Epitomising the modern Spanish nation through popular music: coplas from La Caramba to Concha Piquer, 1750-1990

Abstract

Music is an important language of the emotions and can often arouse strong passions in its performance and representation, both from the individual's perspective of personal identity and for the individual's sense of identity and of belonging to a given community. Likewise, music can serve to whip up and reinforce nationalism and national chauvinism against the `other' as well as serving as a badge of identity. In this article I explore a musical form, a song that has been defined as `Spanish' and as the `national' song: la copla. Copla is rooted in the past and first appeared as both a poetic and a theatrical form, but always accompanied by music. It was, however, during the eighteenth century, when nationalism made its appearance as a `concern' in the Spanish political-cultural arena, when coplas would be used as a mark of Spanish identity