Café cantante

The Cafe Suizo in Madrid, 1873

A café cantante , also known as Café de cante , was a place where flamenco was sung, danced and made music; often alternating with other evening events. In the last decades of the 19th century, these cafes were widespread across Spain. They played a key role in the popularization and professionalization of flamenco. Most of the forms of flamenco still practiced today emerged in the era of the café cantantes.

history

The beginnings

Cafés cantantes emerged as the Spanish version of a type of restaurant that was common at the time: in many European countries there were music and cabaret bars that were called café concerts , café musicals or variété cafés , for example . In Spain, due to its increasing popularity, flamenco took an ever larger part of the program in these bars. After all, some of them offered flamenco regularly, others only sporadically. In most cases, flamenco evenings alternated with bolero performances, variety, sketch, comedies and cabaret.

The best known and most influential Café cantante emerged in Seville from 1871 . That year the singer Silverio Franconetti took over the management of the Salón del Recreo . Silverio used it as a venue for his performances, so that the Salón was soon widely known as Café de Silverio . After falling out with his business partner Manuel Ojeda, known as El Burrero, Silverio founded his own café in Calle del Rosario in 1881 and actually called it Café de Silverio. There the greats of flamenco got together, starting with Silverio himself. Manuel Ojeda also continued with his own company, the Café del Burrero . It also had a great influence on the development of flamenco. Third in the row of influential Sevillian cantantes cafés is Café Novedades .

In the 1870s, and even more so in the years 1880 to 1900, many cafés cantantes were opened. Some of it did not last long and was soon forgotten. Others survived year after year and found their way into the chronicles.

Café cantantes from the 1870s

In the 1870s, in addition to the three already mentioned, opened:

• In Seville next to the already mentioned Café by Silverio the Café del Arenal , the Café de los Cagajones , the Café de Variedades , the El Sevillano , the Café de las Triperas , the El Apolo , the Café Correo , the Café Filarmónico , the Café de los Carros and the Café de San Agustín
• In Almería the Salón del Sol , the Café de los Amigos , the Casino Almeriense , the Café del Comercio and the Café de los Amigos .
• In Barcelona the Café de la Alegría .
• In Cadiz , the Café Madrid and Café del Recreo .
• In Cartagena the two cantantes cafes on Plaza del Rey and Plaza de la Merced.
• In Cordoba, the Café del Recreo .
• In Huelva the café cantante de Silverio .
• In Jerez, the Café del Conde and the Café de la Veracruz .
• In Madrid the Salón Capellanes , the Café de la Bolsa , the Café del Vapor , the Café Neptuno , the Café San Joaquín and the Cuatro Naciones .
• In Málaga the Café de las Sietes Revueltas , the Café del Conventico , the Café de la Iberia and the Café de Chinitas .

Café cantantes from 1880 to 1900

A café cantante in Seville in the 1880s

In the two decades from 1880 onwards, you could visit flamenco performances in the following locales:

• In Almería in the Café Novedades , in the Cervecería Inglesa , in the Café de Santo Domingo , in El Suizo , in the Café Teatro Variedades and in the Café Apolo .
• In Badajoz in Café Novedades .
• In Barcelona at Café la Unión , Café Sevillano , Café Maciá , Café de Sevilla , Café de la Bolsa and Café de la Mezquita .
• In Bilbao in the Café de las Columnas .
• In Cartagena in Café cantante del Muelle , in Café del Sol , in Café Habanero , in Salón-café cantante de San Fernando , in Café El Recreo , in Café de la Iberia , in Café de La Marina , in Café El Suizo , in the café del Comercio and in the Café de San Agustín.
• In Granada in the Café Comercio , in the Café de la Plaza de la Marina and in the Café Cantante Granadino .
• In Jaén at Café Morales .
• In Jerez in the Salón Cantante Variedades , in the Café Cantante del Teatro Principal and in the Café de Rogelio .
• In La Unión in the Café Cantante del Estrecho , in the basement of the Casino de El Garbanzal , in the Café Cantante de El Rojo in the Café Habanero and in the Café de Peteneras del Portman .
• In Linares in the Café Minero and in the Café de los Merelos .
• In Madrid in Café de la Marina , in Café Romero , in Café de la Magdalena , in El Imperial , in Café del Puerto , in El Corrales in Café del Carmen , in Café de don Crispulo , in Café del Brillante, in Café del Pez , the Café del Progreso, in the Cafe de Naranjeros and Café de la Economienda .
• In Malaga in the Café del Turco , in the Café de la Butibamba and in the Café de Torres .
• In Oviedo in Café Ambos Mundos and in Madrid .
• In Santander at Café del Brillante , Café del Vapor and Novedades .

