dance. In the Sevillana two dancers, one in red, the other in yellow,
chase each other like two big butterflies, amidst the rattle of the
castanets. It is at once the most graceful and the _proudest_ dance I
know.
"_Rueda_ is built up on the rhythm of the Castilian dance of that name
in 5-8 time. We are no longer in Andalusia, but in another scene: high
plateaus, where, grave as the natural surroundings, massive beings
dance who seem to have come out of the past. It is a dance of dead
cities, Ávila, Burgos and many others sleeping in the sublime sadness
of old Castile where the great winds weep.
"_Solea_ belongs to a world of magic, a world of gipsies. Each of
these gipsies seems to have in his heart and in his eyes some grief,
some unrecognized fatality. Hence the motive of my _Habanera_ and the
character of its hero, Ramón.
"_Paseo_: sun, copper, red, gold--such are the vibrations of sound
and sight of the Spanish fête. It is especially at the bull-fights
that they dazzle you, when, amid the wild acclamations of an excited
assembly the _Cuadrilla_--the troop of combatants and caparisoned
horses and mules--makes its entry into the arena. Such is the subject
of this musical 'note.'"
Mr. Laparra elaborated this suite, adding other piano pieces and songs
and on April 24, 1918, in Aeolian Hall, with the assistance of Helen
Stanley, soprano, he gave a concert at Aeolian Hall, New York, which he
entitled "A Musical Journey Through Spain." "They are not songs as they
are sung in Spain," said Mr. Laparra, "but they are the musical forms
of that country expressed through the vision of a French traveller and
treated by him with complete imaginative freedom."
Mr. Laparra was born May 13, 1876, and studied at the Paris
Conservatoire with Massenet and Gabriel Fauré. He secured the Prix de
Rome in 1903.
P. 26. "the dances and entr'actes are Spanish in colour": According
to M. Sterling Mackinlay, Manuel García, who attended the first
performance of _Carmen_ in London, June 22, 1878, was "astounded and
delighted at the Spanish colour in the music."
P. 28. "Clément et Larousse give a long list of _Don Quixote_ operas,
but they do not include one by Manuel García": This opera is mentioned
in Hugo Riemann's "Opern Handbuch" together with others on the same
subject by Purcell, Paesiello, Salieri, and Piccinni.
P. 29. "El Sombrero de tres Picos": This amusing novel of Alarcón,
translated by Jacob S. Fassett, jr., has recently been published by
Alfred A. Knopf.
P. 29. "_Il Trovatore_": We are not accustomed to think of
Verdi's opera as Spanish today. But read Henry Fothergill Chorley
("Thirty Years Musical Recollections"): "One of the points in _Il
Trovatore_,--which may be found worthy of remembering--after this
or the other tune has passed into the limbo of old tunes--is Signor
Verdi's essay at vocal Spanish gipsy colour. The chorus of waifs
and strays opening the second act has an uncouthness,--a bar or two
of Oriental drawl,--before the Italian anvils begin,--which must
remind any one of such real gipsy music, as can be heard and seen in
Spain.--Thus, also, is the monotonous, inexpressive narration of the
gipsy mother, Azucena, to be animated only by her own passion,--all
the more truthful (possibly) from its want of character. No melody
really exists among those people,--and the wild cries which they give
out could not be reduced to notation, were it not for the dance which
they accompany.--Signor Verdi may have comprehended this--though with
insufficient means of expression; at all events, some notion of the
kind is to be found in what may be called the characteristic music of
_Il Trovatore_."
P. 29. "_Don Giovanni_ and _Le Nozze di Figaro_": "Seville, more than
any city I have ever seen, is the city of pleasure ... and in living
gaily, and in the present, it is carrying on a tradition: it is the
city of Don Juan, the city of Figaro." Arthur Symons in "Cities."
P. 30. To this list of operas add Cherubini's _Les Abencérages_,
Donizetti's _La Favorita_, Camille Erlanger's _La Sorcière_, Lecocq's
_Giroflé-Girofla_, Wallace's _Maritana_, d'Albert's _Tiefland_, Verdi's
_Don Carlos_, Sir Arthur Sullivan's _The Chieftain_, and Julius
Eichberg's _The Doctor of Alcántara_.
