With this third chapter we conclude the commentary on the eight recordings of the Owl, with the guitar of Florencio CampilloAs we said, they were recently located by Carlos Martin Ballester on four aluminum discs, recorded on December 13, 1934. They were in the Kurt Schindler collection of popular music at the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council). My good friend and magnificent researcher Rafael Chaves Arcos has found out the guitarist's full name: Florencio Campillo García, born in Madrid on May 11, 1875, by profession "guitarist".
We have already discussed the polo in the third record, whose label reads "Polo with a soleares ending. Former Christmas carol for the souls of the bell ringers of Seville." But before continuing, thanks to Chaves, I will correct some attributions regarding said polo. cante which are in the previous installment. The polo shirt that Mochuelo records (I am the devil, pilgrim whose lyrics, evidently, should be You are the devil, pilgrimIt is more likely that it is from Fillo (or Planeta). Let us remember that the text is a fragment of the ballad of Count Sol, very widespread among the gypsies of Cádiz, El Puerto de Santa María, and Triana, and that Planeta sang it in front of Fillo in the famous scene. A dance in Triana, Estebanez CalderonThe other style of polo (Carmona has a source), whose lyrics lie to TobaloIt would be that of this mysterious flamenco singer whom tradition attributes to Ronda. I also believe that if Estébanez Calderón describes the Planet as "king of the poles" and Antonio Barberan y Faustino Nunez They come across the news that Antonio Monge the Planet He was singing Tobalo's polo in a theater in Cádiz in 1826; it's possible that the other polo in his repertoire was the one with lyrics from the four verses of the ballad of Count Sol, a text he knew. Furthermore, Manolo Caracol, great-great-grandson of the Planet, said that "the Planet brought out the pole, which was sung without any accompaniment" (Angel Alvarez Knight, El cante flamenco, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1981, p. 39).
But let's continue with the comments from the three of them cantes that remain. As we will see shortly, the title of the other issue also fits what we heard.
Old Christmas gift for the souls of the bell ringers of Seville
And tonight balconies are for rent
for an upcoming wedding,
that the Virgin Mary gets married
with the Patriarch Saint Joseph.
And the devil, being so mischievous
He grabbed a stone and broke a lamppost,
And the Franciscan friars came out.
and they stoned him in the alley.
Hail Mary!
The record is damaged at the end, and some words are inaudible; these are the ones in parentheses. I have completed the verses using various sources.
El Mochuelo sings two religious texts here that have become flamenco-influenced over time. There is no guitar accompaniment, although a mortar and pestle—or something similar—can be heard at the end of some verses, and it closes with an invocation to the Virgin Mary. Regarding the texts, the first one was collected by Arcadio Larrea in Seville, during Mission M35, which took place between 1948 and 1949. He recorded it in a flamenco style. Chano Lobato to the rhythm of forgotten tangos, in a selection of Christmas carols that are on a record released in the United States with the guitar of Juan Serrano (Flamenco party, RCA Victor, 1966).
Specifically, in the same mission, Larrea reports on a variant of the second verse sung by the Mochuelo, with the following text:
The devil, being so mischievous,
he wanted to get inside an acorn
And the Franciscan friars came
and they pounded it in a mortar.
The same text that El Mochuelo sings is used Joaquín Turina en Erato (trovos and saetas), which is number 6 in the song cycle The Muses of Andalusia (op. 93), composed by the Sevillian in 1942 and premiered in 1944. It is worth remembering that the much-missed maestro Phosphorite He said that, among Spanish composers, Turina was the one with the greatest knowledge of canteThe song can be heard between 1:10 and 1:50 in this video.
Another text with the same first verse has been sung in Gilena, in the choirs of bell ringers or bell singers (Carlos José Romero Mensaque, The Rosary of the Dawn and its verses. Tradition and religiosity in Seville and its province. Seville, 2007, p. 86):
The devil is so mischievous
He tried to get in through a window.
to steal her scapulars,
the scapulars to Saint Elizabeth.
According to my wife, María Elvira Roca BareaIn El Borge (Málaga) it was sung as a song of rocking:
The devil is so mischievous
He tried to get into a cupboard
to steal my girlfriend's trousseau
and my girlfriend kicked him.
For its part, Pericon of Cadiz He recorded some bulerías on an EP with lyrics from the same textual family (Bulerias from Cadiz, Hispavox, 1963):
The devil is so mischievous
He wanted to get into a piggy bank
to steal money from my father-in-law
that I had been saving for over a month.
