Lorca, the musician.
Collaboration with/influence of Manuel de Falla.
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Later, Lorca's love of popular music was nurtured by his contact with Manuel de Falla, who settled in Granada in 1919. Together, Lorca and Falla would travel through the villages of Andalusia on the lookout for genuine traditional folk songs. | 
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Cante Jondo.
The two men's shared interest in Andalusian folk music came to fruition in the organising of the Cante Jondo Competition in June 1922.
| Antonio López Sánchez.
Caricatura del concurso del cante jondo. |
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On stage: Diego Bermúdez, alias El Tío Tenazas. He was the relevation of the event, having walked from Puente Genil to take part. They say he had given up professional singing some 30 years before, because he had a lung punctured by a knife wound. There's Lorca in the third row, with his hand over his head. In front of him, to his left, Manuel de Falla. Front left:
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| A recording of the highlights of this two-day competition is available through the García Lorca Foundation. |
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LEFT: El poema del cante jondo, most of it written in November 1921, published 1931.
RIGHT: Pastora Pavón, La niña de los peines (1890-1969). |
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Return to Granada la Bella Home Page Return to Lorca Chronology Page |
| Canciones Populares
Españoles. (Spanish
Folk Songs). Popular Spanish music pervades all of Lorca's dramatic and poetic production in various ways. But his fascination with the popular tradition culminated in the series of recordings of Spanish songs, arranged for voice and piano by Federico himself, on which he accompanies La Argentinita (Encarnación López Júlvez) at the piano .
La Argentinita, as she performed the song "Los mozos de Monleón", when she recorded it with Federico in Barcelona, 1931 |
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The following are titles of folk songs collected by Lorca himself on his travels through the Spanish countryside:
He also did the musical arrangements for the first five; the arrangements of the last three are by Emilio de Torre. Other folk songs that Lorca wrote arrangements for are: Los mozos de Monleón, las Morillas de Jaén, Sevillanas del siglo XVIII, Nana de Sevilla, Zorongo, and Duérmete niño mío.
Anda jaleo, Zorongo, and Las reyes de la baraja were encorporated into the extended version of La zapatera prodigiosa that Lorca prepared for Lola Membrives in Buenos Aires, December 1933.
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A recent version of the popular songs was released in Lorca's centenary year (1998) by the well-known Spanish singer, Ana Belén. Following this link you can order Ana Belén's version of the popular songs. The Garcia Lorca Foundation offer a version of the Songs arranged for voice and piano, sung by Elena Gragera, accompanied by Antón Cardó. Follow this link. The original version of the Songs sung by La Argentinita accompanied by Federico at the piano is available here. Another version of the Popular Spanish Songs is one performed by Franciose Atlan and Juan Luque Carmona. Follow this link. If you would like a collection of Twentieth Century Popular Spanish Songs which includes not only those songs collected and arranged by Lorca, but also others by two major Spanish composers, Falla and Rodrigo, then this is the link to follow. A more classical version of the songs has been recorded
by the Barcelona Teatro Liure Chamber Orchestra, directed by Josep Pons,
with Olga Serra and Ginesa Ortega. (Josep Pons is now conductor of the
Granada City Orchestra.) The songs are coupled on this recording with Falla's
"El Corregidor y la molinera" (The Three-corned Hat).
Follow
this link to order.
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Conference-Recitals on musical topics.
| Conference-Recitals.
Apart from the recordings done with La Argentinita, Lorca's love of the popular Spanish musical tradition is evident in two of his conference-recitals. The first dates from December 1928 when the dramatist-poet gave his talk on Spanish Lullabies at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, illustrating his talk with songs that he sang himself, while accompanying himself on the piano. |
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"How a City Sings from November to November" can be bought following this link. A Season in Granada is a collection of prose and poetry on themes related to Granada and includes, of course, "How a City Sings...". |
Lorca as Lyricist.
Just as Lorca's life and works were pervaded by music,
so have Lorca's life and works pervaded music during the six decades since
his death. Flamenco artists, in
particular, have found inspiration in his poetic texts. After Franco's
death, Lorca's work receives frequent musical treatment during the 1980 and 90s.
The great Granada-born flamenco singer, who has always included
works of Lorca in his repetoire, Enrique Morente, made his own tribute
to Lorca in the poet's centenary year. Called Lorca,
his album includes five songs from the play Yerma, as well as pieces
from Doña Rosita, How Five Years Pass, and Diván
del Tamarit. This work follows Omega (1996), recorded with the Granada
Blues group Lagartija Nick, which contained musical arrangements
mostly of Lorca's New York poems.
Flamenco World
offer more detailed information about the
enduring relationship between Morente and Lorca.
The legendary Camarón de la Isla has an album
called La
Leyenda del Tiempo (1979) which includes four songs based on poems by Lorca. Soy
gitano (1989) contains another three.
Lorca has always been highly appreciated among gypsies, and gypsy artists
have frequently included works of his in their repertoire. The double CD entitled
Los
Gitanos cantan a Lorca contains several of his poems
set to music, including:
as well as songs from the plays, such as "Leyenda del Tiempo (Camaron), or the wedding song (la tierra tiene la culpa) from Bodas de sangre (Pata negra); and versions of his popular songs (La Tarara by Camaron).
The Spanish singer-songwriter, Carlos Cano, has set all of the poems of the Diván del Tamarit to music as his particular centenary year tribute to Lorca, available on a double CD.
Lorcura de brisna y trino, taken from the Sonnets of a Dark Love, is the title of Manolo Sanlúcar and Carmen Linares' tribute to the poet.
Ana Belen's tribute to Lorca on the occasion of his centenary, Lorquiana, also includes a CD of some of Lorca's poems set to music, amongst them "Pequeño Vals vienés" (Leonard Cohen's celebrated "Take this Walz") and "Son de Negros en Cuba".
More on Leonard Cohen's "Take this Walz"
Lorca as Librettist.
The only libretto that Lorca wrote himself was Lola la comediante, dated 1923. Unfortunately, Manuel de Falla, in spite of making copious notes, never wrote the score for this projected light opera.
Nevertheless, Lorca's work seems to be as inspirational in the world of opera as it has been in the world of flamenco and popular song.
It is an interesting fact that two composers have chosen to write operatic works based on El Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su Jardín in view of the poets own comments likening this work to a piece of chamber music.
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This work is also available on CD. Follow this link. |
The Bolton-born composer Simon Holt has, in his own phrase, “been absorbing
Lorca for 14 years” and had already produced a whole string of works inspired
by the poet’s words when he embarked upon his Lorca-based opera, The
Nightingale’s to blame, three years back.
So what is it about the Spanish bard that attracts him? “He just fires my
imagination. His poetry makes more of an impact on my nervous system than any
other poet I’ve ever read. In fact, I have got to the stage now where I
don’t dare take a book of Lorca’s poems off the shelf, because immediate
reaction of reading any of them is a compulsion to set it to music."
Trader Faulkner, The Independent, 20/11/1998
Holt's previous reactions to Lorca include Cançiones, three Spanish songs: a love song, a setting of Cançion de Jinete by Lorca, and a lyric. The two outer poems are anonymous but are cited by Lorca in his essay on Duende which could be roughly translated as the Creative Spirit.