P. 36. Probably Pastora Imperio is the foremost of all contemporary
Spanish dancers. She is a gipsy, the daughter of the dancer, La
Mejorana, and Víctor Rojes, a tailor to bull-fighters, and she married
the _torero_, El Gallo. She made her début at the Japonés, the best
variety theatre in Madrid, opened in 1900. In 1902 she went to the
Novedadés in the Calle Alcala, where La Argentina, then known as Aidá,
and the famous Amalia Molina first appeared in Madrid. The Brothers
Quintero have inscribed a sonnet to Pastora Imperio and they wrote
their "Historia de Sevilla" for her use. Julio Romero de Torres has
painted her. And Benavente, himself, the greatest, perhaps, of modern
Spanish writers, has written a description of her dancing: "Her flesh
burns with the consuming heat of all eternity, but her body is like the
very pillar of the sanctuary, palpitating as it is kindled in the glow
of sacred fires.... Watching Pastora Imperio life becomes more intense.
The loves and hates of other worlds pass before our eyes and we feel
ourselves heroes, bandits, hermits assailed by temptation, shameless
bullies of the tavern--whatever is highest and lowest in one. A desire
to shout out horrible things takes possession of us: _Gitanaza!_ Thief!
Assassin! Then we turn to curse. Finally, summing it all up, in a burst
of exaltation we praise God, because we believe in God while we look
at Pastora Imperio, just as we do when we read Shakespeare." Recently
La Imperio has been appearing in a one act piece, the music of which
was arranged from de Falla's _El Amor Brujo_.
Amalia Molina, mentioned above, was in her prime ten years or so
ago.... Zuloaga has painted several portraits of Anita Ramirez and
other Spanish dancers. One of his most admired pictures is of a gipsy
dancer in _torero_ costume.
Here, too, I may speak of La Goya, a delightful music-hall singer who
has won fame not only in Spain but in South America as well. She has
made a special study of costumes. Of a more popular type, but not more
of a favourite, is Raquel Meller.
P. 43. "the tail of a peacock": In Catulle Mendès's song, _La Pavana_,
set to music by Alfred Bruneau, he compares the pavane to a peacock.
P. 46. "its origin in the twelfth century": Tomás Bretón writes me that
he considers it ridiculous to attribute any such age to the jota. His
researches on the subject are embodied in a pamphlet (1911) entitled
"Rápida ojeada histórica sobre la música española."
P. 49. Curiously enough in a music critic's account of a voyage
in Spain (H. T. Finck's "Spain and Morocco") only a single page is
devoted to a discussion of Spanish music or dancing. The author is not
sympathetic. The rhythmic and dynamic features of the performance which
so aroused the delight of Chabrier only annoy Mr. Finck. I quote his
account which begins with an experience at Murcia: "In the evening I
came across an interesting performance in the street. A woman and a
man were singing a duet, accompanying themselves with a guitar and a
mandolin, making a peculiarly pleasing combination, infinitely superior
to the performances of the Italian bards who accompany themselves
with hand-organs or cheap harps, not to speak of the horrible German
beer-bands which infest our streets. It was indeed so agreeable that
I followed the couple for several blocks. But with the exception of a
students' concert in Seville, it was almost the only good music I heard
in Spain. Madrid and Barcelona have ambitious operatic performances in
winter, and the Barcelonese go so far as to claim that they sing and
understand Wagner better than the Berliners; but as the opera-houses
were closed while I was there, I have no comments to offer on this
boast. In a café chantant which I visited in Seville I heard, instead
of national airs, vulgar French women singing a French version of
'Champagne Charley' and similar vulgar things; no one, it is true,
cared for these songs, whereas a rare bit of national melody in the
program was wildly applauded; but fashion of course must have her
sway. At another café the music was thoroughly Spanish, with guitar
accompaniment; but, according to the usual Spanish custom, there were
a dozen persons on the stage who clapped their hands so loudly, to
mark the rhythm, that the music degenerated into a mere rhythmic noise
accompanying the dancing. These dances interest the Spanish populace
much more than any kind of music, and I was amused occasionally to see
a group of working men looking on the grotesque amateur dancing of one
or two of their number with an expression of supreme enjoyment, and
clapping their hands in unison to keep time."
