In previous work[1] We show the relationships between the styles of the Rondeña concerto for guitar, the so-called “gypsy” Rondeña of cante and the Taranto dance. We present here an interesting hypothesis regarding a possible antecedent of the dance of the Taranto –released by Carmen amaya January 12, 1942 at Carnegie Hall in New York[12]- in the shoes of The Joselito under the name Ronda.
what we already knew
Leaving aside the issue of the dance's name, TarantoRegarding this topic, which we have discussed on other occasions, we believe we should focus on the music that is sung and played and what it is called according to the era, because a change of name does not necessarily mean a musical change. Good examples are the first Tarantas recorded with that name in early discography (1907-1908): The Little Owl, Garrido of Jerez y Chacon), now known as Cartageneras. The same applies to the Mineras registered by Chacón (1913), now Tarantos, and others canterelated to the fandango family, which, depending on the era, guitar accompaniment styles, and various whims, have changed their name, while maintaining the basic model of cante.
In the matter of cante and the taranto dance, it was noted that within the Gypsy environment a variant of it must have been preserved cante of rondeña with mining airs and a peculiar touch (6th tuning in re and 3ª in fa#), in which “El Sisqué” of Barcelona made an appearance before Montoya y Borrull, under the appellation of Catalan RondeñasThat model of cante registered by Manuel Torres in 1928 and 1929 as Taranta[2] once, and Rondeña[3] Another one is the same one that Carmen Amaya recorded.[4] like Rondeña in 1956 and her sister Leonor Amaya[5] in 1957 as Taranto. These last two recordings with dancing in their final part in triple meter.
Regarding the dance, it has been noted[6] previous data on dances by Tarantas in the flamenco dancer La Malagueñita, on January 3, 1906, and the little argentinianOn January 5, 1912, although we don't know what the dance was like, nor its music. It would have to be assumed that it had a rhythmic accompaniment similar to the tarantas recordings that survive from that date. La Argentinita has a recording under the name of The regional couplet (1928)[7], in which we can hear in the third verse how this artist does a “cante "from the east" and is accompanied by castanets in triple meter during the introduction and after the cante, although it doesn't have footwork. The part of the cante It is free-form, with orchestral accompaniment at the end of the verses. It is quite possible that both La Malagueñita and La Argentinita danced their tarantas in this triple meter.
From then until the 1942 premiere at Carnegie Hall, we had nothing else that could give continuity and then consequence to Carmen Amaya's dance. But we believe we've had some luck.
The new
During the years of the Spanish Civil War, numerous artists left the country and sought to continue their careers abroad, with France and the Americas being the main destinations. Among the artists who established careers in France, Carmen Gómez Asensio The Joselito (Cartagena, 1906 – Toulouse, 1998) is one of the most important, along with her husband, the guitarist Juan Relámpago (Barcelona, 1876 – Paris, 1956).
There are several documents about the artist that are preserved in the Zayas Archive from Seville, including the program of the recital he gave on November 30, 1936 with Ramón Montoya in the Salle Pleyel in Paris, in which they also participated Amalio Cuenca and Juan Relámpago. Other details are also preserved in the handwritten letters of the private correspondence between Marius de Zayas And his wife Virginia Randolph which we will now discuss.
This was the advertising and program for the recital:
Through family correspondence, the organization of this important recital can be traced. A preliminary program was designed that included a rondeña as the dance and its corresponding musical accompaniment. Marius de Zayas's intention was to illustrate each dance with its accompaniment independently, to show that even if it was the same style, the music wasn't played in the same way for dancing. cante or for a guitar solo.
Let us read the contents of a letter from October 1936 of uncertain date written by Marius de Zayas (translation from English by us):
[...] They believe the touch should be exactly the same as the cantewithout knowing that the touch alone is one thing, the touch for dance another, and that the touch for cante It's yet another one.
My idea is that if we do a recital of playing and dancing, we would dance one thing and then play that same thing, highlighting the differences. I spoke about this with Montoya and Cuenca, and they both agree that the differences are so important that they make the same piece almost something else entirely, and that the audience wouldn't perceive any kind of repetition.
We have agreed on a program which is as follows.
First the music, followed by dancing:
-YO-
-
- Rondeña, toque
- Rondeña, danced
- Farruca, toque
- Farruca, danced
- Joys, touch
- Joys, danced
-II-
First dance followed by a drumbeat:
-
- Tango, danced
- Tango, toque
- Zapateado, bailado
- Fandango, touch
- Soleá, danced
- Soleá, toque
- Sevillanas (which I discovered were the seguiriyas all with ball)
- Seguiriyas, toque.
Letter of November 1, 1936:
[...] I have arranged a recital of music and dance with Montoya and Joselito, but “according to my rules and regulations,” which will be strictly “flamenco"No dance other than Gypsy, no instrument other than guitar, no dress other than the attire of the gypsies of the roads, of those who kill pigs or chickens, etc."
