|
SAETAS AND HOLY WEEK MUSIC. LISTENER'S
GUIDE
A discography of flamenco
prayer
Martín Guijarro, March 2005
Translation: Gary Cook
Holy Week in Andalucía is also a flamenco
affair. The saeta, the flamenco prayer that takes the form
of a seguiriya or martinete, is found scattered throughout
the history of flamenco recordings. It began life as a Spanish
religious and musical tradition; the theorists attribute the
adding of a flamenco twist to Enrique el Mellizo, Manuel Centeno,
Antonio Chacón and Manuel
Torre. Using their structures as a blueprint, this form
of cante has evolved into a form of flamenco prayer practised
by cantaores from every generation on specific occasions and
even in private. Such is the case of La Paquera, as evidenced
on the DVD from the series ‘Rito y geografía
del cante’. There are also those who took upon themselves
the arduous task of making the saeta their centerpiece, as
did recently Curro Piñana. To gain an idea of the background
of these songs, a wide range of good procession marches is
available. Of these, the double volume with audio-visual material
entitled ‘Misterios de Sevilla’, covering Holy
Week in Seville, deserves special attention. And to round
off, there's a brief bibliography of lyrics and chronicles
for those who wish to delve deeper.
Nobody knows for sure that Manuel Centeno, Manuel Torre and
Enrique el Mellizo were the first exponents but they, at least,
were the first cantaores whose saetas were immortalized on
gramophone recordings. The compilation album ‘Semana
Santa en Sevilla’ contains fifteen jondo prayers recorded
between 1930 and 1950. Besides Manuel Centeno and Manuel Torre,
featured artists include cantaores of the caliber of La Niña
de los Peines, Manolo Caracol, El Gloria, Manuel Vallejo,
Pepe Pinto, Canalejas de Puerto Real... Saetas by these artists
can also be found on individual albums such as ‘Grandes
figuras del flamenco. Volume 3. La Niña de los Peines’,
which features the saeta ‘Ay, Pilato’ (Oh, Pilate);
‘Manuel Torres. La leyenda del cante 1909-1930’,
which includes the saeta ‘Al son de roncas trompetas’
(To the sound of hoarse trumpets); and ‘Grandes figuras
del flamenco. Volume 7. Manolo Caracol’, with the saeta
‘Toitas las madres tienen penas’ (Every mother
suffers) listen,
the opening track.
Despite the passing of time, cantaores from later generations
never neglected religious content in their repertoires, taking
on board the forms their predecessors had established. Rafael
Romero, Pepe
de la Matrona, La Perla de Cadiz, Pepe de la Matrona,
Sordera de Jerez... all of these and more decided to make
room for the saeta in their recordings.
La Paquera de Jerez is no exception. There was never a Holy
Week when she missed her date with Jerez's Cristo de Expiración
effigy. Ever since she was a girl she'd seen from the balcony
of her family home in calle Cerro Fuerte how her father and
her uncles sang saetas to the image of Christ on the crucifix.
Miracles sometimes do happen, and the saeta La Paquera de
Jerez performed for the Cristo de la Expiración can
not only be heard, but can be seen as well. The second chapter
of the DVD series ‘Rito y geografía del cante.
Cantes primitivos sin guitarra. Tonás. Saetas’
contains a gem of a documentary from the 70s in which the
artist from Jerez sings saetas at the Ermita de San Telmo
hermitage itself, before going on to explain the background
of this family tradition. She herself extols the virtues of
cantaora La Sallago's saetas. The cantaora started out as
a girl singing saetas to the Virgen de la Esperanza in Sanlúcar
de Barrameda, and was called upon to perform at processions
in Jerez, Cadiz and even Seville. The audio-visual material
includes her vocals and her words. The recording also makes
room for more aspects of Easter song, with saetas from the
celebrated Cuarteleras de Puente Genil, a look at the craftsmanship
behind Andalusian parades, the young buglers and drummers
rehearsing... All in all a complete picture of the popular,
musical and artistic aspects of the Andalusian Holy Week festivities,
rounded off by Pepe Marchena with a lesson in the theory of
saeta structure.
La Paquera sings saetas to Cristo
de la Expiración
(Frame from DVD
Rito y geografía del cante. Volumen 2)
The specialists who came up with projects dedicated to Saetas
were to come later. In 1997 Manuel Mairena recorded a set
entirely given over to saetas entitled ‘Viacrucis’.
