Palos flamencos: Malagueña

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Malagueña

Flamenco Forms
Malagueña
by Susana Navalón
Translated by Yasha Maccanico

(Malagueña, from Málaga). A core branch of the cantes del Levante (songs from the south-east of Spain, the Levant; originating in the mines and expressing deep suffering, their urban variations tend to refer to love, life and death), whose origins lie in the old Málaga fandangos. It became a flamenco style in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is not a cante (style of song) that is suitable for dancing, and it is very rich from a melodic point of view. There are different types of malagueñas, which are named depending on their inventors, who came from the province of Málaga, as well as from other provinces such as Cádiz. It is accompanied by a guitar played at the top and it is a cante “ad libitum” (style of singing that does not follow a specific meter, also known as “free style”). It is very often finished off with an abandolao (guitar playing executed to the rhythmic pattern of the fandango) fandango.

Dance

It is not currently a cante for dancing.

The guitar thrives when it is played in a malagueñas style.

Guitar

Its guitar accompaniment is always executed by playing it at the top and its tempo is an andante and expressive 3/4. Nonetheless, it does not have a strict external rhythm, because cantaores (flamenco singers) can stretch the tercios (sections, or each of the verses comprising a copla) at will, and on some occasions they will slow down the meter, while on others they will speed it up. According to Alfredo Arrebola, a cantaor and theoretician, the guitar has been the element that has transformed the malagueña: “The guitar thrives from playing in a malagueñas style, due to the range of arpeggios, trémolos, etc. that it is given scope for, providing it with an extraordinary and marvellous musical variety ... The malagueña acquires its independence from the local fandango because its guitar-playing – its dramatic musical character - becomes progressively slower and sharper, thus achieving an extraordinary richness”. It is modulated in E major and F major, with LA minor as its tonic.

It is a very measured, melodic and solemn cante, which acquired the category of cante grande through the voices of Enrique el Mellizo and Chacón.

Singing

It is a very measured, melodic and solemn cante which acquired the category of cante grande (a subjective expression used to indicate the oldest and most solemn, authentic and primitive styles) through the voices of Enrique el Mellizo and Chacón. There are different kinds of malagueñas, due to the personal creations of a number of performers who came both from the province of Málaga, and from other parts of Andalucía and the rest of Spain, and others exist that are less widely known and have local origins. Recently, the cantaor Diego Clavel collected up to forty-seven different styles of malagueña in a record. It is a cante with coplas (poetic compositions, in verse, used as lyrics) made up of four or five eight-syllable verses, which usually become six, as one of them is repeated. Its origins lie in the ancient fandangos of Málaga which became an authentic flamenco cante around the middle of the nineteenth century.