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Just back from the Goya exhibition at the Courtauld.
Goya drew several images of people playing the guitar, and many of them are women:
Though not all:
These are all from around 1820. In documented professional flamenco, playing the guitar has been almost exclusively a male occupation. Now, we don't know that Goya's women guitarists were playing flamenco. Maybe this is all irrelevant and there isn't a question here at all. But does anyone on here know? Did Spanish women stop playing the guitar over the course of the 19th century?
Also, tambourines figure quite a lot in Goya (e.g. first image here). Why is the tambourine not used in flamenco? Was it ever?
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Before the mid 19th century the guitar was played by more women than men. It was not until Ida Presti came along that women were recognized as 'concert' players.
Nice photos of Goya's work, what else was in the show?
It's brilliant. You're supposed to look at these drawings and think about old age and decrepitude, but that leads by association
old age --> death --> flamenco --> guitars
I had a flavour of the machismo connected to toque when an otherwise intelligent guitarist told me that there are no women flamenco guitarists because their hands aren't strong enough. I forbore to mention all those women cellists and Suzi Quatro.
Goya himself actually owned a guitar. I know the current owner. It was built in Cadiz by jose Pages and has Goyas initals inlayed in the headstock. Apparently he played the jota and other folk dances from that time.
I've listened to just about everything that Presti and Lagoya recorded, and I certainly agree that Presti was a concert player, one of the very best.
I haven't heard as much by Maria Luisa Anido or Luise Walker, but I have heard some of their recordings. They aren't in the same class as Presti's recordings, but then whose are?
Anido and Walker were both 15 or 20 years older than Presti. Were they not considered "concert" players? I wouldn't know.....
Miguel Llobet was well known and made a decent living as a concert guitarist, but his recordings are not so hot. In Llobet's defense, Segovia said his recordings should all be destroyed out of respect for the true quality of his playing.
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