The album contains a selection of traditional local styles
as well as those written by newer songwriters. There are selections
from as far afoot as Mairena del Alcor and Alcalá de
Guadaira and Triana, with room for Tomás el Nitri and
'saetas carceleras'. And all of them marking points on the
'Way of the Cross' which gives the album its name. El
Lebrijano's ‘Lágrimas de cera’ (Tears
of wax) isn't exactly an album dedicated to the saeta, but
rather to how a cantaor accustomed to delving into other cultures
expresses Andalusian religious sentiment. When he performed
the songs from the album live at the 2004 Festival Bienal
de Sevilla, he got Lucía Montoya to sing the saeta,
while the son of María la Perrata took on the rest
of the ‘orations’ adapted to a disparate range
of flamenco forms: soleá, bulerías and even
tangos.
Among the albums containing saetas to come out over the last
decade, Vicente Soto Sordera's ‘Tríptico flamenco.
Jerez’ featuring the Jerez variation ‘Al Prendimiento’
is worthy of mention, as is ‘Antología de la
mujer en el cante’ by Carmen
Linares, which contains the style La Niña de la
Alfalfa applied back in the twenties to Manuel Font de Anta's
composition ‘Amargura’ (Bitterness), and ‘A
mi madre Remedios’ by José Menese, with the saeta
from La Puebla de Cazalla entitled ‘Redimir al hombre’
(Redeem mankind) listen.
As for the younger cantaores, the only one who's taken the
plunge for the time being is Curro Piñana. And he didn't
stop at a single saeta, but released a whole album. The vocalist
from Murcia issued an anthology of saeta in 2003, which features
flavors of saeta from Marchena, from Puerto Lumbreras and
from Lorca, among others.
To tell the truth, the saeta is a tiny island in an ocean
of music. Every step of each fraternity's procession (except
for those who walk in silence) is accompanied by bands of
buglers and drummers. The range of marches performed is extensive,
and often they're written specifically for the purpose rather
than being drawn from the traditional repertoire. A few songwriters'
names stand out: Manuel Font de Anta, Manuel Ruiz Vidriel,
Vicente Gómez-Zarzuela... In Seville, any square or
open space will do as an open-air rehearsal studio for these
collectives, providing the city with its own background music
throughout the year. One of the most wide-ranging recording
projects to be released lately covering Seville's Easter parades
is the two-volume ‘Misterios de Sevilla’. Each
volume comprises two CDs and a DVD with footage direct from
the Holy Week processions in Seville. The first volume covers
marches the fraternities whose penance falls between Palm
Sunday and the Wednesday of Holy Week; and the second volume
revolves around the marches that can be heard between the
Thursday of Holy Week and Easter Sunday. A complement to these
two volumes is the triple album ‘Antología de
Oro de las Marchas Cofrades’ (Golden Anthology of the
Fraternity Marches).
Anyone wishing to delve deeper into the origins of the saeta
has some reading material at their disposal. On the one hand,
they have a book entitled ‘La Saeta’, a collection
of writings from the late 19th century by José María
Sbarbi and Antonio Machado and Álvarez ‘Demófilo’,
as well as a collection of saeta lyrics compiled around 1928
by Agustín Aguilar Tejera. And, on the other hand,
writer José Luis Ortiz Nuevo collected news articles
from the nineteenth century Seville press in a book entitled
‘Quién me presta una escalera. Origen y noticias
de saetas y campanilleros en el siglo XIX’ (Who will
lend me a ladder. Origins and news related to saetas and campanilleros
in the 19th century). The book contains the following quote
published by Ricardo Cano in the daily ‘El Progreso’
on 13th April 1900 which sums up the complex religious sentiment
of the Andalusian people, which flamenco has also come to
make its own:
“When on occasions such as the present, the Christian
world still congregates under church domes, and lifts its
thoughts to God, amongst clouds of incense and mystical rhythms;
the people who have generosity flowing through their veins
and the sun imprisoned within their eyes, rush out into the
streets. And as they follow the parades, they intone, without
music or artistry, the saeta, that pleasant, mournful song
that makes our hearts beat and brings tears to our eyes.”
magazine@flamenco-world.com
|
