Notes on the Text
Notes on the Text
P. 13."why it was abandoned I have never learned": Oscar Hammerstein has since told me: "The score called for a large number of guitar players, more than I could get together readily. I should have been obliged to have engaged all the barbers in New York."... Raoul Laparra has spoken to me with enthusiasm about the orchestration ofLa Dolores: "The guitars produce an extraordinary effect."
P. 14."There are probably other instances": During the season of 1916-17 at least two attempts were made by Spanish companies to give New York a taste of the zarzuela. In December at the Amsterdam Opera House Arrieta'sMarinaand Chapí'sEl Puñao de Rosaswere sung on one evening and Valverde'sEl Pobre Valbuenaand somebody else'sAmerica para los Americanoson another. In April a company came to the Garden Theatre and gave Chapí'sLa Tempestadand perhaps some others. Both of these experiments were made in the most primitive manner and were foredoomed to failure....The Land of Joywas the first Spanish musical piece of any pretension (save the dullGoyescas) to be presented in New York.
P. 14."La Gran Vía": I heard a performance of this zarzuela in Italian at the People's Theatre on the Bowery, July 1, 1918. The work is a favourite with itinerant Italian opéra-bouffe companies, probably on account of the very delightfulPickpockets' Jotain which the rogues outwit policemen in a dozen different ways. This strikes a truly picaresque note, redolent of folklore. The music of this number, too, is the best in the score, aside from theTango de la Menegilda. This performance was primitive and certainly not in the Spanish manner but it was very gay and delightful from beginning to end.
P. 15."the earlier vogue of Carmencita": This list could be extended almost indefinitely. I have made no mention of Lola Montez, who danced, acted, lectured, and died in this country. However, her pretensions to Spanish blood were mostly pretensions. Her father was the son of Sir Edward Gilbert of Limerick, although she had some Spanish blood on her mother's side. She spent some time in Spain and studied Spanish dancing there, but there is no evidence that she ever achieved proficiency in this art.... I believe both Otero and La Tortajada have appeared in this country. But neither of these women could help the cause abroad of Spanish music or dancing. Of these two I can speak personally as I have seen them both. Elvira de Hidalgo, a Spanish soprano, sang a few performances at the Metropolitan Opera House and the New Theatre at the end of the season of 1909-10. One of her rôles was Rosina, which is a greater favourite with Spanish women singers than Carmen. Margarita d'Alvarez, a Peruvian contralto born in Liverpool, sang in Oscar Hammerstein's last Manhattan Opera House season. Tortola Valencia danced for a short time during the season of 1917-18 in a revue at the Century Theatre. As for painters Francis Picabia, the Cuban, and Henry Caro-Delvaille, who is almost wholly Spanish in sympathy and appearance, but quite French in his art, are both living in this country at present ... and the work of Pablo Picasso is well-known here.
P. 16.To these should be added Juan Nadal, tenor with the Chicago Opera Company, José Mardones, bass, Hipolito Lazaro, tenor, and Rafaelo Diaz, tenor, with the Metropolitan Opera Company.
P. 18."Where are they?": Pedrell'sLa Celestinahas found many admirers. Camille Bellaigue in "Notes Brèves" recommends it warmly to the director of the Opéra-Comique in Paris: "Aussi bien, après tant de 'saisons' russes,italiennes, allemandes, pourquoi ne pas en avoir une espagnole?"... Manuel de Falla'sLa Vida Brevewas produced in Paris before it was heard in Madrid. G. Jean-Aubry praises it highly.... And José María Usandizaga'sLas Golindrinashas proved immensely popular in Spain.
Pianists have not been slow to realize the value and beauty of Spanish music which they have placed on their programs, if not in profusion, at least in no niggardly manner ... but so far as I know no Spanish music has yet been played by our New York symphony societies, although works of Granados, and possibly those of other Spanish composers, have been heard elsewhere in America. This neglect is not only lamentable; it is stupid. Whether the music is good or bad, interesting or dull, New York should be permitted to hear some of it. I should suggest, to begin with, Albéniz'sCatalonia, Joaquín Turina'sLa Procesión del Rocio, Conrado del Campo'sDivina Comedia, Pérez Casas'sSuite Murcienne, and Manuel de Falla'sNoches en los Jardines de España. Of these I should prefer to hear the second and last.