A very interesting aspect of cante —or rather, song— of the Little Owl is the stanza he uses for both sets of lyrics, which are performed for the recitation of the Rosary. It was in 1573 when the Pope Gregory XIII instituted the festival of the Virgin of the Rosary The first Sunday of October, later moving to the 7th of that month. The plague in Seville in 1649 was a catalyst for the spread of the rosary in the Popular Missions, and its prayers found great acceptance among the common people during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The essential figure of Friar Pedro de Santa María y Ulloa, born Pedro Manzanas Corral In Coirós (A Coruña), in 1642. In 1687 he went to Seville and from the Archdiocese of Seville he spread these prayers with great fervor, and they began to be carried in processions through the streets. In the Andalusian capital, he died in 1690, the man considered "the apostle of the Rosary."
These Marian prayers declined for a century, only to be revived with force in the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. The chants typically used compositions with stanzas that could be described as "bell-ringing" verses, many of which were sung at dawn; hence, these processions were called "Rosary of the Dawn" and "Rosary of the Early Morning." The earliest known sets of lyrics composed in this meter are three located by Romero MensaqueThey date from 1697 and were printed in Seville by Lucas Martín de Hermosilla. One of them is:
To the withered flower without guilt
For your mortal sins come,
and you will see him nailed to the Cross
to whom, through his death, life gives us.
Come and see
the poppy, the almond blossom
the rose, violet and lily expire.
The unusual nature of this metric structure is highlighted Modesto García Jiménez ("Bell ringers and songs or verses of the dawn rosaries." Andalusia Project. Anthropology(Seville: Community Publications, 2001, pp. 108-111). As we can see, the first four lines alternate between decasyllables (composed of two heterostichs) and dodecasyllables (with two isostichs). The rhyme occurs in the even-numbered lines and is always stressed on the last syllable. The following three lines form a refrain—also called a saetilla—which begins with a hexasyllable with the same stressed rhyme, followed by a decasyllable and another dodecasyllable—with the same arrangement as those above—the latter rhyming with the hexasyllable.
The scheme could be (the dash indicates free verse): 10 – / 12 A / 10 – / 12 A // 6 A / 10 – / 12 A. Furthermore, the rhythmic clause that supports the decasyllable followed by the dodecasyllable is formed by anapestic cells (weak-weak-strong) that follow one another almost mathematically. In this way, the text fits perfectly into the 3/4 time signature, so common in Spanish music (the reader should try reciting or singing, for example, the well-known bell-ringer's song recorded by... Manuel Torres, At the door of a rich miser, to check the ternary arrangement of its accentuation).
The earliest sound recording I've found of a bell-ringer's verse—just the first four lines, without the refrain—is by (guess what)... El Mochuelo. It's on a wax cylinder from the end of the 19th century in which, during some "Tangos de los tientos," he sings:
Up on Mount Calvary
olive branch, ray of sunshine,
They announced the death of Christ
four goldfinches and a nightingale.
This verse can also be heard in a cante by bulerías that the Lame from Malaga He recorded in the early 20s (Zarapico went out one afternoon)and in another of Manuel Vallejo (San Francisco was lost one afternoon), registered in 1933. Aurelio Selles She said that she sang this last verse the Pata, father of Ignacio Espeleta (Jose Blas Vega, Flamenco conversations with Aurelio from Cádiz, Madrid: Librería Valle, 1978, p. 50). It must be taken into account that Pata, whose name Ignacio Espeleta Monge, was born in Cádiz in 1821 (if we go by the census made public by my dear friend Antonio BarberánThis means that, at least since the 1860s and as cante festero (jaleos or chuflas, since bulerías were not known by that name), there were already gypsies in Cádiz who adapted bell ringers' lyrics to the cante Andalusian (the name «flamenco(something will be used later).
Out of curiosity, we bring as a final example of this stanza a lyric whose author was unknown and which we know as Manolito from MariaI'm referring to his famous bulería. Our father who art in HeavenThe first four verses conform to the meter of bell ringers. The lyrics are not the creation of the singer from Alcalá, as many thought, but are from a tango by Carlos Gardel written by Alberto Vaccarezza (1886-1959) with music by Enrique Delfino (1895-1967), both Argentinians.
Curiously, I haven't found the bell ringers' stanza in the metrics manuals, not even in the popular one. Spanish metrics, Tomás Navarro Tomás, in whose library were the four Mochuelo records.
