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runner -> RE: Flamenco and Arabic... How? (Feb. 27 2015 13:56:48)
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It is likely that the origins of flamenco will never be satisfactorily explained. It may turn out to be relatively new, like jazz and the blues, each coalescing out of musical odds, ends, and trends that nobody in a position to accurately record or research was interested in at the time. The music of peasants, rural people, wanderers was not important, though occasionally a trained composer might weave a bit of heard folk tune into some work. It is noteworthy that Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly in Hungary, Ralph Vaughan Williams in England, and Leos Janacek in Czechoslovakia were active in seeking out and studying their folk musics only very late in the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. And without sound recordings, it is difficult to form an aural picture of what these musics actually sounded like, let alone how they came into being. But as we know, as the 19th century wound down, many composers became entranced by Spanish folk music in general, and flamenco in particular. I love this quote from French composer Immanuel Chabrier: "We make the rounds of the cafe concerts, where they sing the malagueñas, the soledas, the zapateados and the pateneras; then the dances, which are positively Arabian, that sums it up. If you could see them wriggling their behinds, twisting and squirming, I don't think you'd care to leave."
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