Significance for the development of flamenco

In the cafés cantantes the forms of serious singing, the cante jondo, were clarified . Its most important palos , the soleá and the seguiriya , found their form, which is essentially still valid today. It created new Palos, such as the flamencisierte form of Fandango , the Cantina , the Alegría , the Caracol and the Cantabrian dances Garrotín and Farruca . Dances and chants from Latin America found their way into the world of flamenco, for example the guajira and the milonga. The Tango in his flamenco expression became one of the most popular dances of that era. () Other forms such as the Tona , the romance , the Zorongo that Caselera that Rondeña , the Vito and the Olé declined in importance or disappeared altogether.

At that time, the guitar also developed into the almost exclusive accompanying instrument in flamenco. The basic forms of guitar accompaniment emerged, with their characteristic alternation between percussion guitar and melodic solos. The capo became established as a tool to adapt the guitar to the pitch desired by the singer.

The basic elements of flamenco dance developed. The technique of foot drumming, the zapateado , was developed into a characteristic style element. The great innovation among women was the train dress , the bata de cola , and its lively use in dance. The mantón de Manila , a large silk shawl, has also been used as a prop by dancers since that era. It also became common for the dancer to raise her arms above her head to straighten the figure.

On the other hand, the singing of some palos emancipated itself from the dance. This is especially true of the serious chants of the cante jondo . In particular, the Seguiriya was generally only sung at that time. It was not until 1939, long after the café cantantes era, that Vicente Escudero created a dance for Seguiriya. For other performances of the cante jondo , especially for the Soleá, an introverted dance style developed that dispensed with spectacular, expansive figures and focused on the depth of emotion and expression.

Major artists

singing

Silverio Franconetti is considered to be the pioneer who opened up a musical legacy that was previously exclusively available to the Gitanos community. He mixed this music with regional Andalusian folk music, which was common. He had an enormously large repertoire , which was very unusual for singers in his time, and had a reputation for mastering all types of singing with virtuosity.

Other outstanding singers in the cantantes were:

• Enrique Ortega , whom Silverio called his amigo Enrique and whom he paid tribute to in a poem that he sang for Seguiriya. Enrique Ortega is the progenitor of a dynasty of flamenco artists, including his great-grandson Manolo Caracol .
• Tomás el Nitri , legendary rival of Silverio Franconetti. Its origin is unclear; his real name was possibly Tomás Medrano Vargas or Tomás Vargas Suárez Ortega de la Seda. Manolo Caracol said he was a nephew of El Fillo . Tomás el Nitri was the first to win the prestigious Galardon del flamenco award .
• El Mellizo ;
• Concha la Peñaranda ;
• Fosforito el Viejo ;
• Rojo el Alpargatero ;
• Juan Breva ;
• El Loco Mateo ;
• Merced la Serneta ;
• Manuel Molina ;
• Onofre ;
• El Canario .

dance

Important dancers were among others:

• Concha la Carbonera ;
• Gabriela Ortega Feria , also active as a singer;
• Juana and Fernanda Antúnez ;
• La Sordita ;
• Juana la Macarrona ;
• La Mejorana , actually Rosario Monje. She is credited with being the first to stretch her arms up in the air at the Soleá.
• El Raspao , to whom the shape of the Zapateado is ascribed;
• Antonio el Pintor ;
• Pastora Imperio , the daughter of La Mejorana. She brought the art of dancing in the cantantes to perfection.

guitar

José Patiño Gonzáles (1829–1902), called Maestro Patiño, was a regular companion of Silverio in his café. Maestro Patiño is considered to be the one who worked out the art of guitar accompaniment and developed it to mastery.

