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A Cathedral in Song
| Article
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18746 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1991 |
1,633 Words |
| Author
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Christopher Manion
Christopher Manion, a writer whose work appears in several
national publications, teaches at Boston University. |
Andres Segovia, who did more for the guitar than anyone in history, strove in every way possible to remove the instrument from the realm of "folk music," including that "Gypsy" genre, flamenco. When his best classical students displayed brilliant talent in the flamenco style, he admonished them to concentrate on the higher and more respectable classical repertoire and to leave flamenco behind.
Segovia's preferences probably had a great impact on the music world over the years; the maestro was such a giant that whatever he chose to play was considered legitimate, and that which he eschewed languished in the penumbra of accepted classical performance. Nonetheless, the flamenco guitar has flourished in the twentieth century in the same folkloric dimension where it has thrived for centuries, from time to time flowing over into the classical realm (the rich opening chords of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez come to mind), and sustaining the changing face of Spanish music with a timeless and powerful character.
Like many enduring folkloric traditions, flamenco has constantly fed on the intermingling of potent musical forces: the formal quality, often austere, of classical Spain; the vibrant, effusive quality of Andalusia; the lingering, throbbing legacy of the Moors, expelled from Spain in the same year that Columbus discovered the New World--their minarets rang with the call to prayer in a music hauntingly distant from that of the church of the West that thrived in their midst, and its strains survive in the moaning, unruly cries of the flamenco artist; and the mysterious, suffering echo of the Gypsies, earthly pilgrims traditionally identified with flamenco.
Into this vast, rich caldron comes Paco Pena, at home in ancient Cordoba and heir to its m?ange of the Spanish, the Christian, and the mysterious "other." He spent the sixties and seventies in London, developing an international following for his flamenco performances while he steeped himself in its tradition and form. He returned to Cordoba in 1981 and founded a flamenco center (which has prospered ever since) that has served as his base for presenting the glories of traditional flamenco music to the world.
A Challenging Commission
In 1988, Pena was invited to write an original piece for the Wratislavia Cantans Festival in Wroclaw, Poland. The challenge was evident: to convey the soul of flamenco, so variegated in its rich heritage, to a culture far afield from anything
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