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García Lorca and Spanish Music in New York

2011; Routledge; Volume: 58; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/08831157.2011.602942

1940-3216

Christopher Maurer,

Spanish Culture and Identity

Abstract Abstract Federico García Lorca visited New York and Cuba at a critical moment (1929–1930) in the performance abroad of modern Spanish music. The Spanish poet enjoyed a privileged view of the New York musical scene. Not only did his visit coincide with the successes of leading Spanish conductors (Fernández Arbós), dancers (La Argentina, La Argentinita) and instrumentalists (José Iturbi, Andrés Segovia, the Aguilar Quintet, among others), the poet's interaction with some of these performers and with the friends with whom he shared his own arrangements of Spanish folk song is bound up with questions of personal and national identity. Keywords: Federico García Lorcamusic and national identitySpanish folk songSpanish music in New YorkSpanish traditional music Notes 1. Letter of early November 1929 in García Lorca, Epistolario 664; the text is hereinafter abbreviated as EC. 2. For a more detailed account of García Lorca's trip, which combines a new edition of the New York and Cuban correspondence and evocations by his American and Spanish friends, see Maurer and Anderson. The present article, offered as the keynote lecture at the Boston College Graduate Conference 2011, owes much to my research collaboration with Andrew A. Anderson, to whom I am grateful. 3. The mention of a peninsular "mapageográfico… a través de lasmelodías," an idea that chimes with García Lorca's own expression "mapamelódico de España" (Conferencias 176) and with other contemporary accounts of his piano performances, shows to what extent his musical offerings eschewed any sort of narrow andalucismo and embraced other musical regions of Spain. The pan-Iberian emphasis (Onís provides many examples) would align him with Felip Pedrell, Falla, and their disciples, helping to counter recent accounts, in the wake of the Primer romancero gitano, of the "Andalusian" essence of his work. 4. Fernando de los Ríos to Federico de Onís, 4 June 1929, Seminario Federico de Onís, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. 5. Fernando de los Ríos to Francisco García Lorca, Granada, 14 Feb. 1926 (after hearing the poet's lectura on Luis de Góngora in the Ateneo de Granada), Archivo de la Fundación Federico García Lorca, Madrid (hereinafter cited as AFFGL). 6. Fernando de los Ríos to Federico de Onís, San Juan, P.R., 3 Aug. 1929, Seminario Federico de Onís, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. 7. Camba; qtd. and discussed by Palacios 207–10. 8. Fernando de los Ríos to Laura de los Ríos, New York, 17 (?) March 1928, AFFGL: "Anteayer me ha enviado el cantante Negro Paul Robeson, como regalo, los discos que hay de él para gramófono; son preciosos." De los Ríos seems to have been introduced to Robeson by his friend, the writer Konrad Bercovici, who tells (194) of a dinner with Robeson, De los Ríos, Ignacio Zuloaga, and other celebrities in New York on an unspecified date. 9. Fernando de los Ríos to Laura de los Ríos, New York, 17 (?) Mar. 1928, AFFGL. In the same letter he describes an outing to the Metropolitan (Tannhäuser) and a planned trip to see El Retablo de Maese Pedro of Falla. See also "Don Fernando de los Ríos y sus impresiones de América," El Defensor de Granada 24 Feb. 1929: 1. 10. Fernando de los Ríos to Laura de los Ríos, New York, 17 (?) March 1928, AFFGL. He adds that almost every week, "hay una fiesta de una nacionalidad" in International House, Columbia University. One such event "fue precioso: reprsentaron danzas y cantaron cosas populares de Panamá, Chile, México y Perú. La representación de una evocación religiosa de costumbres sagradas de los Incas, con música incaica, fue extraordinaria. Allí estaba el peruano que lo ha escrito; la música es tierna, doliente y de enorme poesía; todo estuvo representado por muchachas y muchachos estudiantes." 