Nothing, in any way or form, that has the slightest trace of anything other than absolutely "true" Gypsy. I've designed a program in accordance with the practice of guitar playing; each falseta has a question and an answer, so if Joselito dances a Rondeña, Montoya responds with another form of Rondeña. If Joselito dances Alegrías, Montoya reacts with Bulerías, and the finale is Joselito dancing a soleá in the style of La Niña de los Peines with both feet on a handkerchief without stepping off it, and Montoya finishes the performance with a most classic seguiriya.
They have to win over the audience with the sheer merits of their dancing and their touch, without theatrical effects like in the "Folie Bergere," with authenticity. That's all.
The Rondeña style must have been eliminated in the final design of the repertoire, we don't know why, but surprisingly Marius de Zayas comments that under the name of Sevillanas they were danced dance seguiriyasSomething we'll discuss later. But let's get back to the rondeñas.
In Ramón Montoya's album published in November 1936 by the BAM record label (Music Box) There is a text in French written by Virginia Randolph Under the pseudonym Víctor Randolph, he explains the rhythms recorded by Montoya. Regarding the rondeña, he says:
RONDEÑA
The rondeña is a song believed to be purely Gypsy. It is a kind of slow fandango. It is usually sung "in the style of malagueñas," meaning that the guitar accompaniment is the same as for the malagueña, except that it is slower for the rondeña. Gypsies from all regions of Spain sing the rondeña, but its name derives from Ronda, a city in southern Spain. The rondeña is a kind of intermediate stage between the songs of the Levante region and the malagueña and the granadina. Falla says that the malagueña and the granadina derive from the rondeña. Montoya's rondeña is an arrangement he made, and its particular features are noteworthy. His tarantas and mineras contain certain rhythms and harmonies common to the rondeña, and these have more dissonances and syncopations than the malagueña and the granadina. When the rondeña is danced, its rhythm is livelier, and it resembles the fandango or jota of Cádiz.
Virginia had researched the history of flamenco through Ramón Montoya, Amalio Cuenca and other artists who later arrived in France, such as La Argentinita and Manolo from HuelvaShe had also begun her own studies in musicology, thoroughly analyzing the rhythms and melodic modes of the styles flamencoyes, acquiring a remarkable mastery and knowledge of flamenco matters, surpassing many of the experts in flamenco of his time, although some data came from oral tradition, such as these about the rondeña.
Here Virginia points out the aesthetic difference between Ramón Montoya's playing style and the cantewhich she associates with gypsies, when traditionally the rondeña has been considered a cante Andalusian, outside the "jonda" family. Nor Demophilus in its time nor Failure later they gave flamenco character to this style of canteAs we can see, Virginia assumes the rondeña is a Gypsy dance, and there must be a reason for that, and she explains its ternary character when it is danced. What we don't know is if she is referring to the cante today known as rondeña, according to the recording of Hyacinth Almaden in the first Hispavox Anthology of 1954, or the gypsy rondeña mentioned at the beginning, that is, the Catalan rondeña, the cante what is done for the tarantoWe believe it may refer to this other model of cante, since he describes it as "a kind of intermediate point between the songs of Levante and the Malagueña and the Granadina» so it would have a certain melos bewildered. He also points out that in its danced form it is faster and resembles the fandango or jota of Cádiz, that is, it would be done in ternary air, fandango type, the rhythmic pattern that the recording of Rondeña by Carmen Amaya presents in the danced part.
It is possible that in an initial design for a dance recital and solo guitar performance, La Joselito's repertoire included a dance rondeña, and that it also had a touch of rondeña, with that frenetic quality present in the recordings of Carmen Amaya and her sister Leonor, whether they are called Rondeña or Taranto. As we said at the beginning, the issue of names can be confusing, but if we pay attention to the cante which is done and to the guitar accompaniment, the different registers of canteThe guitar riffs and the recordings featuring dance show an unmistakable continuity. Let us remember that Carmen Amaya always maintained about her recording that cante It was the traditional gypsy rondeña, and also remember our information about El Sisqué, who accompanied the Catalan rondeñas on the guitar in the style of a rondeña.
We also want to remember Sabicas' recording entitled Gypsy Rondeña[8] (1958), performed in the style of a miner's song. It's a solo guitar piece, but not the concert version of a rondeña. The title probably reflects the idea that a type of rondeña, from the Gypsy community, was associated with the miners' songs and their playing style. You know He takes up Montoya's mining style again, even repeating (min. 00:40) some "taranto-type" falsetas from the 1936 recording, and from minute 1:22 onwards he clearly imitates the cante of the levantica on the guitar. Perhaps this is the reason for the name “Rondeña gitana” for this recording in the key of a minera.
Going back to La Joselito, the same year as the film The tarantos, where Carmen Amaya (1963) participates, records a Taranto dance with the cante by Jacinto Almadén and the guitar of Pedro Soler[9]It is accompanied in the style of a taranta, with melodic guitar phrases similar to those he performed in 1959. Perico the Lunar son to Rafael Romero across cantes of Madrugá[10] in duple meter.
