Of the many influences that contributed to the birth of flamenco music, the tirana has surely been the most forgotten by the flamencoLogia. It was a musical genre of the 18th century with a strong presence in the repertoire of tonadillas, sainetes, and entremeses. It is both song and dance, and is generally performed in 3/8 time with a fast, syncopated tempo. In the late 18th century, it often replaced the seguidillas as the final number of tonadillas. Many handwritten clues about the genre's origins can be found in this immense repertoire (more than three thousand short pieces). flamencoFor example, in this duet tune from 1794 composed by the Italian-Spanish composer Lorenzo Bruzzoni with the title The poor maja and the lovestruck majo or The zorongo Part 2 We found the following dialogue:
Him: What a woman I've come across
with tremendous "hungers"
from hearing you play the guitar
and one of our songs
She: Well, look, I'm going to sing to you,
What shall I sing to you, lalea?
which she showed me in Cádiz
a gypsy woman of those kinds
Him: Here, take the guitar
And the world below will take its revenge, lalea.
Let's conclude our zambra (party)
with a new tyrant,
And look, you have to dance
that which is a hit in Madrid.
She: The gypsy-style dance
playing the castanets.
No one should doubt the link between these sources and the origins of flamencoThe spirit of the tirana may have influenced the crystallization of jaleos as a musical genre, partly due to its tendency to accentuate beats 2 and 3 in triple meter, so characteristic of bulerías from Cádiz. Indeed, the tirana was considered a model of wit and charm, as it says Pablo Esteve en The gallant page, tonadilla a tres de 1777:
The tyrant is a song
with so many salts,
what if any French person hears it
The Frenchman falls apart.
That she was lively and boisterous, personified as a daughter of the sea, because of how salty she is, is confirmed in the anonymous farce The guard's wedding of 1777:
The tyrant is very sad
because carnival is short
and it is the first Lent
who has to fast,
Oh, my little tyrant
I feel sorry for you.
Throw out sailors
the fishing net,
and so the tyrant
She is a daughter of the sea.
Bring him fish
that do not contain salt,
that she with hers
will season them.
This verse testifies to his Gypsy ancestry. Blas de Laserna all with The comonkeys suddenly, a short comic play from 1782:
This tyranny that is so polished, a gypsy taught it to me.
And the fact that it was played accompanied by the guitar is demonstrated by another of the great authors of this repertoire, Pablo Esteve, in his solo tonadilla. Warning to outsiders and misuse of the language, Tonadilla a solo, 1784
In idle time
that I have at home,
I composed on my own
a tyrant.
Listen to it, dear ones
with the guitar.
The score indicates that the singer accompanies herself on the guitar to sing the "tirana," a very common practice in this type of lyrical work. And it was also danced, in the very flamenco style of Jacinto Valledor The cool ones on the road, without date (1770?) it was sung:
More than all the suits
of great France,
It's worth a mantilla
of those from Spain.
And its jumps
of fandango and tyrant
They are a marvel.
And in the solo tune by the man from Cádiz Tomás Abril entitled The anonymous, from 1779, it says: “A song and let it be a Minuet of the vineyard shaking the knucklebones with theology”:
Come, neighborhoods of the world,
Lavapies or Maravillas,
the savory ones are to be envied
bunches from our vineyard.
Oh, pull, tyrant, tyrant
His Cadiz ancestry seems to be confirmed by the verses of the new tyrant by Pablo Esteve in The helpless and protected, a duet tune from 1780:
A new tyrant
Listen, dear ones,
that he brought from Cadiz
your parrot.
"The tirana is both song and dance, and is generally performed in 3/8 time with a fast, syncopated tempo. In the late 18th century, it often replaced the seguidillas as the final number of the tonadillas. Many clues about the genre's origins can be found in this immense repertoire (more than three thousand short pieces), written in manuscript." flamenco»
There were also some from the Indies, specifically from Peru, and I was able to verify this in a box that contained "Various loose papers from the writing sections and other unidentifiable items":
The people of Lima have brought them.
many exquisite things,
a new tyrant
I want some pitchers,
Sing my life
the new song,
that the people of Lima brought
on his boat.
Regarding the tyrant's relatives, the Navarrese Blas de Laserna He set several verses to music that can clarify his ancestry and descendants. In the four-part song The resurrection of the tyrant of 1781 It was said and sung in the manner of a family tree:
They know, according to what they say.
gossip
that the tyrant died
requiem eternam
I, the much-talked-about horse
I was his biological father.
I, the fandango, her husband
I was left without her,
weeping over his misfortune
in my sad solitude.
To the tyrant, gentlemen
She has already been buried.
and then they found her alive
the undertaker and the priest.
tiri ri ri ri ri ay, tiri ri ri ay, tiri tiri ay.
And in The last one to arrive, undated tonadilla a tres by Laserna, these seguidillas mention other “relatives”:
If the bolero to the fandango
He took away his throne,
to avenge the fandango
The zorongo came.
Oh dear, because it is written:
that he who kills with a knife
dies by knife.
He killed the seguidillas
the Italian aria,
and this has been plunder
of the Polish woman.
Apparently it was a very recurring theme; if you don't believe me, read these verses set to music by Pablo Esteve in The hairdresser and the dressmaker, a four-part tune from 1788:
Oh tyrant, even if you die
Very few will feel it
Well, all that's left are the bowling alleys.
that they will fill your void.
As I said at the beginning, the tirana often replaced the seguidillas with which the tonadillas usually concluded, entering into competition with the bolero, as mentioned Mariano Bustos en The fickle lady, tonadilla a tres de 1790:
A wedding the other day
It was celebrated in this town
between the cheerful tyrant
and amidst the festive bolero.
Oh tyrant, pull tyrannie,
the bolero was saying to the tyrant,
They will be our little children
the salt of Spain.
Tiranilla, bolerillo,
This time the Spanish
will have more comical pleasures
your commendable union.
La Madrid Municipal Library It holds thousands of forgotten tyrants, like that of The mat maker, the dandy, and the officer by Pablo Esteve, general tune of 1783:
With the cuchirivís
You're not fooling me,
with the cuchirivó,
You won't fool me, no.
Tirani cuchirisví
tirani cuchirisvó.
To avoid being tedious, just two more brushstrokes. One of the most used expressions in the tyranny is "tyranny and walking," which is so reminiscent of... Stop and walk from Marchena. And to conclude, the most popular tyrant of those that have come down to us from those years of the 1780s. She began to appear in the songs of Blas de Laserna and Pablo Esteve and was revived by Ramón Carnicer in his three-part tune of 1836 The teachers of Raboso or The Tripili.
Tripili tripili trapala,
that this tyrant is sung and danced about.
Go on, girl, do it with grace!
that steals my soul.