Other well-known guitarists included:

• Paco de Lucena , one of the most important guitarists of his time, creator of some characteristic pieces, for example for the Caña or the Cantiña La Rosa ;
• Paquirri el Guanté, who introduced the capo for the flamenco guitar; possibly in collaboration with Maestro Patiño;
• Paco el Barbero ;
• Antonio Pérez , called Maestro Pérez;
• Antonio Sol ;
• Ángel Baeza ;
• Juan Gandulla , called Habichuela.

Atmosphere and audience

Joaquín Sorolla: Dancers in the Novedades Café in Seville, 1914

Most of the cantantes cafés were not peaceful temples of art. Many of them were loud and hearty. The audience consisted largely of workers, peasants, and traders - men who

"(...) se acercaban a las capitales por mor de sus negocios y aprovechaban la oportunidad para conjugar su afición flamenca con posiblemente otras veleidades varoniles."

"(...) came to the big cities because of their business and took the opportunity to combine their passion for flamenco with other possible male weaknesses."

- José Luis Navarro García

Plenty of wine was served. Dancers flirted with the guests to elicit additional expenses. Liaisons were initiated and entertained, and games of chance were played. Physical disputes also occurred. Cafés cantantes were therefore often viewed as dens of vice that the local population avoided. Pierre Louÿs wrote in 1895 that he had seen fathers and young people spending their entire daily or weekly wages there.

In the 1890s, other authors described the business and the public in friendlier colors and emphasized the picturesque aspects. The audience is well mixed, in addition to the groups mentioned above, besides whores and individual toreros , soldiers, students and the local better society are also represented. Many visitors are stylishly dressed according to their stand, even the country folk. In 1897 Nicolás Salmerón summarized the atmosphere in a Madrid café cantante:

«Tomadores y timadores de ambos sexos en busca de emociones fuertes y de relojes de oro, que van oír el cante entre dos temporadas (...); un público special en quien se conserva vivo y poderoso el gusto nacional, el amor a lo genuinamente español, a todo lo que es ruido, música, poesía, al idilio tierno ya la tragedia espantosa, al ¡ay! del sentimiento y al rojo del sangre. "

“Guests and crooks of both sexes looking for strong emotions and golden clocks who want to listen to the cante in their free time (...); a special audience in which the national taste persists lively and powerful, the love of the real Spanish, of everything that defines noise, music, poetry, the tender idyll and the gruesome tragedy, the fervent “¡ay!” and the red of the Blood. "

- Nicolás Salmerón

The typical café cantante consisted of a large room with whitewashed walls, lit by oil lamps or gas lanterns. Chairs with seats made of reed were grouped around rough wooden tables. A small stage with large mirrors was set up on one of the walls. Curtains were used for the performances and exits of the artists. At the back of the stage, right in front of the wall, there were chairs for her. On either side of the scene there were simple boxes called gabinetes . They were reserved for customers who were willing to spend slightly larger amounts on a good bottle of wine. From there you could watch the show separately from the rest of the audience. They also served as a retreat for private performances when the bar was actually closed.

The dance group used to consist of three to four dancers and one dancer. There were also a guitarist, one or two singers and four or five girls or young women who accompanied them with clapping hands and cheering. Sometimes one of them dared to take her first dance steps in front of an audience, so that offspring for the group of dancers emerged from their ranks. With the sound of the guitar the performance began and the audience turned their attention to the stage:

«De súbito se deja oír el rasgueo de la guitarra, acompañado del palmoteo y los golpes que con el talón de las botas dan los bailaores sobre el tablado. The miradas y la atención del auditorio convergen unánimes sobre les actores de la escena. El cantaor empuña al mismo tiempo un bastón o un flexible junco con cual va golpeando el suelo o el travesaño de la silla al compás de la música (...) »

“Suddenly you hear the guitar strike, accompanied by the clapping of hands of the dancers and the stamping of their boot heels on the stage. The eyes and the attention of the audience are unanimously directed towards the performers on stage. At the same time, the singer holds a stick or a flexible pipe with which he hits the floor or the crossbar of the chair in time with the music (...) "

- Olivares de la Peña

The performance ended with frenetic applause and loud shouts like “¡olé!” And “¡viva mi tierra!”, Olivares de la Peña concluded his description.