P. 18."It is doubtful, indeed, if the zarzuela could take root in any theatre in New York": No longer doubtful. Now that we have heardThe Land of Joyit is certain that a group of zarzuelas, presented by a good company with a good orchestra in the Spanish fashion, would be greeted here with enthusiasm.
P. 18."in Spain Italian and German operas are much more popular than Spanish": This situation must be quite familiar to any American or Englishman, for neither in America nor in England has English opera any standing. See note to Page 70.
P. 24."Don Quixote": Anton Rubinstein wrote a tone-poem with this title.... This list could be made much longer. The second of Debussy'sEstampesfor piano,La Soirée dans Grenadeshould certainly be mentioned here.... Pablo Casals ('cellist) and Ruth Deyo (pianist) played Loeffler'sPoème Espagnolat a concert in Boston March 24, 1917.
P. 25."Raoul Laparra": This composer, of Basque blood, has been almost constantly obsessed with the idea of Spain and has probably written more consistently Spanish music than some Iberian composers who might be mentioned. There is to be another dance-opera, he writes me, to add toLa HabaneraandLa Jota, to be calledLe Tango et la Malagueña, thus completing the series of "three dramas suggested by threedances." Mr. Laparra married an American and is at present living in America. He has completed an opera entitledLe Conquistador, which obviously has do with the Spanish occupation of America. He has also written a book, "La Musique Populaire en Espagne" (Delagrave; Paris). "The best Spanish composeristhe people," is his phrase.
At a concert in Aeolian Hall, January 6, 1917, Harold Bauer played Laparra'sRhythmes Espagnols(announced as the first performance in New York). These proved to be a series of characteristic dance impressions. The composer supplied the following comment:
"There exists a world in Spain, little known outside the Iberian peninsula itself, made up of these people with their schools, their traditions. That is what I have tried to seize, that is what I am passionately interested in. Without the use of native tunes I have moulded my music on the native rhythms and forms and thereby endeavoured to interpret the spirit of the people. ThusPetenerais conceived in the characteristic style and rhythm created by the singer of that name, an Andalusian woman, who lived in the last century. Old singers who had heard her told me that she sang 'like an angel.' Nobody could tellthe date of her birth or death, and she has become a legendary character for whom all Andalusia wept and still weeps, although her beauty and her voice caused many men much unhappiness.
"Tientosreproduces the impression of those mysterious comments of the guitar before or during the singer's sobbing melodic figures. The singer and the guitar-player improvise together and, strangely enough, always in harmony, as though animated by a single impulse.
"TheSevillanasis authentic in form. Its four figures portray the 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 theproudestdance I know.
"Ruedais 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.
"Soleabelongs to a world of magic, a world of gipsies. Each of these gipsies seems to havein his heart and in his eyes some grief, some unrecognized fatality. Hence the motive of myHabaneraand 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 theCuadrilla—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 Spanishin colour": According to M. Sterling Mackinlay, Manuel García, who attended the first performance ofCarmenin London, June 22, 1878, was "astounded and delighted at the Spanish colour in the music."
P. 28."Clément et Larousse give a long list ofDon Quixoteoperas, 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 inIl 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 suchreal 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 ofIl Trovatore."
P. 29."Don GiovanniandLe 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'sLes Abencérages, Donizetti'sLa Favorita, Camille Erlanger'sLa Sorcière, Lecocq'sGiroflé-Girofla, Wallace'sMaritana, d'Albert'sTiefland, Verdi'sDon Carlos, Sir Arthur Sullivan'sThe Chieftain, and Julius Eichberg'sThe 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 thetorero, 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 exaltationwe 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'sEl 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 intorerocostume.
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'saccount 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, vulgarFrench 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 Amériquechez 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 femmeà 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: "Lamalagueña, danse locale de Málaga, est vraiment d'une poésie charmante. Le cavalier paraît d'abord, lesombrerosur 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 jolivisage, 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."theRomalis": 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 thecoplasin honour of the Virgin:
'O mi, O mi amadaImmaculada!'
as they sang to a dance measure. After they had sung thecoplasthey 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 Archbishopgave 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 theFandangoin 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 moreimmodestly agreeable; and I was shewn a young lady atBarcelonawho in the midst of this dance ran out of the room, telling her partner she couldstandit no longer;—he ran after her, to be sure, and must be answerable for the consequences. I find in the music of theFandango, written under one bar,Salido, which signifiesgoing 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 atthat bar thelady was so overcome, as to determine her not to return. The wordsPerra Salidashould therefore be placed at that bar, when the ladies dance it in the highgoût."
