The Roots and Flamenco: The Duende Was Born Here (15th Century–1900)

This mixture left a mark on Spanish music that can still be heard today: melismas — the vocal ornamentations that a single vowel can sustain over several measures — which are the signature of flamenco singing, are direct heirs of Arabic and Andalusian music. The Phrygian mode — the scale on which much of the oldest flamenco repertoire is built — is a mode that traveled from the Middle East to the Iberian Peninsula through centuries of musical exchange.

The Romani arrive in Andalusia

In 1425, the first groups of Romani arrived in Andalusia. They came from India, through Persia, Anatolia, and the Balkans, carrying with them a musical tradition of enormous richness that would blend with the Arabic, Jewish, and Spanish music they found in the south of the peninsula.

From the 15th to the 18th century, the Romani were marginalized, which is why they sang in secret in blacksmith shops, their homes, or family celebrations, such as weddings and baptisms. This clandestinity was, paradoxically, the condition that allowed flamenco to develop in its purest form: far from the stages, far from the show, in the intimacy of the communities that lived it.

The Romani joined the Andalusian people in an environment of marginalization and poverty, and it was this shared experience that was reflected in the music. Flamenco was born, therefore, as a form of expression of the suffering and despair of the lower classes.

The golden triangle

Most studies agree on establishing Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz) as the birthplace of flamenco singing. The spread of this art to other corners of Andalusia is due to the nomadic nature of the Roma people, who would travel from town to town selling their products or doing occasional work. This is the reason why flamenco took root in other Andalusian cities such as Seville and Granada.

That triangle between Cádiz, Jerez de la Frontera and Triana in Seville is the geography of origin: three port and commercial cities where cultures mingled with the naturalness of markets, where no one could precisely trace the boundary between the Arab and the Christian, between the Roma and the Andalusian, between what came from outside and what had always been there.

The Roma settled in the caves of Sacromonte, turning the city of the Alhambra into one of the cradles of flamenco in Spain. The cante jondo and the duende were born and live in this neighborhood.

The palos: the universe of flamenco

Flamenco is not a genre but a family of genres. The musical styles of flamenco are called "palos" in Spanish. There are more than 50 different styles of flamenco.

Each palo has its own rhythm, its own mode, its own emotional weight and its own context of use. The seguiriya — the deepest and oldest palo, considered the heart of cante jondo — has a 12-beat meter with an asymmetric distribution that has no equivalent in any other European musical tradition. The soleá is slower, more meditative. The bulería is the fastest and most festive palo, the one that closes the juergas when the wine has flowed and the duende has made its appearance. The seguiriya, the fandango, the petenera, the malagueña, the zambra — each with its own history, geography and masters.

The history of flamenco is marked by various stages, with its professionalization being one of the most significant milestones. Although its initial development took place in private spaces, flamenco gained notoriety in the cafés cantantes in the mid-nineteenth century. These establishments offered cante, dance and flamenco guitar performances, allowing artists to refine their skills in a more formal and competitive environment. This period is known as the Golden Age of Flamenco, during which great artists such as El Planeta and El Fillo emerged.

The duende: what has no name

Federico García Lorca — the Granada-born poet who would be assassinated in the early days of the Spanish Civil War — wrote in 1933 his lecture "Theory and Play of the Duende", the text that has best attempted to capture what flamenco has that no musicological analysis can fully explain.

The duende — the word that flamenco artists use to designate the presence of something that goes beyond technical virtuosity, the moment when art touches something that has no name — is the central concept of the entire flamenco aesthetic. It is not inspiration or emotion or technique: it is all of that and something more, something that comes from within and cannot be summoned voluntarily but only prepared for.

Lorca wrote: "The duende does not arrive if it does not see the possibility of death." Flamenco is the art form that lives closest to that possibility: the cante por soleá is not beautiful, it is true. The difference between the beautiful and the true — between the virtuosity that pleases and the art that moves — is the difference that the duende establishes.

Two of Lorca's most important poetic works, "Poem of the Cante Jondo" and "Romancero Gitano", show Lorca's fascination with flamenco.

The flamenco guitar: from accompaniment to protagonist

The guitar arrived in flamenco as an accompanying instrument — its original function was to mark the rhythm and sustain the harmony beneath the singing — and over time it became an independent protagonist, capable of sustaining complete pieces without vocals.

Guitarists like Paco de Lucía took this instrument to new heights, incorporating influences from other musical genres and elevating flamenco to an international level.

But before Paco de Lucía, there was a long chain of masters who built the flamenco guitar technique: Ramón Montoya — the first to bring the flamenco guitar to concert stages with his own music — and Niño Ricardo — the master who developed the picado and rasgueo to levels of complexity that classical guitarists took decades to recognize.

The first voices: the foundational masters

The first cantaores for whom historical records exist are semi-legendary figures: El Planeta and El Fillo in the nineteenth century, the masters who established the fundamental palos of cante. But the first figure for whom abundant documentation and recordings exist is Antonio Chacón — the cantaor from Jerez who in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries represented the pinnacle of classical cante, the fandango, the malagueña and the granaína in their most elaborate form.

And before all of them, at the origin that has no exact date because it preceded written records, were the anonymous voices of the forges and the gitano gatherings: the men and women who sang in the dark, in private, not knowing they were creating one of the most extraordinary forms of artistic expression in the history of humanity.

Editorial note: Flamenco was declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2010. That recognition was a long time coming — history was not always kind to this art form — but when it arrived it was unanimous. Because flamenco has something that very few art forms have: the capacity to produce in the listener the sensation of hearing something true, something that comes from a place deeper than technique and more honest than calculated emotion. That is the duende. And no one has explained it better than Lorca, who died without seeing it recognized, and without the duende — which according to him lived close to death — saving him.

Editorial selection

Top 10 of the Roots and Classical Flamenco

1. 1

   Seguiriya

   Traditional palo

   The heart of cante jondo. The most powerful asymmetric meter in all of European music. Duende in its purest form.

   19th C.
2. 2

   Soleá

   Traditional palo

   The most meditative palo. The presence of time and pain in the form of cante.

   19th C.
3. 3

   Bulería

   Traditional palo (Jerez)

   The fastest and most festive palo. The flamenco juerga in its purest form. Jerez as the undisputed origin.

   19th C.
4. 4

   Fandango de Huelva

   Traditional palo

   The most widespread palo in all of Andalusia. The music of the miners of Huelva turned into a universal cante.

   18th C.
5. 5

   Malagueña

   Traditional palo

   The cante of Málaga. The free malagueña — without a beat — as the form closest to vocal improvisation in flamenco.

   19th C.
6. 6

   Zambra granadina

   Traditional palo

   The flamenco of the caves of Sacromonte. The Gypsy-Moorish world of Granada expressed through dance and song.

   19th C.
7. 7

   Petenera

   Traditional palo

   The most mysterious palo in flamenco. The woman who brought men to ruin, the cante said to bring bad luck to anyone who sings it in public.

   19th C.
8. 8

   Tango flamenco

   Traditional palo

   Not to be confused with Argentine tango. Flamenco tango is older and faster — the rhythm of Cádiz and Triana that never stops.

   19th C.
9. 9

   Granaína

   Traditional palo

   The cante of Granada. The Alhambra as a sonic backdrop — the flamenco style closest to Arab music.

   19th C.
10. 10

    Farruca

    Traditional palo

    The most austere and masculine palo. Galicia reaching flamenco through Galician emigrants in Andalusia.

    19th C.

🎵 Practice these songs in Doresol

Next chapter — Spain Series: The Golden Age of Flamenco — Camarón de la Isla, Paco de Lucía and the 20th-century revolution.