Seeing indifferent dancing performed, he affirms, by women who were
no longer young, in the early part of his Spanish sojourn, Théophile
Gautier, too, at first was inclined to treat Spanish dancing as a
myth (P. 31): "Les danses espagnoles n'existent qu'à Paris, comme les
coquillages, qu'on ne trouve que chez les marchands de curiosités, et
jamais sur le bord de la mer. O Fanny Elssler! qui êtes maintenant en
Amérique chez les sauvages, même avant d'aller en Espagne, nous nous
doutions bien que c'était vous qui aviez inventé la cachucha!"... This
was at Vitoria. In Madrid he writes: "On nous avait dit à Vitoria, à
Burgos et à Valladolid, que les bonnes danseuses étaient à Madrid;
à Madrid, l'on nous a dit que les véritables danseuses de cachucha
n'existaient qu'en Andalousie, à Séville. Nous verrons bien; mais
nous avons peur qu'en fait de danses espagnoles, il ne nous faille en
revenir à Fanny Elssler et aux deux soeurs Noblet."... In Andalusia
he capitulated: "Les danseuses espagnoles, bien qu'elles n'aient pas
le fini, la correction précise, l'élévation des danseuses françaises,
leur sont, à mon avis, bien supérieures par la grâce et le charme;
comme elles travaillent peu et ne s'assujetissent pas à ces terribles
excercises d'assouplissement qui font ressembler une classe de danse à
une salle de torture, elles évitent cette maigreur de cheval entrainé
qui donne à nos ballets quelque chose de trop macabre et de trop
anatomique; elles conservent les contours et les rondeurs de leur
sexe; elles ont l'air de femmes qui dansent et non pas de danseuses,
ce qui est bien différent.... En Espagne les pieds quittent à peine
la terre; point de ces grands ronds de jambe, de ces écarts qui font
ressembler une femme à un compas forcé, et qu'on trouve là-bas d'une
indécence révoltante. C'est le corps qui danse, ce sont les reins qui
se cambrent, les flancs qui ploient, la taille qui se tord avec une
souplesse d'almée où de couleuvre. Dans les poses renversées, les
épaules de la danseuse vont presque toucher la terre; les bras, pâmés
et morts, ont une flexibilité, une mollesse d'écharpe dénouée; on
dirait que les mains peuvent à peine soulever et faire babiller les
castagnettes d'ivoire aux cordons tressés d'or; et cependant, au moment
venu, des bonds de jeune jaguar succèdent à cette langueur voluptueuse,
et prouvent que ces corps, doux comme la soie, enveloppent des muscles
d'acier...."
P. 50. "the malagueña": Gautier thus describes this dance: "La
_malagueña_, danse locale de Málaga, est vraiment d'une poésie
charmante. Le cavalier paraît d'abord, le _sombrero_ sur les yeux,
embossé dans sa cape écarlate comme un hidalgo qui se promène et
cherche les aventures. La dame entre, drapée dans sa mantille, son
éventail à la main, avec les façons d'une femme qui va faire un tour
à l'Alameda. Le cavalier tâche de voir la figure de cette mystérieuse
sirène; mais la coquette manoeuvre si bien de l'éventail, l'ouvre et le
ferme si à propos, le tourne et le retourne si promptement à la hauteur
de son joli visage, que le galant, désappointé, recule de quelques pas
et s'avise d'un autre stratagème. Il fait parler des castagnettes sous
son manteau. A ce bruit, la dame prête l'oreille; elle sourit, son sein
palpite, la pointe de son petit pied de satin marque la mesure malgré
elle; elle jette son éventail, sa mantille, et paraît en folle toilette
de danseuse, étincelante de paillettes et de clinquants, une rose dans
les cheveux, un grand peigne d'écaille sur la tête. Le cavalier se
débarrasse de son masque et de sa cape, et tous deux exécutent un pas
d'une originalité délicieuse."
P. 51. "the _Romalis_": Arthur Symons has written a very beautiful
passage to describe a gipsy dancing. If you have seen Doloretes
you may think of her while you read it: "All Spanish dancing, and
especially the dancing of the gipsies, in which it is seen in its most
characteristic development, has a sexual origin, and expresses, as
Eastern dancing does, but less crudely, the pantomime of physical love.
