The on-stage experience is not always ephemeral. Sometimes, it’s recorded to be transmitted and timeless. Carmen Linares recorded the eighty minutes of the concert ‘Remembranzas’ that she offered on February 5th at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville. And now it is released as an album-book. The repertoire revolves around traditional flamenco cante as well as Spanish poetry and, specifically, the verses of Lorca, Juan Ramón Jiménez and Miguel Hernández. All of it comes from the artist’s previous projects such as ‘Canciones populares antiguas’, ‘Antología. La mujer en el cante’, ‘Raíces y alas’ and ‘Oasis abierto’. The cantaora has given that anthology a flamenco shape, in the company of bailaor Javier Barón, pianist Pablo Suárez, cantaor Miguel Poveda and guitarists Juan Carlos Romero, Miguel Ángel Cortés and Salvador Gutiérrez, among others. The album includes a tribute to Enrique Morente por granaínas.

Carmen Linares with Pablo Suárez (Photo Oasisabierto)

‘Remembranzas’ by Carmen Linares is presented as “the testimony of over forty years of a professional career in, passion for and learning of flamenco cante”. And she thanks her colleagues and audience with a musical offering where she covers emblematic songs in her career, now a prize-winner of the Academy of Music. The recital opens with ‘Romance Pascual de los Peregrinitos’, a bulería taken off her 1993 disc ‘Canciones populares antiguas’. She resorts to her roots in the taranta, a basic cante in her repertoire, with Miguel Ángel Cortés on guitar. An admirer of traditional forms, with the toque of Paco Cortés she delivers “the essence of jondo art” with two seguiriyas: the first one as a tribute to La Niña de los Peines and the second, more personal, referring to the neighborhood of Triana, which she headed up her ‘Antología de la mujer en el cante’ (1996) with. From that same double album, she recreates cantes gaditanos with echoes of La Mejorana and the romera which Javier Barón dances for her.

Halfway through the disc, she evokes passages from her album dedicated to Juan Ramón Jiménez. Off ‘Raíces y alas’, she takes ‘Remembranzas’ por alegrías and the fandangos ‘Moguer, Auroras de Moguer’. Then, she calls on Miguel Poveda and they sing ‘La luz que a mí me alumbraba’ and ‘Canto de la resignación’ as a duo. Once again solo, she continues with one of the songs she performed in ‘Poeta en Nueva York’ by choreographer Blanca Li at Granada’s Generalife in summer 2007: ‘Asesinado por el cielo’. With music by guitarist Salvador Gutiérrez, she dedicates this granaína and rondeña to her colleague Enrique Morente. In her latest show, ‘Oasis abierto’, she matches up her flamenco nature with the poetry of Miguel Hernández. And here, she chose to record ‘Mis ojos sin tus ojos’ and ‘Casida del sediento’, with piano by Pablo Suárez. As a farewell, she sings some archaic seguidillas sevillanas together with all the artists.

Carmen Linares with Miguel Espín and Pablo Martínez (Photo Ignacio Evangelista-SGAE)