Spanish musicians boast a range of musical styles, from folk and pop to flamenco. Some musicians, like singer-songwriter Marisol, have become internationally acclaimed. She collaborates with musicians all around the globe while maintaining strong connections to her Mexican roots.
Rosalia, another noteworthy Spanish musician, stands out as a rare contemporary artist; an innovator with extensive Old World genre training who creates striking Latin pop music that can both inspire passions and soothe any accompanying heartbreaks. Her songs serve both purposes perfectly.
Baroque music
The Baroque style marked an obvious break with both Renaissance music and its Classical successor. It introduced new harmony, featuring simpler textures than those seen during prior periods. Notable composers in this era included George Frideric Handel, Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Stradella among many others. Baroque also saw the creation of oratorios; like opera but focused more heavily on religious topics.
Baroque musicians were expected to be adept improvisers who could create both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts with ease, leading them to develop an unprecedented degree of professionalism in musical performance – including competitions among musicians to see who could create the longest and most complex ornamented vocal counterpoint improvisations.
Pianists should study the many sonatas composed for unaccompanied piano by Bach and others such as Corelli, Scarlatti, Couperin as well as Santiago de Murcia and Gaspar Sanz who all employed elements from both European and Native cultures into their works to produce interesting sounds.
Flamenco
Flamenco is an expressive art form that draws upon Spanish folklore to communicate deep emotions. It incorporates elements of Jewish, Catholic, Moorish and Moorish heritage from 700 years of Muslim occupation in Spain. Flamenco originated in Andalusian region but has also expanded across Southern Spain including Murcia; thus making its mark as part of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2010.
Flamenco music embodies singing and rhythm, most notably through palmas (clapping of hands). Its origins lie in the individualistic rebellion of Gypsy people living under adverse social circumstances who sought relief through singing.
Flamenco originated through generations, families and social groups; nowadays it can be found at regular music venues called penas, night clubs called tablaos or private events. Guitar, castanets and foot stomping accompany its performance at such events; its musical style includes three fundamental components – its flamenco mode or tonality, compas or rhythm and performer.
Murcian music
Murcia, located in southern Spain that experienced Moorish colonisation, boasts an active folk tradition similar to Andalusia’s. Murcian musical traditions include guitar-accompanied cante jondo and rondallas played by specially plucked string bands known as cuadrillas; tamborils provide accompaniment; other musical instruments include the requinta and zanfona (a type of hurdy-gurdy).
Murcia also shows an affinity for Italianate compositions for baroque guitar, which uses tablature instead of staff notation. His album of compositions by Cabanilles and Lislevand illustrates this period in Spanish musical history and their range of styles embraced during that era.
This album also includes uptempo dances such as fandango murciano, which uses second-beat syncopations to evoke movement and is performed by a band led by Juan Jose Robles who has worked with traditional and contemporary folk music bands, most recently his solo release Tiempo de espera.
Xeremiers
Spanish music is well known around the world for its church Gregorian chants; however, there’s much more to its soundscape: folk songs, flamenco dancers, zarzuela music and classic guitar music by well-known Spanish composers are just a few other genres to discover!
Traditional Mallorcan music would be unimaginable without the ubiquitous xeremia – an instrument related to bagpipes that you’ll likely encounter at most village festivals and which likely originated from Moorish instruments brought over from mainland Spain many centuries ago. Accompanied by small drums and flutes typically played by young bearded men, xeremia remains at the core of Mallorcan musical expression.
Na Maria, who plays the xeremies, is deeply passionate about this tradition and works as both a chef and musician in addition to advocating for more spaces for women in music.