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 fromwhich 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 veryfreely. 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.
P. 62.When Dmitri Slaviansky visited Barcelona with his Russian choir in 1895, introducing Russian folk-music to Spain, he became very much interested in the folk-music of Catalonia. His enthusiasm was contagious and Spanish musicians themselves caught the fever. In that very year Enrique Morera made a harmonization of the first verse ofSant Ramón, a traditional melody from the island of Mallorca, which was performed bythe Russian Choir. Later Amadeo Vives founded the Orfeó Catalá, a choral society which devotes itself for the most part to the exploitation of the old folk and religious music, arranged by Morera, Pedrell, and other Spanish composers. Lluis Millet is now the director of this organization, which visited Paris and London in the spring of 1914. In both these cities the Choir was received with enthusiasm. Henry Quittard wrote in "Le Figaro": "We must confess that we have never heard anything that could approach this extraordinary ensemble." Emile Vuillermoz said, "A most varied program showed all the resources of this miraculous instrument, which ravishes and at the same time humiliates us profoundly. The comparison of our most reputed French choruses with this splendid phalanx is singularly sad for our own pride. Never have we had such discipline in a group which unites voices of such quality. Now we know what can be done. It is impossible to imagine the degree of technical perfection, of collective virtuosity, which human voices can attain, before one has heard the colossal living organ which Lluis Millet has presented Barcelona." Lluis Millet has issued a book with musical illustrations on "The Religious Folk-Song of Spain." On January 15, 1918, the Schola Cantorum ofNew York under the direction of Kurt Schindler gave a concert at Carnegie Hall in which the major part of the program was devoted to songs in the répertoire of the Orféo Catalá, sung in the original tongues. Strictly speaking these can no longer be called folk-songs as they have all been re-arranged. In some instances, aside from an occasional use of a folk-melody, they may be considered original compositions. Several of the songs were arranged, in some instances one might almost say composed, by Kurt Schindler and presented for the first time in their new form. One of these,A Miracle of the Virgin Mary, a fourteenth century canticle of Spanish Galicia, in which Mabel Garrison's lovely voice was assigned an important rôle, proved to be very beautiful. The whole program, indeed, aroused the deepest interest.
P. 62."After the bull-fight": E. E. Hale ("Seven Spanish Cities") achieved the almost impossible feat of writing a book about Spain without having seen a bull-fight. One might as well attempt to write a history of opera, after refusing to listen to Wagner'sRing. H. T. Finck ("Spain and Morocco") was satisfied and disgusted with half a bull-fight. His attitude is quoted and reflected in Baedeker.... More sympathetic and detailed accounts of this very popular Spanishdiversion may be found in Richard Ford's "Gatherings from Spain," Gautier's "Voyage en Espagne," Havelock Ellis's "The Soul of Spain," and de Amicis's "Spain and the Spaniards." Edward Penfield has illustrated a bull-fight in his "Spanish Sketches." The chapter on the bull-fight in John Hay's "Castilian Days" is very readable. The best descriptions in fiction of the tauromachian sport that I know of are in Frank Harris's very vivid story "Montes the Matador" (Gautier, by the way, devotes many nervous pages to Montes) and in Edgar Saltus's early novel, "Mr. Incoul's Misadventure."
P. 64."often introduce dialogue of their own": This is no longer true, Mr. John Garrett Underhill informs me, as the Sociedad de Autores has forbidden such interpolations.
P. 64."The Zarzuela": I am indebted to Mr. John Garrett Underhill for the following remarks anent the zarzuela: "The zarzuela was originally a three act romantic operetta, partly sung and partly spoken, and it continued in this form until the introduction of the one act form in the early eighties. The performances given at the Teatro de Zarzuela were mostly in the more elaborate form, while thegénero chico(lesser genre) made its home at the Apolo. With thechange to one act, the zarzuelas became more realistic—minute pictures of local customs, etc., built up around characteristic songs and dances, so that now the name has come to be pretty well synonymous with this species of entertainment, while the longer older form is generally spoken of as operetta. In other words a zarzuela is rather a musico-dramatic entertainment that is strongly Spanish than merely a mixed form.The Land of Joyillustrates precisely this quality, although, having no dramatic element, it is not a zarzuela.
