thereby
a complexity of effect which defies any comprehensible notation on
paper. As it is on this _fioriture_, if I may be permitted to use the
word in this connection, of the dancer that the sophisticated composer
bases some of his most natural and national effects, I shall linger on
the subject. La Argentina has re-arranged many of the Spanish dances
for purposes of the concert stage, but in her translation she has
retained in a large measure this interesting complication of rhythm,
marking the irregularity of the beat, now with a singularly complicated
detonation of heel-tapping, now with a sudden bend of a knee, now with
the subtle quiver of an eyelash, now with a shower of castanet sparks
(an instrument which requires a hard tutelage for its complete mastery;
Richard Ford tells us that even the children in the streets of Spain
rap shells together, to become self-taught artists in the use of it).
Chabrier, in his visit to Spain with his wife in 1882, attempted to
note down some of these rhythmic variations achieved by the dancers
while the musicians strummed their guitars, and he was partially
successful. But all in all he only succeeded in giving in a single
measure each variation; he did not attempt to weave them into the
intricate pattern which the Spanish women contrive to make of them.
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 Olè! 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
Tárrega, 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 Albeniz, 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 to-day 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 olè, 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. Anna
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 Aragon, 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 Aragon. “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 Aragon, 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.”