Polo (flamenco)

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Polo is the name of a musical form of flamenco (a palo ) that is very similar to another called a caña . The guitar accompaniment of both palos is comparable in rhythm and motifs to the Soleá . Both have the same key, and polo may have emerged from the Caña. To complete the chant of polo, a stanza of soleá (more precisely, soleá apolá ) is usually added.

Although there is only one song of polo left today, known as polo natural , there is still another polo mentioned in scriptures, polo de Tobalo , which is believed to have been lost.

Metric and musical structure

The stanza of polo has the form of cuarteta romanceada , which is typical for most flamenco chants as well as for Spanish folklore . It consists of four eight-syllable verses, the second and fourth of which rhyme assonant , and is usually sung to the following text:

Carmona tiene una fuente
con catorce o quince caños
con un letrero que dice:
¡Viva el polo sevillano!

Carmona has a fountain
with fourteen or fifteen rays
and an inscription that reads:
Long live Sevillian polo!

Often the last line is replaced by the sentence: « Viva el polo de Tobalo! »(“ Long live the Tobalo Polo! ”) Replaced - although the melody obviously does not correspond to that of the Polo de Tobalo . Some lines are partially repeated, and there are also two series of melisms , performed in the middle and at the end of the verse, which divide the chant in half. So the verse is sung like this:

Carmona tiene una fuente
con catorce
con catorce o quince caños
oooh oooh oooh ... (melisms)
con un letrero que dice y que
y viva el polo
viva el polo de Tobalo
oooh ooh ooh ...

Clock and key are the same as in the Soleá, ie a 12 / 8 ¯ clock with rhythm changes between three and two-beat, and the phrygische mode ( modo frigio ). The guitar accompaniment is also inspired by the Soleá, although some special arpeggios are inserted after the second phrase of each section ( i.e. after con catorce and y viva el polo ).

On the guitar, Polo is always accompanied on the tonic E. Musicologist Hipólito Rossy claimed that the vocals were in major and three time, but it is evident that he did not know this palo well as all recordings show the aforementioned characteristics of the soleá. It could, however, have been influenced by a recording by the singer Jacinto Almadén, in which the guitarist Perico el del Lunar uses some chords that suggest the major gender.

history

The first mention of a "gypsy polo " is in the poem La Quincaida by the Count of Noroña, written in 1779. It is also mentioned in the Cartas Marruecas by José Cadalso, which were written around the same time. Critics say that it was not yet about the later polo, but rather a primitive folk song that was not flamenco:

“(...) On the eve of flamenco, the gypsies started out from Spanish folk rhythms, and developed the chants, whose folk qualities they preserved, consciously towards an agitanamiento (a frenzy ) that should finally become evident. When this time of transformation was over, the singing, the rhythm that the gypsies had got to know in Andalusia had already become something else, namely flamenco. In the case of polo, this did not happen until the beginning of the 19th century, if we accept the criteria of Molina and Mairenas or Butler. "

Both the Caña and the Polo appear to have enjoyed great success. They were considered the best form of flamenco singing at the beginning of the 19th century. Serafín Estébanez Calderón in his book Escenas andaluzas from 1847 calls the famous singer El Planeta (who appears as the protagonist of one of the scenes) the "king of both polos". He also assures that polo is difficult to carry out, that it originated from the Caña and that there is also a Polo de Tobalo . Polo is often mentioned in 19th century literature. Many important singers of the time included him in their repertoire, up to the time of Antonio Chacón , who is considered one of the last great interpreters of this song.

Although historical sources speak of two or more polos, only one of them can be considered safe: the polo natural . The singer Pepe de la Matrona recorded a version of the polo de Tobalo in the late 1960s, but the authenticity of this version has been questioned by Álvarez Caballero because he never stated whether it was passed down to him or whether he had designed it himself .

The only old recording entitled “Polo” before its rediscovery in the 1950s was made by La Rubia and is even more similar than usual to the Caña. In 1960, at the time of the revival of the traditional cante, the natural polo was included by Jacinto Almadén ("El Niño de Almadén") in the anthology compiled by guitarist Perico el del Lunar and flamencologist Tomás Andrade de Silva. According to the introduction written by the latter, singers who mastered polo were extremely rare at the time. Since then he has been recorded by various famous singers.