"The most popular zarzuelas are all strongly coloured. They areLa Alegría de la Huerta, music by Federico Chueca, built up about a scene of provincial merry-making,La Verbena de la Palomaby Bretón, dealing with a popular religious festival in Madrid, Manuel Nieto'sCertamen Nacional, Fernández Caballero'sEl Cabo PrimeroandGigantes y Cabezudos, and Chapí'sEl Puñao de Rosas. All these are in one act and the spoken parts are broad low comedy. To these must be added Emilio Arrieta'sMarina, in three acts, the best example of the old form, showing strong Italian influence.Marinais the sort of operatic classic with Spaniards thatPinafore—another nautical work—is with us.
"What is most distinctive in the zarzuela isits low comedy and Spanishsal, together with that peculiar indiscipline so well exemplified byThe Land of Joy. In other words, the zarzuela is a state of mind, just as Spanish music is an expression of Spanish life, and unintelligible without some understanding of its symbols.
"It would be safe to say that every zarzuela has either a realistic low comedy element or otherwise exhibits some direct form of theatricalism, differentiating it in this respect from works of a purely artistic category. Yet it is difficult to draw the line. The zarzuela is not without a tang similar to that of our burlesque stage. The analogue would be American burlesque written by playwrights of high intelligence. Had Harrigan'sMulligan Guards Ballbeen compressed into one act, it would have been a typical zarzuela."
P. 65."La Gran Vía": See note to page 14.
P. 65."Usually four separate zarzuelas are performed in one evening before as many audiences": At the Apolo. "The evening is divided into separate sections—four or five are the usual number," writes Mr. Underhill. "These are calledfunciones, each consisting of a single play. If the firstfunciónbegins at eight, the second will follow at nine or nine-fifteen, the third at ten, the fourth shortly after eleven, and the last, which iscommonly a farce, appealing perhaps to the less puritanical elements in the community, at twelve or a quarter after twelve. A similar system prevails in the afternoons. There is considerable variation in the hours of thefuncionesin different cities, according to the character and habits of the population. In some theatres performances are practically continuous.... A separate admission is charged to eachfunción.... Spacious and comfortable waiting rooms are provided in which the audience gathers for the succeedingfunciónpreviously to the conclusion of that actually in progress, so that the delay incident to the necessary change is reduced to a minimum, never exceeding a quarter of an hour. Meanwhile ushers circulate through the aisles and boxes taking up the tickets of those who remain, although in these popular theatres the reconstitution of the audience is practically complete."
P. 69."villancicos": On the program of the second historical concert given by M. Fétis in Paris, November 18, 1832, devoted to music of the sixteenth century, I find: "Vilhancicos espagnols, à 6 voix de femmes, avec 8 guitars obligées, composés par Soto de Puebla et exécutés dans un concert à la cour de Philippe II (1561)."
P. 70.George Henry Lewes gives some account of the drama in Spain, touching on the zarzuela, in Chapter XIV of "On Actors and the Art of Acting."
P. 70."the Italian opera": In Gautier's day Bellini was the favourite composer (see P. 215, "Voyage en Espagne").
John Hay writes in "Castilian Days" (1871): "It (Madrid) has a superb opera house, which might as well be in Naples, for all the national character it has; the Court Theatre, where not a word of Castilian is ever heard, nor a strain of Spanish music.... The champagny strains of Offenbach are heard in every town of Spain oftener than the ballads of the country. In Madrid there are morepillueloswho whistleBu qui s'avancethan the Hymn of Riego. The Cancan has taken its place on the boards of every stage in the city, apparently to stay; and the exquisite jota and cachucha are giving way to the bestialities of the Casino Cadet."
It is well to remember in this connection that the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and Covent Garden Theatre in London "might as well be in Naples" too, "for all the national character" they have. Our symphony orchestras, too, perform works by native composers as infrequently as those in Madrid.
P. 75.To fill in the period between 1850-70 four names, inadvertently omitted from the original text of "Spain and Music," are necessary, those of Joaquín Gaztambide, Emilio Arrieta, Baltasar Saldoni, and Francisco A. Barbieri. Joaquín Gaztambide, born February 7, 1822, was a pupil of the Madrid Conservatory, and conductor of the "Pensions" concerts at the Conservatory. He was the composer of at least forty zarzuelas of which some of the titles follow:La Cisterna Encantada,La Edad en la Boca,Matilda y Malek Adel,El Secreto de la Reina,Las Señas del Archiduque, andEl Valle de Andorra. He died March 18, 1870.
