Palos flamencos: Verdialess

Get to know the flamenco forms

Alegrías

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Verdiales

Flamenco Forms
Verdiales
by Susana Navalón
Translated by Yasha Maccanico

(From Los Verdiales, an olive-growing area in the province of Málaga, where a kind of olive known as verdial is grown). It is a fandango that could be fitted within the category of the malagueñas. They used to be performed with musical accompaniment including lutes, bandurrias (lute-like Spanish instruments), tambourines, castanets ... The groups of musicians playing them were known as pandas. With Moorish origins, it is a cante that can be danced to, the aflamencamiento (lit. flamencoisation; that is, changes that are undergone as a result of the influence of flamenco) that it is experiencing is not yet complete, and it clearly maintains its own folk roots.

Verdiales are the oldest and most genuine expression of popular music from Málaga.

Dance

Andalusian dance of a popular character that has no desplantes (series of hard stepping movements that end, or climax, a series of steps, or section, of the dance) or convulsive movements. It involves jumping and requires the participation of at least one pair of dancers. José Luque, a student of this style, believes that “verdiales are the oldest and most genuine expression of the traditional popular music of Málaga. It is a fandango that can be danced to, with probable Moorish origins”, which has gained strength in Málaga. It can be danced with castanets and using finger-clicking as accompaniment.
It represents a basic example of a ternary meter, that is, it is in three times:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

The guitar strings are strummed with special emphasis in the verdial style, almost without pause, before, during and after the singing.

Guitar

Traditionally, the trimmings for these cantes were provided by an orchestra which included tambourines, violins, guitars, etc. However, flamenco artists perform it with a rhythm that is much less lively and only using a guitar, sometimes alongside castanets as well.
The guitar introduction and interludes are based on the Andalusian scale as well as the ayeo (a succession or wails or melodic singing using the word “ay”) by the cantaor that precedes the lyrics. At the beginning of the coplas (poetic compositions, in verse, used as lyrics), the singing changes to the major mode, changing the tonality again to return to the Andalusian scale in the remate (the emphatic final part of a movement). The guitar strings are strummed with special emphasis almost without pause in the verdial style, before, during and after the singing.

Singing

The cante (style of song) is rich in variety, tradition and customs. Apart from the guitar, they used to be accompanied with violins, tambourines and castanets, and in earlier times using vihuelas (an ancient traditional Spanish string instrument) and bandurrias, which were sometimes substituted by rustic or domestic objects such as mortars, small cane tubes, pots and pans, and spoons. These musical collectives performing verdiales are known as Panda de Verdiales. As a result of its copious accompaniment, it has evolved very little within flamenco and it still preserves its primitive essence. Juan Breva was the artist who was most important for spreading this style. The lyrics are simple and happy. This cante is considered the prototype of the peasant fandango, and its lyrics are characterised by coplas (poetic compositions, in verse, used as lyrics) consisting of five eight-syllable verses (the first of which tends to be repeated as the third) or, at times, of four verses.