Romeras with a finale of joys
Romera,
I've told you, pilgrim girl, oh.
that I don't cantemore songs,
If I ever catch you,
I might catch you,
The santolio is no good to you.
For God's sake and for the love of God,
Romera, paso por to.
Oh, when he's walking,
when he is walking,
roses and lilies you are scattering.
You are pretty,
You are the queen of the young ladies.
On the CSIC website, the audio is accompanied by a photograph of the label from the previous record, that is, "Polo con remate de soleares. Antiguo aguinaldo de ánimas de los campanilleros de Sevilla." This must be a mistake. However, the cante Yes, it is correctly categorized. It appears as "Romeras con remate de alegrías" (Romeras with a finale of joy).
The recording is a real find. Let's start with the lyrics sung by the Little Owl. The first verse is found practically identically recorded by Demophiluswhich tells us that it belonged to the repertoire of Silverio (No. 67 of the four-verse soleares of the Collection cantes flamencos, 1881). A year later, in issue no. 8 of the magazine Andalusian FolkloreDemophilus himself transcribes some letters that we detail below and that he groups under a very eloquent heading.
They are the pilgrims of Uncle José the Granadanwho, despite the nickname, was not from the city of the Carmens. His birth in Chiclana in 1818, as the great researcher pointed out, is ruled out. Antonio Escribano (Chiclana, always flamenco, Excmo. Ayto. Chiclana de la Frontera, 2001, pp. 44-54), a criterion that I mistakenly followed in Mr. Antonio Chacon (Madrid: Carlos Martín Ballester Collection, 2016, p. 214). Francisco Orgambides, specialist in bullfighting affairs, has investigated the matter thoroughlyAlthough the second surname of the bullfighter and singer has not been found José Jiménez (or Giménez) The GranaínoIt is almost certain –until his birth or baptismal certificate is found there is no absolute certainty– that he was born in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, as noted Juan Hidalgo Valcarcel in a great book (Sanlúcar flamenco: its cantiñas and performers, Provincial Council of Cádiz, 2023, pp. 193-196). It deals with this more extensively. Servando Repetto Lopez, who in the magnificent magazine that he himself heroically edits – that is, without any subsidy – dismisses with solid arguments that Uncle José the Granadan was the Juan José Pedro Jiménez Ramos, from Chiclana, as Escribano proposed. Repetto finds more than twenty news items about a José Jiménez (or Giménez) the Grenadine, who alternated his job as a banderillero with that of canteSome of these news reports indicate that he was from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, a town in Cádiz province and the birthplace of a wide variety of cantiñas. Repetto estimates that he must have been born around 1825 and died around 1890.
Along with other flamenco singers from the area, El Granaíno appears in one of the Andalusian scenes by Estébanez Calderón, from 1846. It is curious that Demófilo, who is the one who publishes the lyrics of the Granaíno's romeras, does not cite his name in the list of singers that he gives at the end of your Collection of Cantes Flamencos, from 1881. There, among the flamenco singers of Sanlúcar, he did lie to Uncle Frasco la Mica, Maria la Mica, Pepa la Bochoca, la Cagilona and Paco el Sanluqueño.
The purpose of this article is not to offer biographical details of the artists mentioned, but we couldn't resist turning to the always surprising blog. Flamenco use. There, Alberto Rodriguez Peñastrong, retrieves the news published by the Barcelona newspaper The Anchor (May 17, 1852) in which he announces that José Giménez (el Granadino) will sing the pass for him at the Teatro Principal in Barcelona Flamenco Cadiz a Manuela Perea the Girl, the famous bolero dancer from Seville.
But let us leave aside the vicissitudes of this bullfighter and singer, almost certainly from Sanlúcar, with the hope that the aforementioned fellow researchers and some others will find more information about him.
Let's continue, then, with the canteWe know that the Granaíno was a specialist in alegrías –or cantiñas– for dancing, as they were in his time, and also shortly afterwards, Romero the Tito, the Quiqui, Paco the Lazy One, the Porreta, Miguel Macaca and Juanaca.
As we can see, the Little Owl sings the first eight-syllable verse and part of the refrain. The last two lines of that refrain have come down to us thanks to Fernanda y Bernardchanging "Frascola" to "Pinini," who was the grandfather of the women from Utrera. It is well known that the man from Lebrija Fernando Peña Copse Pinini She recreated some cantiñas – or alegrías, according to the old name defended by her daughter Fernanda the Old– well known to the fans. The music has Sanlúcar roots, which is not surprising since her father-in-law, diego vargas, was from there, as was the singing family of the Frascola.
