Pre-Flamenco Music

This chapter explores the prehistory of flamenco, starting with its roots in Moorish Spain, and the likely connections between Arab-derived modality and Andalusian modal harmony. Possible connections with India, and the impact of Afro-Latin musics are discussed, along with the important role played by Gitanos. Roots of specific features of flamenco are traced in various Spanish musics, such as seventeenth- and eighteenth-century keyboard fandangos and the guitar music of Gaspar Sanz. Special attention is paid to the emergence of urban lumpen proletarian subcultures from the latter eighteenth century, and to the role of their music and dance in the formation of a particular kind of Spanish cultural nationalism influenced by Romantic ideology and a reaction against French and Italian fashions and aesthetics.