The impact that Granada causes on those who attend its festival, whether they are artists or spectators, goes beyond that Nasrid air that is literally breathed in the Alhambra, where part of the shows are held. It goes beyond even the strength of a Yuja Wang in the Carlos V palace, a stage that the Chinese pianist turned upside down this week, playing the Rhapsody on a theme from Paganini by Rachmaninov together with the Luxembourg Philharmonic and Gustavo Gimeno.
But the point is that this date with music and dance –140 years of history– takes place in one of the great epicenters of Andalusian cultural wealth, a spectacular container of diverse influences. And that is something that becomes evident when early music coexists in that program in a natural way with what would already be called flamenco in the 19th century.
The ensemble Al Ayre Español rescued this Saturday, in the magnificent acoustics of the church of the monastery of San Jerónimo, anonymous parades and cantatas by José de Torres that contrasted with the sonatas of his contemporary Händel. And at night it was the Antonio Najarro company that, among the cypresses of the Generalife and with its refined and musically cinematographic dance, illustrated the differences between flamenco, the bolero school and Spanish dance.
The curious thing is to stop to observe those rhythms and dances that from Andalusia had a great influence on the European baroque and later on flamenco. It was analyzed by the anthropologist Miguel Ángel Rosales in the documentary Gurumbé (2016) about the cultural memory left by the slaves of black Africa in Spain since the 16th century, either on their way to the colonies or on their return… Their expression and culture was the only thing that could not be taken away from them: the guineo or the cumbé were their dances that the whole world danced, because, as noted in Gurumbé , they were mixed with forms of expressiveness from other marginal classes.
And although it is difficult to know which elements of flamenco could be African, Gypsy or Andalusian -because of the diversity of melodic structures and rhythmic affinities, such as the characteristic 12-beat compás that can be found in the petenera, the guajira, the soleá, the bulería, the zarabanda or the canaries–, it is notorious that the canaries composed by Gaspar Sanz, for example, the most important guitar theorist of the 17th century, are precisely characterized by the bars divided into three and two. That classic 3×2, with its syncopations and rhythm games, came with the black slaves and brought about a musical revolution in the European baroque, as can also be extracted from Jordi Savall’s exploration of the slave route.
“That of Spain is not a very simple European culture that we say. I don’t know if it’s because of black Africa or because of the Muslim culture, but it all comes together here. And it is so complex and so mysterious what it emanates… it is a wonderful place”. The speaker is the Japanese conductor and organist Masaaki Suzuki who, despite coming from a distant culture, has made Bach the center of his artistic life. In fact, he was going to give an organ concert at San Justo y Pastor, in Granada, contrasting Bach and Spanish polyphony, but he found a more primitive organ than he expected on which it is impossible to play Bach. Instead, he focuses on seventeenth-century Spain, with Joan Cabanilles, Francisco Correa de Arauxo, and Pablo Bruna.
“Bruna’s tientos, for example, are rhythmically very interesting,” he explains, “sometimes it’s even more complex than Bach. We often see that complexity of polyphonic lines at that time. Counterpoints so interesting and complicated that it’s hard to know what’s going on… The precious polyphonies of Cabanilles’ tientos have a bestial energy, they’re crazy. Domenico Scarlatti himself was influenced by Spanish rhythms, ”he explains to La Vanguardia.
Thus, Bach would be in charge of Bach this weekend in Granada by the La Ritirata ensemble, which brought together four harpsichords and four notable harpsichordists, including the Frenchman Pierre Hantaï, for an extraordinary evening that ended with the Concerto for four harpsichords based on Vivaldi’s for four violins. Hantaï took care of playing one of the two that are preserved in the archive of the Manuel de Falla Auditorium in Granada, a Rafael Puyana with three keyboards and 16 feet, like the one Bach had…
With a budget of 4.1 million euros (almost a million more than in the pre-pandemic period), the festival has managed to get all administrations to increase their contribution by 10% and that two savings banks (Unicaja from Malaga and Cajasol from Seville) want to be among the main benefactors. The good performance of the festival is contagious. If last year it exceeded one million euros at the box office for the first time, on this occasion its artistic director, Antonio Moral, who with savoir-faire and dedication has returned the international category to this event, shielding it from any change of political sign, ensures that they already exceed 1.3 million (ends July 19), counting the Bob Dylan concert and another extraordinary one.
