La saeta

The saeta, cante made prayer, is undoubtedly a symbol of Andalusian Holy Week and, also, of other Spanish regions. Born as plain cante, chanted, in the heat of the processions of the mendicant orders, it soon took root with the musical and popular religiosity of many cities and towns in our geography. This book, starting from this reality, delves into the sinuous and complex process of its aflamencimiento, carried out over a long period that spans the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th and that cannot be attributed to any specific cantaor but rather, to the slow evolutionary maturation of the way of understanding and executing a matrix cante, the seguiriya, by an ethnic group, the gypsy, accustomed to bringing popular verses from the Castilian musical heritage to her land. The extensive documentation handled, the news published by the press of the time as well as the recordings indicated provide a very complete content to understand, value and appreciate a way of singing expressed with the indefinable feeling of the jondo.