In the typical gipsy dance as I saw it danced by a beautiful Gitana
at Seville, there is something of mere gaminerie and something of the
devil; the automatic tramp-tramp of the children and the lascivious
pantomime of a very learned art of love. Thus it has all the excitement
of something spontaneous and studied, of vice and a kind of naughty
innocence, of the thoughtless gaiety of youth as well as the knowing
humour of experience. For it is a dance full of humour, fuller of
humour than of passion; passion indeed it mimics on the purely animal
side, and with a sort of coldness even in its frenzy. It is capable
of infinite variations; it is a drama, but a drama improvised on a
given theme; and it might go on indefinitely, for it is conditioned
only by the pantomime which we know to have wide limits. A motion
more or less and it becomes obscene or innocent; it is always on
a doubtful verge, and thus gains its extraordinary fascination. I
held my breath as I watched the gipsy in the Seville dancing-hall; I
felt myself swaying unconsciously to the rhythm of her body, of her
beckoning hands, of the glittering smile that came and went in her
eyes. I seemed to be drawn into a shining whirlpool, in which I turned,
turned, hearing the buzz of water settling over my head. The guitar
buzzed, buzzed, in a prancing rhythm, the gipsy coiled about the floor,
in her trailing dress, never so much as showing her ankles, with a
rapidity concentrated upon itself; her hands beckoned, reached out,
clutched delicately, lived to their finger-tips; her body straightened,
bent, the knees bent and straightened, the heels beat on the floor,
carrying her backwards and round; the toes pointed, paused, pointed,
and the body drooped or rose into immobility, a smiling, significant
pause of the whole body. Then the motion became again more vivid, more
restrained, as if teased by some unseen limits, as if turning upon
itself in the vain desire of escape, as if caught in its own toils;
more feverish, more fatal, the humour turning painful, with the pain of
achieved desire; more earnest, more eager, with the languor in which
desire dies triumphant."
P. 54. Another account of this dance in the cathedral may be found
in de Amicis's "Spain and the Spaniards."... H. T. Finck saw this
dance and he devotes a short paragraph to it on P. 56 of his "Spain
and Morocco." Arthur Symons's description in his essay on "Seville"
in "Cities" is charming enough to quote: "There was but little light
except about the altar, which blazed with candles; suddenly a curtain
was drawn aside, and the sixteen boys, in their blue and white costume,
holding plumed hats in their hands, came forward and knelt before the
altar. The priests, who had been chanting, came up from the choir; the
boys rose, and formed in two eights, facing each other, in front of
the altar, and the priests knelt in a semi-circle around them. Then an
unseen orchestra began to play, and the boys put on their hats, and
began to sing the _coplas_ in honour of the Virgin:
'O mi, O mi amada
Immaculada!'
as they sang to a dance measure. After they had sung the _coplas_
they began to dance, still singing. It was a kind of solemn minuet,
the feet never taken from the ground, a minuet of delicate stepping
and intricate movement, in which a central square would form, divide,
a whole line passing through the opposite line, the outer ends then
repeating one another's movements while the others turned and divided
again in the middle. The first movement was very slow, the second
faster, ending with a pirouette; then came two movements without
singing, but with the accompaniment of castanets, the first movement
again very slow, the second a quick rattle of the castanets, like the
rattling of kettle-drums, but done without raising the hands above
the level of the elbows. Then the whole thing was repeated from the
beginning, the boys flourished off their hats, dropped on their knees
before the altar, and went quickly out. One or two verses were chanted,
the Archbishop gave his benediction, and the ceremony was over.
"And, yes, I found it perfectly dignified, perfectly religious, without
a suspicion of levity or indecorum. This consecration of the dance,
this turning of a possible vice into a means of devotion, this bringing
of the people's art, the people's passion, which in Seville is dancing,
into the church, finding it a place there, is precisely one of those
acts of divine worldly wisdom which the Church has so often practised
in her conquest of the world."
P. 55. "the fandango": I found the following reference to the fandango
in Philip Thicknesse's remarkably interesting and exceedingly curious
book, "A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain" (London;
1777): "In no part of the world, therefore, are women more caressed
and attended to, than in Spain. Their deportment in public is grave
and modest; yet they are very much addicted to pleasure; nor is
there scarce one among them that cannot, nay that will not dance the
_Fandango_ in private, either in the decent or the indecent manner. I
have seen it danced both ways, by a pretty woman, than which nothing
can be more _immodestly agreeable_; and I was shewn a young lady
at _Barcelona_ who in the midst of this dance ran out of the room,
telling her partner she could _stand_ it no longer;--he ran after
her, to be sure, and must be answerable for the consequences. I find
in the music of the _Fandango_, written under one bar, _Salido_, which
signifies _going out_; it is where the woman is to part a little from
her partner, and to move slowly by herself; and I suppose it was at
_that bar the_ lady was so overcome, as to determine her not to return.
The words _Perra Salida_ should therefore be placed at that bar, when
the ladies dance it in the high _goût_."
