It is said that cante jondo (deep song) is the heart and soul of flamenco: Major forms are the tonás, martinetes, seguiriya, soleá, and carcelera. Meaning 'profound' and 'deep,' this intensely sad form of cante deals with themes of death, anguish, despair, or religious sentiments and may be sung a palo seco (without guitar accompaniment). The flamenco songs of today may be classified into one of three categories: cante grande, cante intermedio or cante chico.Īlso known as cante jondo and sometimes referred to as cante gitano.

There are many variants of cantes or palos (song forms), each expressing a unique emotion (which shares noticeable resemblance to Indian classical music). 3.6 Camarón de la Isla (José Monje Cruz).3.5 Manolo Caracol (Manuel Ortega Juárez).3.4 La Niña De Los Peines (Pastora María Pavón Cruz).2 Other classifications of cante flamenco.The first two prizes went to El Tenazas and El Caracol. Singers from all over Andalusia travelled to join in the competition. In order to preserve the 'authentic' cante jondo (deep song), Manuel de Falla and Federico García Lorca, organized the Concurso de Cante Jondo in Granada in 1922. Beginning in 1910, cante flamenco was popularized by the opera flamenca which included the lighter forms of flamenco such as fandangos and cantes de ida y vuelta. įlamenco developed into its definitive form during its Golden Age (1869-1910). Flamenco embodies awealth of musical cultures - Roma, Arab, Berber, Jewish, and Christian. Its origins are uncertain but scholars see many influences in the cante flamenco including: The traditional song of the gitanos (Spanish Gypsies), the Perso-Arab Zyriab song form, the classical Andalusian orchestras of the Islamic Empire, the Jewish synagogue chants, Mozarabic forms such as zarchyas and zambra, Arabic zayal (the foundation for the Fandango), and Andalusian regional folk forms, as well as West African and South American influences as seen in the cantes de ida y vuelta. The cante flamenco is part of musical tradition in the Andalusian region of Spain. Because the dancer is front and center in a flamenco performance, foreigners often assume the dance is the most important aspect of the art form - in fact, it is the cante which is the heart and soul of the genre. The cante flamenco ( Spanish pronunciation: ), meaning 'flamenco singing', is one of the three main components of flamenco, along with toque (playing the guitar) and baile (dance).

Claquette flamenco