Emilio Arrieta, born October 21, 1823, was a pupil of the Milan Conservatory from 1842 until 1845. Many of the best Spanish musicians have received their training outside of Spain. His first opera,Ildegonda, was produced at Milan. He returned to Spain in 1848. In 1857 he became a teacher of composition in the Madrid Conservatory and later became director of that institution. He died February 11, 1894. The extensive list of his zarzuelas and operas (there are about fifty altogether) includes the following titles:La Conquista de Granada,La Dama del Rey,De Madrid à Biarritz,Los Enemigos Domesticos,La Tabernera de Londres,Un Viaje á Cochinchina, andLa Vuelta del Corsario.
Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, born at Madrid, August 3, 1823, studied in the Conservatory there and after a varied career as member of a military band, a theatre orchestra, and an Italian opera troupe, became secretary and chief promoter of an association for instituting a Spanish national opera and encouraging the production of zarzuelas, in opposition to the Italian opera.Gloria y Peluca(1850),Jugar con Fuero(1851) were the first of these zarzuelas, of which he wrote seventy-five in all. He was also a teacher and a critic. He died in Madrid, February 19, 1894.
Baltasar Saldoni (1807-1890), born at Barcelona and educated at the monastery of Montserrat, was organist and teacher as well as composer. His works include a symphony for orchestra, military band and organ,A mi patria, aHymn to the God of Art, operas and zarzuelas, and a great quantity of church and organ music.
P. 76."Felipe Pedrell":El Último Abencerrajewas sung in Italian when it was produced in Barcelona in 1874.Quasimodois an operatic version of Victor Hugo's "Notre-Dame de Paris."Mazeppa(after Byron) is in one act as isTasso;Cleopatrais in four acts.Los Pireneosis thefirst part of a triptych of whichLa Celestinais the second. The three parts are named respectively, Fatherland, Love, and Faith. So far as I know the third part has not yet appeared.La Matinadais called "a musical landscape," for solo, chorus, and an invisible orchestra.
Henri de Curzon, who translatedLa Celestinainto French, has an exhaustive and extremely interesting account of Pedrell in "La Nouvelle Revue," Vol. 25, P. 72, under the title "Un maître de la Musique Espagnole." A highly laudatory essay onLa Celestinaby Camille Bellaigue may be found in his book entitled, "Notes Brèves." Bellaigue tells how he received the score in 1903 but only found time to study it during the rainy summer of 1910. His enthusiasm is unrestrained although he has not heard the work performed. The title of the essay is "Un Tristan Espagnol" and he says: "la joie et la douleur, l'amour et la mort partout se touchent et se fondent ici. De leur contact et de leur fusion, jamais encore une fois, depuisTristan, l'art lyrique n'avait aussi fortement exprime le sombre mystère." He calls the work "le plus originale et le plus admirable peut-être, aprèsBoris Godunow, qui, depuis les temps déjà lointains deFalstaff, nous soit venu de l'étranger."
P. 78."La Bruja": Manrique de Lara says of this work: "This score of our greatest composer broke abruptly with the Italian tradition which, in form at least, had enslaved our musical productions until that time. A new influence, having its high origin in works of pure classical style whether symphonic or dramatic, led our steps down fresh pathways inLa Bruja."
P. 80."La Verbena de la Paloma": Raoul Laparra told me that Saint-Saëns admired this work so much that he had committed it to memory and played and replayed it on his piano.
P. 81.A name that should be inserted here is that of Emilio Serrano, born in the Basque city of Vitoria. He went early to Madrid, where he studied the piano under Zabalza and composition, at the Conservatory, with both Eslava and Arrieta. While very young he began to write zarzuelas, the best of which belonging to this period is probablyEl Juicio de Friné. His opera,Mithradates, in the Italian manner, was produced in 1882 at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Later he produced at the same houseDoña Juana la LocaandIrene de Otranto, for which José Echegaray supplied the libretto. He wrote his own book forGonzalo de Córdoba, an opera in a prologue andthree acts (1898). His latest opera,La Maja de Rumbo, designed for the Lírico (now the Gran) has been performed only in Buenos Ayres. He has written a quartet, a symphony, a piano concerto and at least two symphonic poems,La Primera Salida de Don QuijoteandLos Molinos de Viento. Emilio Serrano succeeded Arrieta as professor of composition at the Madrid Conservatory and there are few Spanish composers of the past two decades who have not been his pupils.
