el cante flamenco

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Published in 2012 in the United Kingdom byShearsman Books Ltd.,50 Westons Hill Drive,

Emersons GreenBristol BS16 7DF

www.shearsman.com

Shearsman Books Ltd registered oce43 Broomeld Road, 2nd Floor, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1SY

(not for correspondence)

ISBN 978-1-84861-210-5

Original translations copyright Michael Smith, 2004Revised translations copyright Michael Smith and Luis

Ingelmo, 2012

Te right of Michael Smith and Luis Ingelmo to be identiedas the translators of this work has been asserted by them in

accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.All rights reserved.

AcknowledgementsEarlier versions of these translations appeared inMaldon & OtherTranslationsby Michael Smith (Shearsman Books, Exeter, 2004).

Sorpresa (Surprise) by Federico Garca Lorca Herederos de

Federico Garca Lorca from Obras Completas(Galaxia Gutenberg,1996 edition). ranslation by Michael Smith Herederos deFederico Garca Lorca and Michael Smith. All rights reserved.

Extract fromA Rose for Winterby Laurie Lee reprinted bypermission of PFD on behalf of the Estate of Laurie Lee,

copyright 1955 by Laurie Lee.


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Classication ofcantes famencos

In Federico Garca Lorcas famous talk, Cante jondo(Primitivo canto andaluz), given on February 19, 1922, thegreat Andalusian poet stated his belief, supported by his friendthe composer Manuel de Falla, that the cante jondo had verydeep roots in Spanish culture, that it drew on Eastern sources,that it was sung without musical accompaniment and thatit is the purest form of folksong; the amenco, on the otherhand, he asserted, came into existence in the 18 th century,was accompanied by guitar and dance and, despite its charm,could be said to constitute a dilution of the cante jondo, beingprimarily entertainment whereas the cante jondo was a deepcry from the soul.

Disagreeing with Lorca and Falla, Flix Grande, probablythe most famous contemporaryamencoist, believes that thereare two principal categories in what are generically calledcantes amencosand he summaries these as follows:

Cante Grande

Tons (from which developed martinetes, deblas, carceleras):

Tese usually have four lines of eight syllables rhymingassonantly a-b-c-b. Originally they were sung without musicalaccompaniment.

Polo: Tis is earlier than the tonand became popular after thetonemerged.

Siguiriya: Tis has the packed emotion of the ton. It was

originally sung without musical accompaniment and it has adierent metrical structure from the ton.


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Sole: Tis can have three or four lines of eight syllables. It issung in dierent ways and is not derived from the siguiriyaasLorca believed.

Saeta: Tis is a solemn song for religious occasions.

Cante Chico

Tis category includes the tango (not the Argentine one),bulera, fandango and some others. Tey are usually happysongs with guitar accompaniment. Tey are most peoplesnotion ofamenco. Tey are primarily entertainment.

Grande nds support for this classication in the writingsof Antonio Machado y lvarez who used the pseudonymDemlo and was the father of the great poet AntonioMachado and his brother Manuel. Demlos two seminalcollections are Coleccin de cantes amencos(Seville, 1881) andCantes amencos y cantares (Madrid, 1887). In introducinghis compilations Demlo says that he believes that thecategories insisted on by the cantadores from whom hecollected his material had more to do with musical inectionsthan with anything else, but he nonetheless accommodatedtheir insistence out of respect for them.

Demlonoted the peculiarity ofamenco as a poetic-

musical genre which was neither folkloric nor the property ofall the people but the preserve of a limited group ofcantaoresand devotees of the cante:

Cantes amencosconstitute a poetic genre predomin-antly lyrical, which is, in our judgement, the leastpopular of all the so-called popular songs; it is a genrepeculiar to the cantadores Te people, with theexception of the cantadoresand their followers whom

we would called diletanttiin the context of opera, areignorant of these coplas, do not know how to singthem and many have not even heard them.


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Ford knew little of the art of the amenco, nothing of itstechnicalities, but his description is an interesting testimonyof the abiding power of the cantesamencos.

