Andalusia Flamenco Song Context
Hello and welcome to the AST136 podcast. I’m Vy and it’s the 4th of September here in Melbourne. Today I’m discussing the music of Andalusia, with a particular focus on the component of flamenco song, known as cante and its relation to the identity of gypsies.
This intimate relationship can be examined through the gypsy sociohistorical background during the period of the Spanish Inquisition. Between the years 1478 and 1834 the minority classes in Andalusia, which included the Romani gypsy people known as the gitanos, were targeted by the Catholic monarchs who sought to combat heresy in Spain. By their hands gypsies had faced expulsion, massacre and a decreased in the quality of life.
The main themes expressed in flamenco link closely to these sentiments experienced. Many cante evoke feelings of hostility towards authority and solidarity as a nation. Cante represents the Andalusian gypsy identity; a synthesis of all the cultures who have lived in the cosmopolitan hotspot. The presence of various ethic cultures who passed through the provinces played a prominent key in the evolution of flamenco (Marion Papenbrok 1985, 39). This is evident as the style borrows components from various musical cultures. The many …show more content…
Its themes of love, death, anguish and despair were born out of gypsy experiences, who as a class have faced the worst sort of poverty and social injustice in Andalusia. To project the essence of human torment the voice is sings of imagery that evokes a biographical nature. The cantaor uses incidents of his own life and pours out a tragic story that is deeply profound amongst his gypsy brethren. The collective feelings of “contempt for civil authority and deprivation” are shared by Andalusians as a whole. It intensifies what Peter Manuel describes as an explicit class consciousness (1989, 53). Flamenco unites the people and hallmarks the gypsy social
This intimate relationship can be examined through the gypsy sociohistorical background during the period of the Spanish Inquisition. Between the years 1478 and 1834 the minority classes in Andalusia, which included the Romani gypsy people known as the gitanos, were targeted by the Catholic monarchs who sought to combat heresy in Spain. By their hands gypsies had faced expulsion, massacre and a decreased in the quality of life.
The main themes expressed in flamenco link closely to these sentiments experienced. Many cante evoke feelings of hostility towards authority and solidarity as a nation. Cante represents the Andalusian gypsy identity; a synthesis of all the cultures who have lived in the cosmopolitan hotspot. The presence of various ethic cultures who passed through the provinces played a prominent key in the evolution of flamenco (Marion Papenbrok 1985, 39). This is evident as the style borrows components from various musical cultures. The many …show more content…
Its themes of love, death, anguish and despair were born out of gypsy experiences, who as a class have faced the worst sort of poverty and social injustice in Andalusia. To project the essence of human torment the voice is sings of imagery that evokes a biographical nature. The cantaor uses incidents of his own life and pours out a tragic story that is deeply profound amongst his gypsy brethren. The collective feelings of “contempt for civil authority and deprivation” are shared by Andalusians as a whole. It intensifies what Peter Manuel describes as an explicit class consciousness (1989, 53). Flamenco unites the people and hallmarks the gypsy social