The three-part musical form—voice, accompanied by guitar and dance—transcended the small-group, folk-song styles and places of the Spanish underclass, particularly the Gitanos, or Gypsies, to become an art form and widespread phenomenon. Flamenco melded with the Spanish lyric theater, was represented in literature, and won many aficionados among all social groups.
From the time of its ancient history, Spain has been characterized by not only multicultural diversity but also a rigid socioeconomic hierarchy. The resulting estrangement and anomie of most of its inhabitants led to voices of dissatisfaction, complaint, and suffering in rustic social settings expressed in the works of the musical form flamenco.
Flamenco was originally cante, a type of vocal expression. Later, flamenco was accompanied by toque de palmas, or hand clapping with guitar playing, and baile, or dance. Traditionally associated with intense emotion (duende) and the individual style of the performer, flamenco has always been inextricably tied to ethnicity, marginality, eroticism, substance abuse, and rebellion against all manner of social norms.
José Cadalso
During the self-proclaimed Siglo de Oro, the Golden Age of Spanish culture, the seventeenth century apex of all things Spanish, the public had begun to suffer because of the country’s downward spiral in terms of loss of world prestige, economic privations, and socioreligious repression, which led to a national identity crisis. Then, in 1849, Mariano Soriano Fuertes
However, not everyone approved of flamenco, some because of the sexual tension inherent in the dance and some because of the shady beginnings and overlay of the genre. Several members of the Generation of 1898 writers, including Pío Baroja
Concurrent nineteenth century costumbrismo (1820-1860) literature, by such writers as Armando Palacio Valdés, Salvador Rueda, Alarcón, Fernán Caballero, and Serafín Estébañez Calderón,
Much of Spain had begun to identify with flamenco. Around 1869, it began to move into cafés cantantes, or musical cafés, and spread throughout the south and central provinces. It had even been performed in elegant bars like Los Fornos and Los Gabrieles in Madrid, the capital. The patronage of the señoritos, the young and disaffected male dandies of the period, and the majos, descendants of Andalusian immigrants to Madrid, played a role in this transformation.
During the last third of the nineteenth century, a series of nonethnic, nonpeasant singers, among them Silverio Franconetti,
In 1881, Antonio Machado
The golden age of flamenco eased Spain’s national identity crisis by providing an acceptable, yet appealingly risky, artistic form around which the Spanish could rally. The fusion of styles incorporated those of diverse groups. The geographic spread and change of venue from the bordello to the lyric theater and the musical café led to social acceptance. The period also saw the fine-tuning of technique and the addition of variations like the intense cante jondo.
The golden age of flamenco led also to a complete reevaluation of the genre as a valid scholarly pursuit. In 1922, Granada, Spain, held a cante jondo competition, with the presentation of scholarly papers, a performance of classical-music adaptations by Manuel de Falla
“Flamencology” became something of a fashion in 1955 with the publication of Flamencología by Anselmo González Climent. The majority of works thereafter have dealt with the dance and guitar aspects. Non-Spanish scholars, too, have addressed the genre, with the majority of these works addressing the origins and history of flamenco. Other scholars have looked at flamenco’s many other angles: linguistic (Manuel Ropero Nuñez), sociological (Francisco Carrillo Alonso, Gerhard Steingress),
In 1997, the Centro Andaluz de Flamenco organized a congress, where experts analyzed several representative works from the various periods. Flamenco has become respectable in the twenty-first century, but it has also been commercialized as a so-called ethnic art form and consequentially distanced from its emotional roots through an international emphasis instead on its technical aspects.
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Haas, Ken, and Gwynne Edwards. ¡Flamenco! New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000. A work on the genre that presents a combination of photographs and technical explanations. -
Leblon, Bernard. Gypsies and Flamenco: The Emergence of the Art of Flamenco in Andalusia. Hertfordshire, England: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2003. Biographies of two hundred famous Gitano flamenco artists, plus terms and a bibliography of recorded flamenco music. -
Martínez, Emma. Flamenco . . . All You Wanted to Know. Pacific, Mo.: Mel Bay, 2003. Focuses on the song and music aspects of the genre. -
Mitchell, Timothy. Flamenco Deep Song. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994. Mitchell’s application of critical theories to flamenco illuminates the genre as not only a historical phenomenon but also a psychological one. -
Pohren, Donn. The Art of Flamenco. 1962. Reprint. Hertfordshire, England: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1999. Pohren’s work is considered the bible of flamenco. A classic. -
_______. Lives and Legends of Flamenco: A Biographical History. 1964. Rev. ed. Madrid: Society of Spanish Studies, 1988. Highlights the lives of the best-known singers, guitarists, and dancers in the flamenco tradition. -
Totten, Robin. Song of the Outcasts. Portland, Oreg.: Amadeus Press, 2003. A technical guide plus a historical approach to the genre’s emotional aspect from the point of view of the best-known component of the flamenco experience, the Spanish Gitanos.
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