Until almost the end of the last century, it happened that many artists flamencoThey were almost illiterate or uneducated, something common in the historical context in which they lived in Spain. In recent years, this has changed radically, to the point where we find a good list of highly educated and trained artists, with some degree or degree, as is the case with artists such as Rocio Marquez, Paco Escobar –professor of Philology, which has much to do with the work we are discussing–, Edu Hidalgo –Engineering professor– or my very young countrywoman Lidia Rodríguez, among many others. They even add music studies to a specific degree program, finally, in conservatories. This, they'll say, doesn't necessarily mean they're better artists, but they'll agree with us that the opposite doesn't necessarily mean they're better artists either, that being almost illiterate or having many spelling mistakes doesn't guarantee you'll sing very well, despite some well-known claims. You can tell us what you think. To us, both those from before and those from now, seem good when they are, regardless of other considerations of education and even poverty and starvation. It's like the university of life, which some put on their resumes, which, first, doesn't guarantee that you've learned, and, second, it turns out that at that university everyone learns, if they learn, those with academic training and those without, or with very little. So what counts is what counts, artistic quality, and the rest is circumstance. Of course, it is better for everyone who can be educated than not, because knowledge does take up space, a wonderful space to enrich the person and society.
One of those highly trained artists is the author of this book, Suddenly, the music. Musical poetry, soundscape and silence. Ismael Chataigné Gómez –Seville, 1987–, PhD in Philology, university professor at several universities and now dedicated to his other profession, guitarist flamenco, guitarist with the stage name Ismael de Begoña, has published this poetic anthology of José Manuel Caballero Bonald, a prize-winning writer who was able to review and authorize it before his death. Chataigné makes the selection and introduction to this short book of just over a hundred pages, published by the University of Seville Publishing HouseYou already know the proverb or the saying of Gracian: : Good things, if brief, are twice as good. That's what happens here. It is a short, intense work, very well edited and very well written, not only, of course, because of the Cervantes Prize anthologized, but also, and very much so, by the anthologist with an extraordinary, enlightening twelve-page prologue, which illuminates the keys to the book and the poet in relation to the writings that approach the world of music, to the importance that this has for Bonald, where there is a place for the music of flamenco. It even retains a touch of lyrical or poetic prose, when he writes, for example, in the first lines – p. 13 –: "The poetry of José Manuel Caballero Bonald is the latent memory of the first singers of the night. His restless lucidity takes up the witness of that primitive initiation ritual where men forged the word. In the introspection of his verses, the marvelous sonorous origin of existence appears, from the prenatal bond with the mother's voice to the most remote echoes of the acoustic nature of the universe."
"José Manuel Caballero Bonald's poetry is the latent memory of the first singers of the night. His restless lucidity takes up the witness of that primitive initiation ritual where men forged the word."
Let's see Ismael as a guitarist, in a taranta at the Seville tablao Los Gallos in 2021:
A beautiful start to an introduction that is an excellent explanation of the anthology's content and intentions, and of the characteristics of Bonald's elevated and recognized poetry, also recognizable. Incidentally, he is one of those writers of a generation who knew how to approach the flamenco with respect, research, dissemination, like his colleagues Manuel Rios Ruiz, big felix, Fernando Quiñones o Antonio MurcianoChataigné explains that the sensitivity of the poet's sense of hearing conditions his poetic thought, which establishes his poetics in listening, selecting and rearranging words with devotion to sound evocation, understanding music as a universal aesthetic pattern.
This anthology arises from the doctoral thesis of the anthologist, Literature and music in José Manuel Caballero Bonald, defended in 2017. Thus, Bonald writes about the sensations that it produces in him Jazz, Baroque chamber music, singer-songwriters, Mediterranean music, copla or, of course, flamenco, which in this book occupies its place above all in the book Antaeus (1956). In this book, the compiler of Archive of the cante flamenco (1968) and other recorded works by flamenco, addresses four palos Much loved by the poet and fans: soleá, saeta, martinete, and seguiriya. Here's a sample of the poem dedicated to the martinete, perhaps the best:
Iron and glass, the voice crackles
sacrificed to the liturgical fire
of memory, with its shattered
scattered lines
on the inhospitable land.
Precisely within the framework of the doctoral thesis Literature and music in the work of JM Caballero Bonald, directed by Ismael Chataigné FJ Escobar Borrego y JF Carcelén (2017), there was a celebration after his doctorate was awarded at a restaurant on Betis Street in Seville. Juan Murube por soleá, with some lyrics by the author of this article, with the guitar of Paco Escobar.
As can be seen, what matters to Bonald is poetic expression, and even when he may denounce a social issue, he does so with the imprint of aesthetic quality. And this at the risk of not being understood, let's say, well. At the book presentation in Jerez de la Frontera, Chataigné recalls as an anecdote that his high school language and literature teacher told him how he wanted to focus on Bonald, if he couldn't be understood.
Here is the link to the presentation of his book in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz):
The book is organized chronologically within each block, addressing the presence of music as a theme or evocation in the successive books of his career, from The divinations from 1952 until Unlearning from 2015. The blocks have these well-chosen names, taken from the poet's expressions: I. Suddenly, the Music. II. Sacred Lament. III. The Limit of the Sign. IV. A Winged Song. V. Edges of Silence.
Bonald considers himself a "tenacious legatee of silence", he thinks that evoking what he has experienced is equivalent to inventing it, and in the poem that gives title to this anthology, Offenders' Manual (2005), says at the end:
The world fits in that sudden
musical evidence of having lived.
Life and music, poetry and music – poetry is music, of course – a plan of life and art that elevated Bonald to that superior category. And the fans of flamenco We congratulate you for this, for your dedication to flamenco, for his books, his recorded works, his poems to flamenco, and now, for this magnificent, radiant anthology by the professor, doctor and guitarist – so much wisdom, so much art – Ismael Chataigné Gómez.
We say goodbye with this fragment of the show Tablas A Tres by the trio flamenco Seville Rafael Campallo (dance), Juan Murube (cante) to Ismael de Begoña (guitar). It was created during the pandemic and streamed globally from Seville's Tablao Los Gallos in April 2021.
→ Suddenly, the music. Musical poetry, soundscape and silence. Poetic anthology by José Manuel Caballero Bonald. Selection and introduction by Ismael Chataigné Gómez. Seville, University of Seville Press, 2024.