P. 82."Albéniz": G. Jean-Aubry writes of this composer: "One and all the young composers of Spain owe to him a debt. Albéniz is Spain, as Moussorgsky is Russia, Grieg Norway, and Chopin Poland....Iberiamarks the summit of the art of Albéniz. Albéniz alone could venture to place this title, both simple and proud, at the head of the twelve divisions of this poem. One finds here all that emotion and culture can desire. The composer here reached a sureness of touch and grasped an originality of technique which demand much attention and which have no ulterior object. He even at times sacrificed perfection of form. There are no doubt fastidious critics who will find blemishes, but such blemishes as exist are not detrimental to expression, and this alone is important. In music there are many excellent scholars but few poets. Albéniz has allthe power of the poet—ease and richness of style, beauty and originality of imagery, and a rare sense of suggestion.... ThePreludesandStudiesof Chopin, theCarnevalandKreislerianaof Schumann, theYears of Pilgrimageof Liszt, thePrelude,Choral and Fugue, and thePrelude,Aria and Finaleof Franck, theIslameyof Balakirew, theEstampesandImagesof Debussy, and the twelve poems ofIberiawill mark the supreme heights of music for the pianoforte since 1830."
P. 82."Catalonia": Henry J. Wood conducted a performance in London, March 4, 1900.
P. 84.Tradition and often necessity have driven many Spanish composers out of the peninsula to make their careers abroad. Victoria went to Rome; Arrieta to Milan; Albéniz, Valverde, de Falla (and how many others!) to Paris. Of late, indeed, Paris has been the haven of ambitious Spanish composers who have been received with open arms by their French confrères and where their music has been played by Ricardo Viñes, the Spanish pianist, and by J. Joachim Nin, the Cuban pianist. Viñes, indeed, has been friendly to the moderns of all nations. His programs embrace works of Satie, Albéniz, and Ravel ... doubtless, indeed, Leo Ornstein.
As a result some of the zarzuela writers whohave stayed at home have produced more characteristic Spanish music than some of their more ambitious brethren. One of the reasons is explained by Mr. Underhill in his essay on the Spanish one-act play: "Spaniards are very particular about these things (the strict Spanish tradition without foreign influence). They insist upon the national element, upon the perpetuation of indigenous forms of expression, both in the matter of literary type and convention, and in mere questions of speech as well. Few writers of the first rank belonging to the past generation have escaped reproach upon this score. They were expected not only to spring from the soil but to taste of it." Equal demands are made upon the zarzuela writers. As a consequence the zarzuela, although scarcely taken seriously by either Spanish musicians or public, and always, according to the pedants, in a tottering decadent stage, may be considered the most national form of Spanish musical art.
I have referred to Joaquín Valverde in the text and his music has become comparatively familiar to Americans throughThe Land of Joy. José Serrano is another of the popular zarzuela writers. Perhaps his best-known work isEl Mal de Amoresfor which the Brothers Quintero furnished thebook. Serrano's home is in Madrid where he belongs to Benavente'stertulia. In the season of 1916-17 he organized a company for the purpose of presenting his operas and zarzuelas and conducted a campaign in the provinces. He was especially successful in Valencia. His three-act opera,La Canción del Olvido, was first performed during this tour. He recently rented the Zarzuela Theatre in Madrid and has continued to give his own and other composers' works there, including Usandizaga's posthumousLa Llama. Other works of Serrano areLa Reina Mora(zarzuela in one act, book by the Quinteros) andLa Canción del Soldado.
Here also I might mention Gerónimo Giménez, who was born in Seville. As a boy he went to Cadiz, studying with his father and singing in the cathedral. At sixteen he conducted a performance of an opera by Petrella at Gibraltar, and in consequence became the conductor of a number of Italian opera companies touring Spain and Portugal. The Province of Cadiz granting him a pension for foreign study, he entered the Paris Conservatory under Ambroise Thomas. He also lived for a time in Milan. Returning to Spain he was engaged by Chapí, who then controlled the Teatro Apolo at Madrid, to direct the orchestra at the production of his newEl Milagro de la Virgen. Later at the Zarzuela Theatre he conducted the first performance of Chapí'sLa Bruja. Still later he succeeded Luigi Mancinelli as conductor of the Sociedad de Conciertos in Madrid; he held this post for twelve years. He is a member of the Academia de Bellas Artes and composer ofMaría del Pilarand numerous other zarzuelas, includingLas Panderetas,El Baile de Luis Alonso,La Tempranica,El Húsar de la Guardia, andCinematógrafo Nacional.