The tonadilla, a type of satiric musical skit popular on the public stages of Madrid during the late Enlightenment, has played a significant role in the history of music in Spain. This book, the first major study of the tonadilla in English, examines the musical, theatrical, and social worlds that the tonadilla brought together and traces the lasting influence this genre has had on the historiography of Spanish music. The tonadillas' careful constructions of musical populism provide a window onto the tensions among Enlightenment modernity, folkloric nationalism, and the politics of representation; their diverse, engaging, and cosmopolitan music is an invitation to reexamine tired old ideas of musical "Spanishness." Perhaps most radically of all, their satirical stance urges us to embrace the labile, paratextual nature of comic performance as central to the construction of history.
The Tonadilla in Performance Lyric Comedy in Enlightenment Spain
About the Book
Reviews
"There is far too much in this amazing book to describe in a blurb. Suffice it to say that Elisabeth Le Guin has immersed herself in the little-known world of the late eighteenth-century tonadilla and honors it by giving us a wonderfully rich picture of place, genre, and period that encompasses questions of comedy, song, historiography, nationalism, gender, the practicalities of performance, and the disadvantages of an overarching theory." —Mary Hunter, author of The Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart's Vienna"This book attests to a true love for musical theatre. Elisabeth Le Guin achieves what no modern scholar has so far: she makes the tonadillas hers. The Tonadilla in Performance offers a sound understanding of Spanish culture and a rare insight into this repertoire." —Germán Labrador López de Azcona, Professor of Music at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
A Note on Editions and Translations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Indispensable Ornaments
The Matter at Hand—“A Horrible Storm”: Nationalist Historiography and the Tonadillas—The Nature and Purpose of This Book—Kom/oide
1. An Evening at the Theater: An Imaginary Re/creation
The First Act (Which Here They Call “Jornada”)—Sainete: El Simple Discreto—Tonadilla: El Pintor y la Vieja—La Niteti: Second Jornada—Sainete (Entremés): La Verdad Desnuda—Tonadilla: La Avellanera y Dos Franceses, by Pablo Esteve
2. Players
The Companies—Training in Acting—Women in the Theater—Blas de Laserna, La Compositora (1777–1778)—Rehearsals—Players and Literacy—Oral and Aural Learning and Acting—Actor-Players and Musician-Players—The First Violin for Dances and Tonadillas—The Music Master—The Copyist—The Apuntador (“Apunte”)—Singing Style—Improvisation—Pablo Esteve, La Desdicha de las Tonadillas (1782)
3. Rhythms
Three Italian Styles—The Mediterranean Roots of Galant Style—Coplas and Paired Phrasing—Luis Misón, La Chinesca (1761)—Blas de Laserna, La Cómica y la Operista (1783)—The Italian and “el Ytaliano”—The Galant as the Unmarked—Training in Composition—The Seguidilla(s)—Boleras in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung—Minguet e Yrol, Arte de Danzar a la Francesa (1758)—Dancing the Seguidillas—Seguidillas as Populist Symbol—Ramón de la Cruz, El Pueblo Quejoso (1765)—Paradox of the Seguidillas—Seguidillas in the Tonadillas—Blas de Laserna, La Fuga de la Pulpillo (1784)—Blas de Laserna, La Lección de Música y de Bolero (1803)
Intermedio: On the Stage of the Metropolis
Metropolitan Solipsism—Enter la Mandinga—The Manguindoy—Historical Sketch—Treacherous Mirrors: Symbols of an Unfinished Conquest—The Spanish Rejection of Musical Mimesis—Exit la Mandinga—Cadence but Not Closure
4. Bandits
Jácaras, Jaques, and Social History—Bandoleros and Early Andalucismo—Majismo and Bandolerismo—María Ladvenant—Chinita (Gabriel López)—Jovellanos Is Incensed—Anonymous, El Guapo (Bocanegra) (ca. 1767)—Resistance, Rebellion, Revolution—Anonymous, La Jácara (1767)—Improvised Playing and Written Composition—Thirty Years Later—Blas de Laserna, Los Contrabandistas (between 1794 and 1803)—Manuel García, “Yo Que Soy Contrabandista” (1805)
5. Late Tonadillas
“The Grand Tragedy: Historical Sketch, 1793–1813—Between the Acts: The Madrid Theaters, 1793–1813—History as Dramatic Material—General Features of Late Tonadillas—Tonadilla Canonicity— Blas de Laserna, El Ensayo (1805)—Another Afternoon at the Theater: Teatro del Príncipe, 25 August 1806—Isidoro Máiquez and Antonia Prado—Manuel Quintana, Pelayo (1805)—Ramón de la Cruz, El Triunfo del Interés (1777)—Pablo del Moral, El Page Tonto (1799–1809)
Fin de Fiesta: Las Músicas
La Raboso—Blas de Laserna, Las Músicas (1779)—The Limits of Re/creation
Appendix. Longer Music Examples
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Awards
- 2015 Otto Kinkeldey Award, American Musicological Society