The last two verses we heard from Mochuelo are two playful little songs of alegrías – today we would say “cantiñas” –. The one that begins with Oh, when he's walking He collected it in 1882 Rodriguez Marin (Spanish folk songs, section «Requiebros», no. 1389). It refers us to the old «aranditos», a type of cantiña or rosa that ended up being integrated into the mirabrás. Faustino Nunez points out in his essential El News Tuner than in the Cadiz region Commercial Daily On October 2, 1834, it was announced that at the San Fernando Theater, «The Arandito commotion with guitar accompaniment».
For its part, Pepe the Matron recorded as «Mirabrás-rosas» (in 1947, for the private collection of García Matos, published in 1990), and also with the title "Mirabrás" (in Living solera of flamenco, Hispavox, 1976):
What is that noise?
The prisoners with their chains.
Arandito and plowing,
roses and lilies it scatters.
The first two verses were sung by the gypsy from Sanlúcar. Ramón Medrano as "Cante "of the Mirris," learned from his master Felix de la Culqueja, himself a disciple of Flask-billed ParakeetShe recorded this song in the Great Anthology of Cante Flamenco and in the series Rite and Geography of Cante (between 1:50 and 5:00 of the following video), where, after singing it, she tells José María Velázquez-Gaztelu in the presence of Luis Suarez Avila —thanks to which he agreed to record his precious repertoire— this:
"That's where Chacón's snails came from. Chacón brought it to Madrid. Chacón was also an encyclopedia. He was a man who created a lot, and besides, Chacón was an organ."
Indeed, what we hear from Mochuelo Medrano has practically the same melody as the beginning of the snails popularized by Chacón as cante aheadThat is, detached from the dance. The caracoles consist of an initial seguidilla (The grand Alcalá street / how it shines), followed by some toys and the final proclamation. That proclamation is The Chestnut Seller, which is in the little zarzuela Geroma the Chestnut Seller, with lyrics by the actor Mariano Fernandez and music from Mariano Soriano Fuertes, premiered in Madrid in 1843. Therefore, the etymology that it tells does not hold up Ramón Medrano en Rite and Geography for this cante.
Without a doubt, Soriano Fuertes was the most Spanish composer barman. Apart from the fragments of his works that were included in caracoles and mirabrás, he composed a comic-lyrical-danceable toy entitled Uncle Pinini, which premiered in November 1850 at the Teatro de la Comedia and features Andalusian dances. The nickname of Fernanda and Bernarda's grandfather – who was born in 1863 – likely derives from this work.
But let's return to El Mochuelo, who is quite a box of surprises. In 1904 he recorded some "Alegrías" which are nothing more than what we know today as caracoles, although without the final proclamation. But the melody is the same as the romeras of El Granaíno that we heard on the aluminum record we're discussing.
We can therefore conclude two things:
1st) The romeras of Granaíno, which are those collected by Demófilo, correspond to the cante which Mochuelo recorded in 1904 (initial letter in the form of a seguidilla) Alcalá Street / how it shines) and in 1934 (initial letter Romera, I've told you, RomeraThese pilgrimages are arranged as follows:
| Romeras del Granaíno = Initial letter + Little toys (sometimes alluding to bullfighters) |
Let us remember that José el Granaíno, in addition to being a flamenco singer, was a bullfighter's assistant, so it was normal that he included in his cantes letters of bullfighting.
2) What we know today as snails are a derivation of the pilgrimage songs of Tío José el Granaíno, to which the proclamation of the zarzuela was added. To put it more schematically:
| Snails = Romeras del Granaíno + Proclamation |
Or to put it another way (forgive my fondness for Mathematics):
| Romeras del Granaíno = Snails – Proclamation |
We cannot elaborate here on other types of romeras that exist, but it is worth mentioning the one that the Jacket She learned from her mother, the woman from Jerez. Tomasa the Noodle (Romera, oh my romera); the one that Pericon listened to Chiclanita (Invincible bulwark); those that disclosed The Pearl of Cadiz (You traded gold for silver) and Mairena (Don't remove the basting stitches); those that are usually interpreted with letters like Your hair and mine have become tangledvery widespread in Utrera. Nor should we forget that the Boy from BarbateAt the end of the smuggler's song, she sings these verses in the tone of mirabrás or rosas:
Romera,
that I don't cantemore songs
And if they follow you at night
the municipal guards.