11. Quotations from Poeta en Nueva York are from my bilingual edition, Poet in New York, hereinafter abbreviated as PNY. 12. Espina (154) mentions "un precioso desfile de seguidillas, fandangos, villancicos, gallardas, soleares, jotas, muñeiras, alboradas, rondas, canciones 'de pescante', más todas las que llevan sobrenombre local y que abundan en cada región. Se evocaron también las 'trovas cazurras', las cántigas 'de serranía', 'de escarnio', 'de amigo', semejantes en la intención a los picayos montañeses de Cantabria, acaso prehistóricos, igual que otras de origen mítico y sirenaico, florecientes en España con milagrosa vitalidad." The group also sang "los zégeles árabes, las 'casiras' y otros cantos moros de perfumada emoción… los romances de ayer y de hoy… tan bellos como uno de 'Doña Urraca', que se canta en Santander; el de la 'Pelegrinita', reconstruido por el propio García Lorca, y el de 'Los mozos de Monteleón', [sic] de asombrosa fuerza dramática." The musical evening, from August 1929, is described in Espina, Singladuras 150–55. 13. The history of the Patronato and of its planning with regard to the international expositions and publicity for Spanish tourism in 1929 can be followed in a series of reales decretos in the Gaceta de Madrid beginning in April 1928. García Lorca's visit to New York coincides with intensive activity in the area of tourism. 14. Miguel Primo de Rivera, son of the Spanish president, spent six months in New York in 1928 and 1929 exploring possibilities for American tourism in Spain and arranging for the opening of the Spanish Tourist Information Office on Fifth Avenue, the last of three (after Paris and London) established by his father. See "España prepara una campaña muy intensa para atraer al turismo de EE. UU," La Prensa [New York] 9 Aug. 1928: 1–2; and "La oficina del Turismo español abriráse en mayo," La Prensa [New York] 9 Feb. 1929: 1. For a description of the locale at 695 Fifth Avenue, see "La Oficina del Patgronato del Turismo español fue inaugurada aquí ayer," La Prensa [New York] 29 May 1929: 2; and "Ambiente de arte y típico casticismo dan la nota en la Oficina Española de Turismo," La Prensa [New York] 30 May 1929: 2. 15. "Almuerzo en honor del cónsul de España señor Gimeno Aznar," La Prensa [New York] 15 Feb. 1930: 2. 16. Downes 104. Adolfo Salazar reported on Downes's visit in El Sol [Madrid]. For the conversation with García Lorca, see Brickell 391. Brickell elaborates in an interview on WGEO (General Electric, de Schenectady, New York), on 14 Mar. 1941, a transcript of which is in the H. Brickell papers at the University of Mississippi: "Había en mi casa [de Nueva York] como unas cien personas, escritores, artistas, profesores universitarios, etc., y entre ellos varios de Hispano-América." García Lorca is playing the piano for them when Downes enters. "Los ojos de Olin Downes se llenaron de asombro y allí se estuvo por tres horas, pidiéndole que tocara y cantara piezas y más piezas españolas. De vez en cuando conversaban los dos en francés.…" 17. Persia conjectures that García Lorca may have heard Fernández Arbós direct Richard Strauss's Don Quijote in Granada on 26 June 1916 ("Lorca" 73). 18. Harriet Onís to Mildred Adams, 7 Apr. 1968, papers of Mildred Adams, Hispanic Society of America. See also Emilio de Torre's (88) recollection of the sessions at Onís's house. 19. "Spanish Brevities," New York Times 20 Dec. 1931: X8. It is not clear to what arrangements—those done for La Argentinita?—he is referring. 20. ABC 2 Feb. 1928: 7. 21. Fernando López Martín, "España fuera de España," Mundo Gráfico [Madrid] 14 Mar. 1928: 41. He adds, "Exportamos, casi siempre, sobre todo en arte, lo que tenemos de más chabacano, de más inculto, de más soez." 22. A group of García Lorca's friends attended the Aguilar Lute Quartet's debut in Town Hall on 11 November 1929: Ángel del Río, Federico and Harriet de Onís, "La Argentina, cuyo palco era el centro de las miradas," and Gabriel García Maroto. García Lorca is not mentioned. See Ten Broeck. The Aguilar Lute Quartet had played in various American cities, and after returning to Spain from New York in December, Elisa Aguilar commented, "nos dábamos cuenta de que, por todas partes, estábamos contribuyendo a dejar bien a España ante los americanos" ("Después de una triunfal presentación en los EE. UU., embarcó el cuarteto Aguilar," La Prensa [New York] 16 Dec. 1929: 2). 