Theories about polo

There are several conflicting theories regarding the origin of polo and its variants:

  • Demófilo put together 37 different texts in his collection of flamenco chants, which were sung as polos or cañas. He added: "The famous singer Tobalo (Cristobál) shone with the polos and gave his name to a special song of his own, which is now known as the polo Tobalo ." Estébanez Calderón stated in his Escenas Andaluzas that the polo comes from the Caña originated.
  • Tomás Andrade de Silva mentions the Soleá as the origin of polo. According to him, the singer Curro Durse introduced the custom of singing polo as an appendix to the caña, which the singers followed until polo after Antonio Chacón became unusable. For this, the natural polo was used, which was greatly varied by the singers. The same flamencologist also claims that Tobalo invented polo and made it different from the caña. By the time the recording was made, it was already common practice for polo to be sung without a caña by adding a soleá apolá instead .
  • According to José Navarro Rodríguez, polo never existed. What we know as polo would therefore be just a variation of the Caña that was created in the 19th century by the singer Curro Durse. Navarro Rodríguez also claims that the Caña was the invention of a singer from Ronda at the turn of the 19th century who was called Cristóbal Palmero and was known as "Tobalo El Polo". Since Tobalo is a common Andalusian form of Cristóbal and he took his father's nickname (Polo), this created the false belief that the chant he invented (a caña ) was called Polo de Tobalo ( i.e. Polo des Tobalo ). This theory has been challenged because its author was unable to back it up with verifiable evidence.
  • The poet Ricardo Molina and the singer Antonio Mairena quote the musicologist García Matos, who confirms that flamenco polo shows no relationship to the folk polo of the 18th century and did not even emerge from it. He just got his name. They agree with the usual theory that it emerged from the Caña , but contradict various flamenco historians who defined the polo as a gypsy song and outlaw it as “a very poor and unimportant song”, “rigid and stereotypical”, “a fossil "," A mummy ". They assure:

“The claimed and simulated quality of polo is nothing but an invention of authors who do not know a word about flamenco singing. Many confuse Spanish or Spanish-American polo with flamenco polo and attribute the popularity of the others to the latter. "

It must be noted that Mairena tends to view all non-Gypsy palos as being of poor quality. Although he rejects the polo as non-Gypsy in his book, he had already taken it up a few years earlier. When he re-published this recording in the Antología del cante flamenco y cante gitano in 1965, he took him to the Gypsy Palos.

Recordings

The following shots are usually recommended for reference:

  • Antología del cante flamenco , 2nd edition, Hispavox 1988, compiled by Tomás Andrade de Silva and Perico el del Lunar. Contains a Polo by Jacinto Almadén ("El niño de Almadén") and a Caña by Rafael Romero.
  • Antología del cante flamenco y cante gitano , compiled by Antonio Mairena. Contains polo and caña sung by Mairena herself.
  • Magna antología del cante flamenco , Vol. 8, CD edition, Hispavox 1992. Contains a caña sung by Enrique Morente and a Polo de Tobalo by Pepe de la Matrona. The aforementioned Polo by Jacinto Almadén can also be found there.
  • Manolo Caracol recorded his very own version of the Caña in 1958. It was republished in the Quejío Collection , within a compilation entitled El genio de Manolo Caracol , Hispavox 1997.

swell

  • Ángel Álvarez Caballero: El cante flamenco . Alianza Editorial, Madrid 2004, ISBN 978-84-206-4325-0 , p. 35-39 .
  • Tomás Andrade de Silva: Sobre los orígenes de trenta y tres cantes . Published as an introduction to the recording of Antología del Cante Flamenco , Hispavox, Madrid 1960
  • José Cadalso: Cartas marruecas. Biblioteca Virtual Cervantes
  • Serafín Estébanez Calderón: Asamblea general de los caballeros y damas de Triana, y toma de hábito en la orden de cierta rubia bailadora. In: Escenas andaluzas , Madrid 1847; Also in: Biblioteca Virtual Cervantes
  • Jorge Martín Salazar: Los cantes flamencos. , Diputación General de Granada, undated
  • Antonio Mairena, Ricardo Molina: Mundo y formas del cante flamenco. In: Revista de Occidente , Madrid 1963; Also in: Librería Al-Andalus, Granada / Sevilla 1979
  • Hipólito Rossy: Teoría del cante jondo. 2nd edition, CREDSA, Barcelona, ​​1998

Individual evidence

  1. s. Rossy
  2. s. Cadalso
  3. Álvarez Caballero, p. 49
  4. Álvarez Caballero, p. 39
  5. s. Salazar
  6. s. Andrade de Silva
  7. Álvarez Caballero, pp. 37–38
  8. s. Molina and Mairena