Gypsy Music in European Culture: From the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries

2 | Spanish National Music

chapter two ••••• Spanish National Music The Gitanos’ Musical Traditions in Spain The Appearance of Gypsies in Spain The music of the Spanish Gypsies, known as Gitanos, arose as a result of the intermixing of several cultures carrying specific historical experiences: Andalusian culture displaying its Arabic influence, Jewish culture, and the culture of the Andalusian Gypsies themselves. The music of the Andalusian Gypsies started with the arrival of the first Romanies in Spanish territories at the beginningofthefifteenthcenturyandgrewandtookshapeoversubsequentcenturies (Fraser 2005, 76). At the time of the Romanies’ arrival, their leaders referred to themselves as princes and counts and were initially well treated on the Iberian peninsula; “the Spanish nobility would in fact remain protectors of the Gypsies and give them valuable succor” (Fraser 2005, 97). Their situation, however, would soon worsen. After 1480, with increased numbers of Gypsy settlers on the peninsula, the first anti-Gypsy edicts were issued. The specific attitude taken toward the so-called Gypsy problem was an outgrowth of Christian Spain’s relations with the Muslims, who were finally driven outofAndalusiain1492.ManyGypsiessettledinAndalusia,whichunderMoorish rule had been a wealthy region with an intensively developed agriculture and textile industry. Cultural life blossomed, and the society was a synthesis of Arab, Jewish, and Christian influences. The Inquisition put an emphatic end to the run of tolerance and coexistence. Even before the official expulsion year of 1492, the Jews were asked to vacate Seville in 1483, along with the city’s Moors, as the Muslims of Spain are known from a generalizing Western perspective, reflecting the new fate of Spain’s non-Christian citizens (Roth 1995, 283). The Gypsies were seen, in a sense, to fill the space left by the Moors—and, withtheirdarkcomplexionanddarkhair,theyevenlookedsimilar—particularly Spanish National Music 55 given that the Gypsies willingly took up the traditional Moorish occupations: notsimplysmitheryandtradeinhorses,withwhichtheGypsieshadearlierbeen associated, but also masonry, tailoring, baking, and butchery. In the society’s search for misfits, Gypsies were often likened to Arabs, and even considered progeny of the Arabs. Some went so far as to suggest that the Moors had never left Spain but rather simply dressed themselves in Gypsy garb and reinvented their customs. InSpain,theconvictiondevelopedthataGypsywassuchbychoice:someone who did not adhere to either human or divine laws, regardless of ethnic origin. In turn, both the social and political attitude toward Gypsies resulted from the belief that Gypsies, at least as an ethnically separate people, simply did not exist. Correspondingly, those lacking a permanent abode or steady occupation and who wandered from place to place were considered cutthroats and social outcasts. The view of Gypsies as socially dangerous apostates was expressed famously in the Prematica (pragmatic sanction), issued in 1633 by Philip IV (1605–1665) and declaring unequivocally that “those who call themselves Gitanos are not so by origin or by nature but have adopted this form of life for such deleterious purposes as are now experienced” (Fraser 2005, 161). Discussions on the Gypsies were fueled by publications, chiefly by representatives of the Spanish clergy, accusing Gypsies of all possible crimes: betrayal, theft, child abduction, lasciviousness, and heresy, just to begin with. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, several prominent Gypsy families gained royal prerogatives exempting them from the anti-Gypsy laws. From among the representatives of these families (including the Bustamante , Rocamora, Montoya, and Flores families) were enlisted soldiers in the royal army, who saw action in the protracted war in the Netherlands (Leblon 2003, 36). During this period of military involvement, many Gypsy children were born of the relationships between Gypsy soldiers from wealthy families andnon-GypsywomenfromnorthernEurope.Theoffspringweredistinguished by blue eyes and blond hair, previously uncommon for Gypsies but after that point characteristic for certain Andalusian Gypsies. Yet even the families of Gypsy veterans from the Flanders campaign would ultimately be subjected to repression under the increasing Gypsy restrictions. Gypsieswouldinvoketheirfairhairandeyecolor,sometimeseffectively,against suchrestrictions.Familiesofso-calledFlemishoriginlivedclosetooneanother, often in large clusters. The restrictions meant that Gypsies typically lived in urban areas (Leblon 2003, 44), which were most prominent in Andalusia at the end of the sixteenth century. Besides Madrid, the largest Spanish cities (i.e., numbering more than thirty thousand inhabitants) were situated in the south 56 Two Models of Discourse of the country (Ruiz 2003, 54). By the eighteenth century, the regions of Cadiz andSevillehousedaroundhalftheGypsypopulation,withtherestspreadacross the country. Gypsy groups settled in Almeria, Malaga, and Granada; in the last of these, they dwelled in caves on the slopes of the Sacromonte. The abandonment by most...