Rodrigo de Zayas

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Rodrigo de Zayas

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Ricardo

Posts: 14819
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

Rodrigo de Zayas

So this guy keeps coming up in my research. I feel this Vihuela thing were were discussing in other threads might connect to Ramon Montoya through this Zayas family. It is not super clear yet, but anyway, the guy is a student of Manolo de Huelva, and knows a lot of history. Just wondering if anybody has read any of his books there, that look super interesting and related to flamenco, and if so, any interesting insights or are they worth buying? Watch from 15:10 on.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 8 2023 15:44:58

Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Rodrigo de Zayas (in reply to Ricardo)

Rodrigo de Zayas was born in 1935, too young to have had any influence on Montoya. Rodrigo's father Marius was an artist, and owned a gallery in New York City. Marius was a well known and infulential figure. He arranged Montoya's sensational Paris concert in the prestigious Salle Pleyel, and set Montoya up with the company which recorded his famous 1936 solo album.

The booklet furnished with the album contained transcriptions of the recorded pieces, written by Marius's wife, Virginia Randolph de Zayas.

According to Jose Blas Vega, Marius took lessons from Montoya "como aficionado." But what little Googling I have done hasn't turned up any other strictly musical training or activity by Marius.

Rodrigo has published re-masterings of all the known solo recordings of his teacher Manolo de Huelva, an important contribution to flamenco guitar history.

Emilio Pujol's role in the revival of the vihuela literature has been discussed here on the Foro. Here's his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilio_Pujol

What I didn't know, until I looked at Wikipedia this evening, was that Pujol was married to a well known flameno guitarist, Matilde Cuervas, who also played classical, and who was a contemporary of Montoya.

https://elartedevivirelflamenco.com/guitarristas302.html

Cuervas would have known of the vihuela repertoire. Her husband's transcriptions tune the 3rd string to F#. Montoya would have known of Cuervas, could have heard her play.

¿Quién sabe?

Miguel Llobet was a member of the tertulia that met at Santos Hernandez's shop. So was Montoya. Llobet and Pujol were friends. I don't find any record of Llobet playing vihuela repertoire, but given Pujol's enthisiasm for it, Llobet is bound to have been aware of it.

Any possible influence on Montoya is just speculation, of course.

Here's a piece by Norberto Torres on Montoya's Rondeña, with a little more meat to it.

https://www.academia.edu/47762743/Sobre_el_toque_de_rondeña

RNJ

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 9 2023 5:47:47

Ricardo

Posts: 14819
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Rodrigo de Zayas (in reply to Richard Jernigan)

Interesting thanks. Cuervas could be a connection, though she was in Barcelona, I think it would have to be via Sevilla, and or Habichuela, who records with the same people as Montoya. I guess Montoya could have encountered the situation in Sevilla…but I am not clear when she connects to Pujol, where she would have to first learn about it.

quote:

Here's a piece by Norberto Torres on Montoya's Rondeña, with a little more meat to it.

So a lot of wasted ink on the Murciano/Arcas/Borrull completely unrelated connections via the WORD “Rondeña”. That issue is what started my deep dive into flamencology after all. The main conclusion is this :

“We suspect that someone would transmit the old tuning [vihuela] to Montoya, someone who made transcriptions of the vihuela and lute pieces for modern guitar, for which reason surely a classical guitarist, and that Montoya would complete the new tuning by lowering the 6th….the fact he uses the capo at 3…is not a coincidence…”

Ok, so the authors here are missing some important pieces, though this is the same logic I am starting from. First, the capo is not a big deal as the relationships in flamenco are never about absolute pitches….that is in fact the point of the capo…to preserve the CONCEPTUAL KEY, not achieve an absolute pitch. Further, the famous keyboard tablature devised by Luis Venegas also includes harp and VIHUELA (not lute based on the picture he drew of a guitar looking thing), where the absolute pitches indeed are meant to be conceptually the same as the GUITAR TODAY relative to a modern keyboard. I am not sure if historians truly grasp the significance of that translation. What it means to me….regardless of the pitch class your instrument is tuned at, lets say by physical design or string tension etc, that is totally BESIDE THE POINT of how you are supposed to perceive the instrument. The Bermudo reinforces this concept when he asks vihuela players to conceive of mentally, or DRAW ON PAPER, 7 vihuelas at different pitches. (Basically exactly what we do as flamenco players by using the capo instead of using 7 flamenco guitars, although I do have that many!!

)

So the big thing missed is that the author does not get into WHO that classical guitarist might be. Nor the extremely important thing that I found (two pieces by Narvaez, Fantasia de Octavo tono and Baxo de Contrapunto), which is a literal basis of the tonality (ie. The form totally separate from the cante accompaniment using Abandolao as the early part of the paper explains). So a basis of the FORMAL STRUCTURE, not just the broad level tuning. Montoya would have to have been shown the tonality along with the tuning to invent the rest, not just tuning, because it is strange. The Narvaez is equally “strange” in context (of 7 to 9 Publications that don’t use the same?), hence, more than coincidental IMO. So the picture in my mind is a “classical guitarist playing Narvaez”. It has to be that specific or no dice.

The author next talks specifics of Montoya’s piece and others, however, they miss the fact Montoya uses it for cante (Salmeron 1928) which puts constraints on the timeline, and they try to equate rumored de la Caleta erroneously as an influence, without acknowledging the cante melody of Levantica.

So since that was written, I feel we have a lot more specifics to look at. For example if Pujol did not know Narvaez, etc., that would be a problem to rule out. The thing is I also want to entertain the idea that the tonalities supposedly invented by Montoya (Rondeña, Taranta, Minera), were not more than developments of tonalities already existing in the oral tradition, simply un corroborated by musicians that understand the distinction and not recorded for cante only for practical reasons, until Montoya.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 9 2023 18:08:23

Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

RE: Rodrigo de Zayas (in reply to Ricardo)

This

http://www.maestros-of-the-guitar.com/emiliopujol.html

says Cuervas and Pujol married in Paris in 1923, but it doesn't say where or when they met.

RNJ

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 9 2023 21:49:42