Speak the Culture: Spain: Be Fluent in Spanish Life and Culture

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1. Identity: the
   building blocks of
   2. Literature
   and philosophy
   3. Art and
   architecture
   4. Performing
   arts
   5. Cinema
   and fashion
   6. Media and
   communications
   7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
   the details of

Less isn’t always more: Baroque music in Spain

There was no Spanish Vivaldi, no Spanish Bach.

Composers came to the Spanish court during the

Baroque and Classical era but few were homegrown.

Instead, many sailed across the Med from Italy. Spain, it

seemed, preferred music set to words, not the chamber

variety.The Catalan Antonio Soler was a rare Spanish

success story. His unassuming life

as a monk near Madrid in the mid

18 thcentury concealed frenzied

composition, most notably around

120 spirited keyboard sonatas.

The popularSeis Conciertos para

dos Órganosremains widely played

today. He also contributed

generously to the canon of

religiousvillancicos, writing 132.

Half a century later, at the dawn

of the 19thcentury, came the

Basque Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga,

oft dubbed the ‘Spanish Mozart’. A child prodigy, he

wrote an opera,Los esclavos felices(1820), aged 13, a

symphony in D and three shining string quartets before

succumbing to tuberculosis aged just 19.

Guitar masters
Spain has enjoyed a
lingering, intimate affair
with the guitar. It began
with thevihuela, born in
Aragón in the mid 15th
century (although
inspired by Moorish
instruments), with six
double strings and a
similar tuning pattern to
the modern guitar. The
first published book of
music for thevihuela,
Luis de Milán’sLibro de
música de vihuela de
mano intitulado El
maestro, hit the shelves
in 1536. The more recent
instrument, with wide
body, curvaceous waist
and reinforced interior
ready for judicious
flamenco-style slaps,
dates back to the late
18 thcentury. A series of
renowned Spanish
composers have written
for the guitar over the
last 200 years, Joaquín
Rodrigo and Francisco
Tárrega the most famous
among them. And Spain
has always produced
brilliant guitarists.
Aside from theflamenco
legends, the likes of
Andrés Segovia, the
self-taught Andalusian
virtuoso for whom de
Falla and Rodrigo wrote,
have hustled the humble
guitar into the orchestra
pit.

Thevillancico: Spain’s

Christmas carol

Waxing lyrical about

everything from lonely

shepherds to beautiful

women, unrequited

love to the Nativity,

villancicoswere peasant

poems put to music.

Spain being Spain, the

frequently bawdy subject

matter was hijacked by

religious themes before

long. Popular in the

Renaissance period,

today the format is most

commonly seen in the

Spanish equivalent of

Christmas carols, trotted

out each year to a beat

played on the unusual

zambombadrum.