The identity role of Spanish women making music. From the Middle Age to the Romantic Period

The purpose of this seminar is to discuss the role/image of Spanish women as creators and interpreters/performers of vocal and instrumental music and the significance of their work. When we refer to music, we are referring to both “cultivated” (serious) music and popular music, as no one can deny their role in improvisation and in the deep musical roots associated with their everyday chores. In order to describe these images we will point out some specific examples of the musical activity carried out by women in Prehistoric times, in Roman Spain and in both the Arabic and Jewish cultures that have prevailed/continue to survive in oral tradition

Franco and Spanish music of resistance: the role of Spanish singers and popular songs for musical films before and after our civil war (1936-1939)

During Fracoism dictatorships (1939-1975) popular songs played diverse roles, especially the ones interpreted by popular female singers who were famous already for acting in musical films since 1929; during the three years of the civil war they continued performing as propaganda. When the war finished and Franco started his long 40 years as Generalisimo, those popular songs which were performed with different meaning, and they took another ones from new musical films which can be called songs for resistance. We think that the importance of research on musical films produced in Spain has to start not only during the beginning of the dictatorship but a decade earlier, during the Second Republic and with a emphasis in the 60, the last years of the dictatorship before the democracy in 1975. With the analysis of several musical numbers from different musical films, since 1929 to 1975, we can check three distinct realities intrinsically representing the social and cultural change, as a way of resistance: by one hand, musical films (later, musical television programs) popularize songs, where female young singers and prodigy girls had a very important role performing them. On another hand, we find the most reactionary element to any changes, a feature Spanish cultural identity, the song starring aflamencado style, the most popular Spanish musical films symbolizing the "Spanish soul”. Finally, by another hand, since the 60s, during the last decade of Francoism dictatorship we found lazarovriana aesthetics (from Valerio Lazarov) for a Spanish television moving itself toward openness and innovation, with strong rhythms and contemporary choreographers who would do the transition to democracy in 1975. After watching several examples, we can develop a general discussion of the manifold correlations and interdependencies in times of dictatorialship when cultural activities can avoid censure magically. Also, the role of those popular songs can be discusses with the context of ideologies of progress and/or innovatio

Memoria Histórica: La mujer española, prototipo de la informante sobre la tradición oral

La mujer española es prototipo de la informante sobre la tradición oral por el repertorio que siempre ha interpretado, uniéndolo al ciclo vital. Empezando por las canciones de cuna, que son canciones de trabajo porque las cantaban las madres para dormir a sus hijos mientras trabajaban; siguiendo con las canciones infantiles, principales herederas en la actualidad del repertorio del cancionero europeo antiguo; aunque es un repertorio cantado indistintamente, en su origen, por niños y niñas, en cambio es transmitido en casi su totalidad por mujeres informantes. Con las canciones de boda, se interpretaba todo el repertorio heredado de la tradición sefardita: canciones de despedida de las amigas de la novia, petitorias de los convites, etc.; era el repertorio que acompañaba a la mujer al tránsito de la vida matrimonial, que popularmente era el status social más reconocido después de la maternidad. Y, finalmente, las canciones petitorias por los difuntos, cantadas por otras mujeres a la mujer o al hombre que ha culminado su ciclo vital

Updating the recollection of documentary sources for the study of Kurt Schindler’s life and work.

[En] En este congreso internacional se presenta la investigación actualizada sobre las fuentes primarias y secundarias sobre la figura polifacética del etnomusicólogo, intérprete y compositor alemán Kurt Schindler (1884-1935)

The use of Spanish popular songs as a weapon during the war: popular songs versus military hymns

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), lots of popular songs were used in films, always as diegetic music, performed by famous actress called folklóricas. With the analysis of several musical numbers from different musical films of that period, we can check two distinct realities intrinsically representing the social and cultural change during that battle, where musical films had a clear lead role popularizing songs. On one hand, we find the most reactionary element to any changes, a feature Spanish cultural identity, the song starring aflamencado style, the most popular Spanish musical films symbolizing the "Spanish soul”, always sang by famous Spanish actors and actress. On another hand, we found military hymns, characteristic of the several countries which helped simultaneously the two bands during the Spanish civil war, with strong rhythms and texts, most of them sang by anonymous chorus, translating “international” texts into Spanish symbolizing the new social change. Which kind of popular music did win the war? Did it return the popular song to the real "Spanish soul" in those musical films performed by the most famous folklóricas of that period, Imperio Argentina or Estrellita Castro? We can have to look at several musical numbers in Spanish cinema of the 20s and 30s to confirm the evolution of popular song and musical number in Spain in that period and to see the protagonism of the contrafacted text during the three years of the war

The contribution of Kurt Schindler’s compositions for silent films in the Spanish filmography of the 10s and 20s