Philip Thicknesse is one of the undeservedly forgotten figures of the
eighteenth century. He wrote twenty-four books, including the first
Life of Thomas Gainsborough, whom he claims to have discovered and
which contains accounts of pictures which have disappeared, "A Treatise
on the Art of Decyphering and of Writing in Cypher with an Harmonic
Alphabet," and the aforementioned account of a journey through France
and Spain which contains one of the earliest sympathetic descriptions
of Montserrat. Thicknesse led far from a dull life and its course was
marked by a series of violent quarrels. Born in 1719 he was in Georgia
with General Oglethorpe in 1735. Later he fought wild negroes in
Jamaica and cruised in the Mediterranean with Admiral Medley. In 1762
he had a dispute with Francis Vernon (afterwards Lord Orwell and Earl
of Shipbrooke) then Colonel of the Suffolk militia; and having sent
the Colonel the ridiculous present of a wooden gun became involved in
an action for libel with the result that he was confined three months
in the King's Bench Prison and fined £300. He was married three times.
For his son, by his second marriage, Baron Audley, he conceived a deep
hatred of which there is an echo in his will wherein he desires his
right hand to be cut off and sent to Lord Audley to remind him of his
duty to God after having so long abandoned the duty he owed to his
father. The title of his last book also bears witness to this feud:
"Memoirs and Anecdotes of Philip Thicknesse, late Lieutenant Governor
of Land Guard Fort and unfortunately father to George Touchet, Baron
Audley." In 1774 his twenty year friendship with Gainsborough ended in
a wretched squabble. In 1775 a decree of chancery ratified by the House
of Lords, to which he appealed, deprived him of what he considered his
right to £12,000 from the family of his first wife. Feeling himself
driven out of his country, accompanied by his third wife, two children
and a monkey, he went to live in Spain, but he was back in England in a
year and published the book from which I have quoted. His third wife,
Anne Ford, was celebrated as a musician and you may find some account
of her in the old Grove's Dictionary. She played the guitar, the viola
de gamba, and the "musical glasses" and sang airs by Handel and the
early Italians. The customs inspector at Cette on the way to Spain
found "a bass viol, two guittars, a fiddle, and some other musical
instruments" in Thicknesse's baggage. Thicknesse died in 1792 and was
buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Boulogne. The greater part of his
work in Spain is devoted to an account of Montserrat, which he visited
before its despoliation.
P. 56. "Mr. Philip Hale found the following account of it (the fandango
somewhere"): In the anonymous, incomplete, and somewhat incorrect
translation of Gaston Vuillier's "La Danse" (Hachette et Cie., 1898).
In the original work this description of the fandango seems to be
attributed to Tomás de Iriarte although the text is a little ambiguous,
In the English translation called, "A History of Dancing," Chapter
VIII is mainly devoted to Spanish dancing; in the original work it
is Chapter IX. Vuillier derived most of his material from the Baron
Charles Davillier's elaborate work, "l'Espagne," which is illustrated
by Gustave Doré. Vuillier quotes Davillier very freely. Davillier's
chapters on Spanish dancing (Chapters XIV and XV) are extremely
interesting and much of their material the Baron gathered himself.
There is for example a description of La Campanera dancing to the
indifferent music provided by a blind violinist whose tunes prove so
uninspiring that Doré seizes the violin from his trembling old fingers
and plays it himself with great effect. Davillier describes Doré as
a violinist of the first order who had won praise from Rossini. On
another occasion Davillier and Doré, stimulated by the dancing of
gipsies, enter into the sport themselves, wildly tap their heels, wave
their arms, and circle with the gitanas while a large group applauds.
This book which was published by Hachette in Paris in 1874 was brought
out in New York, in J. Thomson's translation, with the original
illustrations, by Scribner, Welford, and Armstrong in 1876. In the
American edition the two French chapters are rolled into one, Chapter
XIV.
P. 57. "cannot be transplanted, but remains local": James Huneker's
Spanish experiences as related in the chapter on Madrid in "The New
Cosmopolis" seem to have been unfortunate. There are those who would
disagree with every separate statement in the following paragraph:
"The best Spanish dancing is not to be found in Spain today. You must
go to Paris for Otero and Carmencita. Nor is the most characteristic
cookery in Spain; at least not in Madrid. The greatest Spanish opera
was composed by the Frenchman Bizet."
P. 62. "Spanish folk-tunes": The Spanish catalogue of the Victor
Phonograph Company offers a splendid opportunity for the study of
Spanish and gipsy folk-music. You may find therein even examples of
gipsy songs, conceived in esoteric scales, sung by gipsies, accompanied
by the guitar. Mr. Caro-Delvaille has brought to my attention Nos.
62365 (Petenaras) and 62289 (Soleares). Nos. 62078 (Sevillanos and
Ferruca) and 62077 (Jotas Nuevas), sung by Pozo, are also good. Most of
Pozo's records will be found to be interesting.