All of this could be the subject of another article, but we must move on to... cante last.
Gypsy siguiriyas with change
I looked out
I looked over the wall,
The wind answered me:
What good is it to you?
What's the point of so many sighs?
What if there's no remedy left?
That with the light of the cigarette
I saw your face
And when I saw you, Mom, crying
My soul was ripped out.
Ole, ole, salt shaker,
Long live he who has (ter)
pesetas and spends them
with women;
Ole, ole, salt shaker,
Long live those who have.
This track from the album is titled "Gypsy Siguiriyas with Change." It opens with the seguiriya that Manuel Torres recreated by shortening the thirds of a previous one by the lord Manuel MolinaThe lyrics were collected in 1881 by Demófilo (no. 97 of the Gypsy seguidillas of the Collection cantes flamencos), which indicates that it belonged to Silverio's repertoire. It is followed by the seguiriya cabal de Silverio Franconetti, the teacher who was Mochuelo. A song with the first two verses identical, but as a flirtatious refrain in the form of a seguidilla, is found in the Popular songbook from Lafuente y Alcántara (1865, page 94, volume II):
By the light of the cigarette
I saw your face,
I haven't seen a carnation.
more incarnate.
It closes with livianas, something we've only heard from Mochuelo, here and on one of his albums from the beginning of the century. It's quite possible that this liviana is the "macho" of Pedro Lacambra"Calling the closure of some 'macho' is a misnomer." cantes –mainly seguiriyas, serranas, polos, cañas and soleares– must derive from the following letter of liviana, or seguidilla by Pedro Lacambra:
Whose males are those?
with so much direction?
They are by Pedro Lacambra
They're going to Bollullos.
Pepe el de la Matrona recorded this sequence with the title "Livianas" in the Anthology of the Cante Flamenco, from 1954, with the same music as the "Primitive Light" pieces found in his Treasures of the flamenco old (Hispavox, 1969), where there is another lyric alluding to Lacambra.
Pedro Lacambra lived a life that straddled—quite literally—the 18th and 19th centuries. He was a smuggler and a patron of the arts. flamencoHe was an amateur flamenco singer. He settled in Triana and rubbed shoulders with El Planeta, El Fillo, and other greats of the era. Of his canteThey treat each other with their usual rigor Manuel Bohorquez y Faustino Nunez.
The closing verse of seguiriyas – like that of Pedro Lacambra – had a more humorous text and tone – that is, lightweight– than the previous seguiriyas. José Carlos de Luna He said that the male used to accompany canteThe more serious sections serve as a coda, just as Mochuelo does here, interpreting lyrics far removed from the thematic universe of the seguiriyas. This is discussed at greater length. Rafael Chaves placeholder image en an entry of adventurers flamencos.
While cabales serve to close a series of seguiriyas with a shift to a major key, though retaining the characteristic drama of the seguiriyas, the closing with livianas—or macho por livianas—is a gentler way to conclude, as the verses have a lighter, even playful, content, as with the playful interludes that close soleares. This way of ending a series of seguiriyas fell into oblivion, but miraculously, Mochuelo's recording has survived as a testament to it. In a display of mastery, the Sevillian singer first sings a seguiriya, shifts to a major key for the cabal, and finishes with a macho por livianas. Today's flamenco singers should take note of such modernity.
*****
With the canteBased on what we knew of El Mochuelo and the eight songs seen in these three installments, we can conclude that El Mochuelo's discography contains in nuce almost all the cante old that will appear, in part and later, in recordings of other singers, with a special fondness for the repertoire that he learned from his great teacher, Silverio Franconetti.
To trace the origins of cante flamenco There's no need to go to remote Tartessos, or to the Rome described by Martial; nor to India or Al-Andalus. It all happened much closer to our time. Some dances from the Golden Age began to be interpreted differently at the end of the 18th century and finally took shape as canteGypsies and gypsy-like people during the 19th century. Antonio Pozo Rodríguez captured much of those early moments of canteHis voice has bequeathed us a precious treasure, one that was close to the threshold of this art that still moves us. The passion for flamenco He hasn't thanked Mochuelo enough for his work. What a character Uncle Antonio was! ♦
→ See here the previous installment of this series by Ramón Soler.