A more recent description of a cante amenco performanceis to be found (however over-written) in Laurie Lees A Rosefor Winter(Penguin, 1955):

Te rest of the night was devoted to that mostfundamental, most mysterious of all encounters inAndalusian folk-musicthe cante amenco. Tree

people only take part and the stage itself is reducedto bareness. First comes the guitarist, a neutral, dark-suited gure, carrying his instrument in one hand anda kitchen chair in another. He places the chair in theshadows, sits himself comfortably, leans his cheekclose to the guitar and spreads his white ngers overthe strings. He strikes a few chords in the darkness,speculatively, warming his hands and his imaginationtogether. Presently the music becomes more condentand free, the crisp strokes of the rhythms morechallenging. At that moment the singer walks intothe light, stands with closed eyes, and begins to moanin the back of his throat as though testing the musclesof his voice. Te audience goes deathly quiet, for whatis coming has never been heard before. Suddenly thesinger takes a gasp of breath, throws back his headand hits a high barbaric note, a naked wail of sand and

desert, serpentine, prehensile. Shuddering then, withcontorted and screwed-up face, he moves into the rstverse of his song. It is a lament of passion, an animalcry, thrown out, as it were, over burning rocks, a callhalf-lost in air, imperative and terrible. At rst, in this

wilderness, he remains alone, writhing in the toils ofhis words, whipped to more frenzied utterance by theinvisible lash of the guitar.

At last, the awful solitude of his cry is answeredby a dry shiver of castanets o-stage, the rustle ofan awakened cicada, stirred by the mans hot voice.Gradually the pulse grows more staccato, stronger,


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Here is one of Lorcas lyrics from that book:

He was dead there in the street

with a dagger in his chest.No one knew who he was.How the lamppost shuddered!

Mother.How the little lamppost of the streetshuddered!

It was early morning. No onecould look into his eyes

open to the harsh air.He was dead there in the streetwith a dagger in his chestand no one knew who he was.

(Surprise)

Lorcas lyric elaborates the external world of the cante jondo,but only to draw attention, explicitly, to the fact that we have

no knowledge of the story, the actors, so to speak. In fact, theonly actors here are the unknown dead man, the lamppost,the mother who exists only as an isolated word, a wide-eyednobody, and, perhaps, as substantial as any of the others,the harsh night air. Here Lorca stands astride that threshold

which divides the true intensities of cante jondo from theroutine versifying of his own time and ours.

Tere can be no doubt that Lorca learnt a great deal fromcante jondo. Starting from fundamentals as spare and intenseas those ofcante jondo, Lorca learnt to orchestrate his wordsto bear a density of texture as taut as that of the full cantejondo performance in which words were drawn out across theinection of the singers voice, the music of the guitar andthe rhythms of the dance. Tis, of course, is not by any means

the whole story of Lorcas great achievement as a poet, butthere can be no doubt that some knowledge of cante jondoadds signicantly to the appreciation of his work. And that isbeside their intrinsic beauty and the pleasure they oer.


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Te sighs that come from meand those that come from you,if they meet on their way

what things they will say!

Suspiros que de m salgany otros que de ti saldrn,si en el camino se encuentranqu de cosas se dirn!

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Tey say absence islike death, but I say

thats a lie: I adore youwithout seeing you.

Dicen que la ausencia essemejanza de la muerte,y yo digo que es mentira,porque te adoro sin verte.

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How can memory bethe post in absences,if it brings no messages

nor returns with replies?

Cmo ha de ser la memoriael correo en las ausencias,


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Your rm determination,your praising love so much,your dying if you couldnt see me,How quickly you forgot it all!

Aquella rmeza tanta,y aquel ponderar amor,y aquel no vivir sin verme,qu pronto se te acab!

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I dont know what it isabout the cemetery owers,

but when the wind rustles themthey seem to be crying.

No s qu tienen las oresque estn en el camposanto,que cuando las mueve el vientoparece que estn llorando.

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If for loving anotheryou want me to die,have your way:

let me die so another may live.

Si por querer a otro quieresque yo la muerte reciba,


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el cante flamenco

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