Forgotten Sounds of Flamenco

In the world of flamenco research, sometimes we resort to what we call "cajones de sastre," which are sentences that serve to conclude the research on a specific topic instead of investigating it further. In this episode, we review some of the most commonly used "catch-all drawers" and listen to some very unknown 19th-century flamenco music.

As a result of the arrival of the guajira to Spain from Cuban lands, and due to the rapid popularity it had throughout the country, new models of guajiras began to emerge, and some of them were very popular, among them the so-called "Guajiras vida mía," which were all the rage at the beginning of the last century. In this episode, we discuss what these guajiras were like and if they had any precedent in Cuba. You can listen to some musical samples of this type of guajiras.

The "Alegrías de Cádiz" is nowadays one of the most famous flamenco songs, dances, and guitar playing in flamenco recitals and concerts, but did you know how long this palo has been known by that name? In this episode, we talk about the early days of alegrías, and we listen to some musical samples of old alegrías and music that may have been related to them.

One of the intriguing puzzles in flamenco history is the sudden appearance of the soleá in the mid-nineteenth century. A decade and a half ago, Lénica Reyes and José Miguel Hernández Jaramillo conducted research that unearthed enough clues to propose a hypothesis about the formation of the soleá. The results, which were unveiled at a conference in 2010, are yet to be published. In this episode, we delve into these groundbreaking findings that highlight the direct correlation between the soleá and a song that was imported from Mexican lands: The petenera.

In the world of flamencology, some theories about the beginnings of the flamenco concert guitar contrast with recent research. In this episode, we analyze what these differences consist of, and we will see if we can really consider that there was a flamenco concert guitar in the 19th century, listening to some musical samples from that period.

There have always been people who have taken ideas and music from others without mentioning them, claiming authorship, or even making money out of it. In this episode, we show how this questionable practice has existed since the early days of flamenco, both in writing and in flamenco music itself. We hear some musical examples that clearly illustrate it. We also talk about how this practice, unfortunately, still exists.

Hit lists are a great way to get an insight into the most popular songs of a specific time frame. For this episode, we have curated a definitive list of the best flamenco hits, considering the recordings produced in the first two decades of the recording industry. We will thoroughly inspect the top ten highest-ranked flamenco songs (palos) on this remarkable list.

The Sevillian composer Manuel Font de Anta is perhaps best known for authoring some of the most emblematic processional marches of Holy Week, such as "Amarguras" or "Soleá dame la mano." What is not so well known is that Font de Anta also composed some flamenco works for piano. In this episode, we review some of these works, which are entirely unknown, and listen to some of them. 

The name "the panaderos" was given to popular music and dance in Spain in the 19th century. They probably arrived to Spain from Mexico, where it was already being danced two and a half centuries ago. It was a common "palo" in the flamenco of the 19th century and somehow, as we see in this episode, never disappeared. We review the history of the panaderos in flamenco and listen to some of them from the 19th century, some of which still need to be discovered.

At the end of the 19th century, one of the most important European singers of the time, the French Anne Judic, triumphed in Spain, Mexico, and Cuba, singing one of the most famous flamenco songs of the time: the peteneras. In this episode, we review who Anne Judic was, how she arrived in Spain, where she learned to sing the peteneras, and why she drove half the world crazy with her voice. We also hear her own voice singing on an old wax cylinder and some of the flamenco compositions inspired by Anne herself.