Joselito, unlike Carmen Amaya, doesn't end abruptly in triple meter, nor does it end in tangos, as Antonio Ruiz's style would later adopt. Regarding the harmonic structures, some sections are structured every four measures and others every three, depending on the melodies of the falsetas and the dance's structure. The second verse is the levantica "Toítas las mañanas la llamo" (I call her every morning), a melodic pattern suggested in Montoya's "Rondeña," and, as mentioned, literally in the "Rondeña gitana" recorded by Sabicas in 1958.
Auction
We believe it is possible that some of the music and dance steps of the Taranto Carmen Amaya's works had a close antecedent in any of the choreographies that could be considered under the name of Ronda; and that La Joselito, who also sang, and who lived from the age of ten in Barcelona, where her mother was from, could have inherited these choreographies and canteThis lively rondeña was included in an initial show design, but ultimately it wasn't performed. We'll never know what she might have danced, or if our hypothesis is valid, but we believe that Carmen Amaya's Taranto dance didn't come from nowhere, or at least, not everything about it was new.
Regarding the number Sevillians, Where Zayas notes that he discovered they were “seguiriyas for dancing,” this could be one of the first documented examples of dancing to seguiriyas. Furthermore, after this dance number, Montoya performs a solo guitar solo in the style of seguiriyas, which could serve to confirm that dancing to seguiriyas, while not common on stage, was performed more or less informally in certain settings. We already discussed this in a previous post about La Argentinita.[11], who was one of the pioneers, that Vicente Escudero It wasn't the first, and it also appeared in the film Mary of the O de Francisco Elias (1936) there is a short note written by a girl. What we don't understand is the qualifier of sevillanas For something so different from seguiriyas… Anyway, another mystery. ♦
[1] “On the how, when and why of the playing of the taranto”, Virtual Symphony 35. Summer 2018. https://www.guillermocastrobuendia.es/taranto.html; and “The enigmatic Sisqué and La Rondeña for guitar” Expoflamenco, June 18, 2025. https://expoflamenco.com/revista/el-enigmatico-sisque-y-la-rondena-para-guitarra/
[2] “Give me the spurs.” (Odeon 182.289b, SO 4.733). Guitar by Miguel Borrull Jr. https://youtu.be/W7EXYIgHuxw?si=X0jNs509ZElI9gxH
[3] “Where could my boy be?” (Gramophone AE 2.511 262.859) Guitar by Miguel Borrull Jr. https://youtu.be/9nPvgNgTpX0?si=iWlUkRbDOsUQTK7O
[4] Disc Queen of the Gypsies, (DECCA DL-9816). Sabicas Guitar. https://youtu.be/oaiEKUgIIWw?si=hF7TV6Jc8xu6q9aa
[5] Anthology of the Cante Flamenco from the Orfeón label (LP-JM-05), released in 1958, according to data from José Manuel Gamboa. He is accompanied on guitar by Manolo Medina. https://youtu.be/8FldHPhwfz8?si=rQWIhZIlVzi77hnF
[6] Presented by José Luis Navarro in the Research Journal on Flamenco The Dawn No. 2, 2010: http://revistas.um.es/flamenco/article/view/110011/104691 and on the Blog The Echo of Memory http://elecodelamemoria.blogspot.com.es/2012/07/la-argentinita-por-marianas.html
[7] The Regional Couplet. Luis de Tapia y Font de Anta. (Gramophone BJ 1412 – 2-263943 – AE 2384). At minute 1:34, he announces La Argentinita «Andalusian couplet, or rather, from the Levante region…» and sings “Don’t try to make me a miner...". https://youtu.be/J6y05I5e4-E?si=cdmizFxXxp3WGinZRafael Chaves considers the cante of this recording as a version of the Minera by Pedro El Morato. The CanteMiners through slate and cylinder logs, El Flamenco Vive, Madrid, 2012. Page 163.
[8] the greatest flamenco Guitarist Vol. III (Elektra EKL-145). https://youtu.be/E7iLmlglZxc?si=YJ27aDOOtfnnRkuT
[9] Riches Heures du Flamenco (Le Chant du Monde LDX-S 4262). We have located another recording of La Joselito from 1961 (Le Chant Du Monde – LDM 4214) also with Pedro Soler's guitar, but without cante, of similar musicality to the previous one, of which there is a recording on the Internet: https://youtu.be/fYPzQ6cHkjQ?si=Qne7HqO4g2C3xMRg
[10] Cante of the Early Morning. (BAM LD 359). https://youtu.be/aRzVEOq9P3g?si=FfxZVx_Jp-N-TFNt
[11] Expoflamenco, January 15, 2025 https://expoflamenco.com/revista/vicente-escudero-no-fue-el-primero-por-seguiriyas/
[12] HIDALGO, Francisco. Carmen amaya. The Biography, Carena Editions, Barcelona 2010. Page 160.