23. A comparison not lost on contemporary critics. In 1928 L. A. Sloper observes in The Christian Science Monitor (28 Nov. 1928: 12) that La Argentina "is a virtuosa of the castanet, as Segovia is a virtuoso of the guitar. Although her instrument does not permit so wide a range or so complex a weaving as his." Rather than simply mark time, "La Argentina makes of [her castanets] a musical instrument and draws from them astonishing tonal variety, dynamic range and rhythmic vitality." 24. Ten Broeck, "Teatrales." The stereotype has been explored by J. M. Blecua. García Lorca reacted to it in his well-known statement for Gerardo Diego's anthology (Obras completas 2: 308). 25. "Iturbi," Time 30 Dec. 1929: 25. Downes, "Cries of Bravo! Half José Iturbi. Crash of Applause Delays Spanish Pianist's First Public Recital in Carnegie Hall," New York Times 17 Dec. 1929: 29. "José Iturbi again Plays to a Throng," New York Times30 Dec. 1929: 22. When a writer for Crónica [Madrid] asks La Argentina, on 25 May 1930, "¿Qué artistas españoles gustan… más" en Norteamérica, she answers, "De siempre, Pablo Casals, que es allí un ídolo. Ahora, Andrés Segovia, cuyos éxitos son cada día mayores; pero el que está haciendo furor es Iturbi, cuyos triunfos son más de notar allí, por donde han pasado y pasan los más grandes pianistas del mundo. Sin embargo, lo que por él sienten es locura." On Spanish performers who triumphed abroad, see also "Los españoles que 'hacen España' por todos los países del mundo," La Voz [Madrid] 25 Apr. 1930: 3. 26. The photo is reproduced in Francisco García Lorca, Federico y su mundo, n.p. 27. Anon. (probably John Martin), "Marvelous Dancer is La Argentina," New York Times 10 Nov. 1928: 20. 28. "La musa del baile español, la incomparable Antonia Mercé, la Argentina, pasa dos días en Madrid," Crónica 25 May 1930: 9. Although she does not descend to specifics, her criticism was directed toward the revue Paris-Madrid (Palace Music Hall, Paris, 1929), written by Léo Lelièvre, Henri Varna, and Fernand Rouvray, with music by Jacinto Guerrero, and featuring Raquel Meller. See "Jacinto Guerrero nos cuenta sus impresiones…," Heraldo de Madrid 1 April 1929: 6. She was equally critical of Hollywood versions of Spain. On La Argentina's vision of Spain, see Bennahum. 29. John Martin was to insist on much the same in the New York Times as he introduced La Argentina to American readers. The analogy with García Lorca's Poema del cante jondo and Primer romancero gitano seems obvious: "What we are to expect from Argentina, then, is something quite removed from the representation of authentic peasant dances. It is an art, uniquely her own, built upon the themes of peasant dancing, but recreating them to her own ends, giving them form and meaning… the atmosphere of 'Spanish gypsies of Albaicín gotten up… for the purpose of beguiling foreigners,' is not the atmosphere of this artist." New York Times 4 Nov. 1928: 129. 30. On García Lorca's changing vision of the public and the reception of his own work, see Dougherty. 31. For De los Ríos's impressions, in a letter to his daughter Laura of 7 April 1928, see Maurer and Anderson. 32. "'Si yo me pierdo, que me busquen en Andalucía o en Cuba…' Invitación a Cuba" in Maurer and Anderson. 33. See his articles in El Sol of 12, 13, 18, 23, and 30 July 1930, and 9, 14, 16, and 21 August 1930. 34. Letter of Alejandro Padilla y Bell to the Duke of Alba, Minister of State, 26 Dec. 1930, and letter of Enrique Fernández Arbós to A. Padilla y Bell, 18 Jan. 1930; Archivo General de la Administración, Alcala de Henares, caja 8330/54. On Fernández Arbós and other Spanish musicians in New York, see also Stein 220–28. 35. Maurer and Anderson, introduction, in press.