The German musician Kurt Schindler (1887-1935) worked for the Spanish filmography since his first visit to Spain in 1917 to his death in 1935. He was, in that time, a famous composer and editor of popular songs and appeared, in daily news for several newspapers in all over Spain (apart from the United States). During the 20s and 30s he was commissioned by Columbia University (NY) and several Spanish research institutions in 1920 to do a fieldwork on popular folksongs in all over the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). With the original material recollected in those fieldworks he wrote several soundtracks for Spanish black and white films of that period. Through researching his papers (founded in some archives and libraries of several cities of different countries) we can attribute him some soundtracks for picturesque films, which has been lost for several decades because of their controversial significance. The study of the original music for this special filmography will give us more information about the amazing kaleidoscopic musical career of this composer

Kurt Schindler (1882-1935) and his incidental music for ballet and musical films: analysis, social and artistic context

[En] Incidental compositions of the versatile German artist Kurt Schindler (1882-1935), like most of his work, show the symbiosis of musical styles of this child prodigy trained with the best musicians in Berlin. He left his promising career as composer and conductor of the Munich opera for exile in New York, starting again as founder and conductor of the Schola Cantorum. Although he is well-known by his posthumous Iberian popular songbook (1941). But a few incidental music scores for ballet and music theatre remain unpublished today, as Ceremonia turque. Marche et ballet. Through his epistolary we’ve discovered he was the composer for the very famous Spanish musical film Nobleza baturra (1935). Through the analysis of his handwritten incidental music and the musical numbers of that Spanish film we can go further the profile of this composer; his outline as musicologist with studies on the Spanish music of medieval and renaissance age or his role as ethnomusicologist with the big amount of field work recollections on popular music songs and photos is now completed as incidental music composer. The aim of this paper is to show to researchers his unkown compositions for ballet and musical films and to find a place among the composers of music and image of the first decades of the 20th century

Constructing His Own Soundtrack’s Records Film Music in the Mature Years of Almodóvar’s Creation. Analying Frauen am Rande des Nervenzusammenbruchs (1988)

In this seminar I want to stop and reconsider what importance Almodóvar attaches to music in his film and which one can his purpose be, what type of music does he use and what kind of functions does he give, which composers he commissions for his music, the importance that music has in the overall perspective of all his films. I think that these points will help all of us to evaluate this director’s creative talent and, therefore, evaluate whether the fame and international reception given to Almodóvar is deserved or not. The method we are going to use to present this talk is the formal analysis of music as the metatext of film discourse, in its diegetic and incidental aspects, with the example of the analysis of Almodovar Film Frauen am Rande des Nervenzusammenbruchs (1988)

Kurt Schindler’s Project: Culture Heritage and Technologies: reconstructing an epistolary as a main source for researching in Musicology

[En] The German musician Kurt Schindler (1887-1935) was a very interesting personality: cosmopolitan, poliglota, Composer, conductor, performer, coaching singers, musicologist… He was also a famous photographer who worked for several newspapers in Spain and in the United States. Because his experience recollecting folk songs in Russia and Hungary, he was also commissioned by American and Spanish research institutions in 1920 to do fieldwork on popular folksongs in all over the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) until his earlier death in the 30s. He was pioneer presenting European repertories of French, Russian, Finish and Spanish music to American audiences through the his choir Schola Cantorum of 300 mixed voices. For unknown reasons, Schindler has been an anonymous musician for several years. Because of several Spanish research projects I+D+I directed by Dr. Olarte and several international researchers from Spain, Germany and Bulgaria, in the last thirteen years this composer and all his activities are been presented for the scientist community as Kurt Schindler’s Project. In repositories and museums of Europe and United States we have been found a large number and variety of materials and documents about him. The Kurt Schindler’s epistolary is an amount of almost one thousand letters with different musical and artistic personalities, since the last decade of the nineteenth century until weeks before his death in 1935. These letters, distributed between several international archives and libraries (as the New York Public Library, the Hispanic Institute at Columbia University, the Hispanic Society of America, Fundación Juan March of Madrid, the Archivo Manuel de Falla in Granada, the Orfeó Catalá Archive and the Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona or the Biblioteca Valenciana). The finding aid of several internet catalogues as the one of the Lincoln Center of the NYPL has been a great help in this big research project. All Schindler’s correspondence gives us an idea of the many personal and musical interests that motivated Schindler for his artistic life, as far as the variety of cultural and social environments he used to frequent, leaving a deep impression on many of the people who dealed him and wrote to him, showing him in high esteem; in these letters we can also see his enigmatic personality as a complex person with many possible readings, which could cause the time of his death count with few friends, and that his memory has been only in the minds of those close friends. The variety of the correspondents who find this correspondence becomes a really interesting and interdisciplinary musical source. Although it has been a hard work the classification, analysing and archiving material; we think that nowadays this project will provide a basis for studying of the reception and internationalism of the musical taste of the first three decades of the 20th Century

La identidad de la mujer española como informante de la tradición oral

La importancia de las informantes femeninas para el estudio del folklore español desde sus primeras recopilaciones en el siglo XX da una nueva señal de identidad a la mujer española y a la oralidad en nuestros días. La imagen de la mujer en nuestro folklore, como principal universo a explorar, tanto como informante en trabajos de campo, como transmisora y recopiladora a su vez de costumbres etnográficas (principalmente bailes, indumentaria y canciones infantiles), es un hecho del que hay que partir a la hora de establecer las premisas previas de nuestra oralidad