reception

The artistic and historical appreciation of the cafés cantantes is ambivalent. Critics lamented the demise of the musical tradition of the gitanos. This is how Demófilo judged :

«Los cafés mataran por completo el cante gitano en no lejano plazo (...) Al salír del gitano de la taberna al café se ha andaluzado, convirtiéndose en lo que hoy llama flamenco todo el mundo. Silverio, para ennoblecer el cante gitano (...) ha creado el género flamenco, mezcla de elementos gitanos y andaluzes. »

“The cafes will completely kill the Cante der Gitanos in the near future (...) By moving from the Gitanos tavern to the cafe, it became Andalusian and what is now called Flamenco all over the world. With the intention of refining the Cante der Gitanos, (...) Silverio created the flamenco genre, a mixture of Gitano and Andalusian elements. "

Today's experts like Ángel Álvarez Caballero counter that this development was inevitable. If Silverio hadn't pushed them, others would have. In view of the social change, the pure form of their music, limited to the family culture of the Gitanos, could not have lasted. It would have stagnated and ultimately become a case for the museum.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I. Signatura Ediciones de Andalucía, Sevilla 2010, ISBN 978-84-96210-70-7 , p. 295 (Spanish).
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Juan Vergillos: Conocer el Flamenco . Signatura Ediciones de Andalucía, Sevilla 2009, ISBN 978-84-95122-84-1 , p. 86 (Spanish).
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, 2010, p. 296 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . Alianza Editorial, Madrid 2004, ISBN 978-84-206-4325-0 , p. 94 (Spanish).
5. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, 2010, p. 296-297 .
6. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Juan Vergillos: Conocer el Flamenco . 2009, p. 88 .
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Juan Vergillos: Conocer el Flamenco . 2009, p. 87 .
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e} José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, 2010, p. 305 .
9. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume II, 2008, ISBN 978-84-96210-70-7 , pp. 106-107 .
10. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . 2004, p. 91 .
11. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . 2004, p. 92 .
12. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . 2004, p. 95 .
13. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . 2004, p. 95 .
14. ↑ El Mellizo. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
15. ^ Concha la Peñaranda. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
16. ^ Fosforito el Viejo. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
17. ^ Rojo el Alpargatero. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
18. ↑ Juan Breva. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
19. ^ El Loco Mateo. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
20. ↑ La Serneta. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
21. ^ El Señor Manuel Molina. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
22. ↑ Onofre. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
23. ↑ El Canario. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
24. ^ Concha la Carbonera. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
25. ^ Gabriela Ortega Feria. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
26. ↑ Juana Antúnez. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
27. ↑ Fernanda Antúnez. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
28. ↑ La Sordita. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
29. ↑ La Macarrona. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
30. ↑ Ángeles Cruzado: Juana la Macarrona, estrella de los cafés cantantes (I). In: Flamencas por derecho. March 29, 2013, Retrieved March 19, 2019 (Spanish). 
31. ^ Antonio el Pintor. In: El Arte de Vivir el Flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 (Spanish). 
32. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume II, 2008, ISBN 978-84-96210-71-4 , pp. 27 .
33. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El toque flamenco . Alianza Editorial, Madrid 2003, ISBN 978-84-206-2944-5 , p. 35 - 37 (Spanish).
34. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El toque flamenco . 2003, p. 53 - 59 .
35. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El toque flamenco . 2003, p. 37 .
36. ^ Paco el Barbero. In: El arte de vivir el flamenco. Retrieved October 25, 2018 . 
37. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El toque flamenco . 2003, p. 42-44 .
38. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El toque flamenco . 2003, p. 62 .
39. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El toque flamenco . 2003, p. 81 .
40. ↑ Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El toque flamenco . 2003, p. 40 - 42 .
41. ↑ ^{a b c} José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, 2010, p. 297 .
42. ↑ ^{a b c} José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, 2010, p. 298 .
43. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, 2010, p. 299 .
44. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, 2010, p. 300 .
45. ↑ José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, 2010, p. 302 .
46. ↑ ^{a b} José Luis Navarro García: Historia del Baile Flamenco . Volume I, 2010, p. 304 .