Part 22 (1/2)

The lower cla.s.ses, who are a trifle less particular, and among whom, by the blessing of Santiago, the foreign dancing-master is not abroad, adhere to the primitive steps and tunes of their Oriental forefathers.

Their accompaniments are the ”tabret and the harp;” the guitar, the tambourine, and the castanet. The essence of these instruments is to give a noise on being beaten. Simple as it may seem to play on the latter, it is only attained by a quick ear and finger, and great practice; accordingly these delights of the people are always in their hands; practice makes perfect, and many a performer, dusky as a Moor, rivals Ethiopian ”Bones” himself; they take to it before their alphabet, since the very urchins in the street begin to learn by snapping their fingers, or clicking together two sh.e.l.ls or bits of slate, to which they dance; in truth, next to noise, some capering seems essential, as the safety-valve exponents of what Cervantes describes, the ”bounding of the soul, the bursting of laughter, the restlessness of the body, and the quicksilver of the five senses.” It is the rude sport of people who dance from the necessity of motion, the relief of the young, the healthy, and the joyous, to whom life is of itself a blessing, and who, like skipping kids, thus give vent to their superabundant lightness of heart and limb. Sancho, a true Manchegan, after beholding the strange saltatory exhibitions of his master, in somewhat an incorrect ball costume, professes his ignorance of such elaborate dancing, but maintained that for a _zapateo_, a knocking of shoes, none could beat him. Unchanged as are the instruments, so are the dancing propensities of Spaniards. All night long, three thousand years ago, say the historians, did they dance and sing, or rather jump and _yell_, to these ”_howl_ings of Tars.h.i.+sh;” and so far from its being a fatigue, they kept up the ball all night, by way of _resting_.

The Gallicians and Asturians retain among many of their aboriginal dances and tunes, a wild Pyrrhic jumping, which, with their s.h.i.+llelah in hand, is like the Gaelic Ghillee Callum, and is the precise Iberian armed dance which Hannibal had performed at the impressive funeral of Gracchus. These quadrille figures are intricate and warlike, requiring, as was said of the Iberian performances, much leg-activity, for which the wiry sinewy active Spaniards are still remarkable. These are the _Morris_ dances imported from Gallicia by our John of Gaunt, who supposed they were _Moorish_. The peasants still dance them in their best costumes, to the antique castanet, pipe, and tambourine. They are usually directed by a master of the ceremonies, or what is equivalent, a parti-coloured fool, ?????; which may be the etymology of _Morris_.

[Sidenote: GADITANIAN GIRLS.]

These _comparsas_, or national quadrilles, were the hearty welcome which the peasants were paid to give to the sons of Louis Philippe at Vitoria; such, too, we have often beheld gratis, and performed by eight men, with castanets in their hands, and to the tune of a fife and drum, while a _Bastonero_, or leader of the band, clad in gaudy raiment like a pantaloon, directed the rustic ballet; around were grouped _payesas y aldeanas_, dressed in tight bodices, with _panuelos_ on their heads, their hair hanging down behind in _trensas_, and their necks covered with blue and coral beads; the men bound up their long locks with red handkerchiefs, and danced in their s.h.i.+rts, the sleeves of which were puckered up with bows of different-coloured ribands, crossed also over the back and breast, and mixed with scapularies and small prints of saints; their drawers were white, and full as the _bragas_ of the Valencians, like whom they wore _alpargatas_, or hemp sandals laced with blue strings; the figure of the dance was very intricate, consisting of much circling, turning, and jumping, and accompanied with loud cries of _viva!_ at each change of evolution. These _comparsas_ are undoubtedly a remnant of the original Iberian exhibitions, in which, as among the Spartans and wild Indians, even in relaxations a warlike principle was maintained. The dancers beat time with their swords on their s.h.i.+elds, and when one of their champions wished to show his contempt for the Romans, he executed before them a derisive pirouette. Was this remembered the other day at Vitoria?

But in Spain at every moment one retraces the steps of antiquity; thus still on the banks of the Baetis may be seen those dancing-girls of profligate Gades, which were exported to ancient Rome, with pickled tunnies, to the delight of wicked epicures and the horror of the good fathers of the early church, who compared them, and perhaps justly, to the capering performed by the daughter of Herodias. They were prohibited by Theodosius, because, according to St. Chrysostom, at such b.a.l.l.s the devil never wanted a partner. The well-known statue at Naples called the Venere Callipige is the representation of Telethusa, or some other Cadiz dancing-girl. Seville is now in these matters, what Gades was; never there is wanting some venerable gipsy hag, who will get up a _funcion_ as these pretty proceedings are called, a word taken from the pontifical ceremonies; for Italy set the fas.h.i.+on to Spain once, as France does now.

These festivals must be paid for, since the gitanesque race, according to Cervantes, were only sent into this world as ”fishhooks for purses.”

The _callees_ when young are very pretty--then they have such wheedling ways, and traffic on such sure wants and wishes, since to Spanish men they prophesy gold, to women, husbands.

[Sidenote: GIPSY DANCE.]

The scene of the ball is generally placed in the suburb Triana, which is the Transtevere of the town, and the home of bull-fighters, smugglers, picturesque rogues, and Egyptians, whose women are the premieres danseuses on these occasions, in which men never take a part. The house selected is usually one of those semi-Moorish abodes and perfect pictures, where rags, poverty, and ruin, are mixed up with marble columns, figs, fountains and grapes; the party a.s.sembles in some stately saloon, whose gilded Arab roof--safe from the spoiler--hangs over whitewashed walls, and the few wooden benches on which the chaperons and invited are seated, among whom quant.i.ty is rather preferred to quality; nor would the company or costume perhaps be admissible at the Mansion-house; but here the past triumphs over the present; the dance which is closely a.n.a.logous to the _Ghowasee_ of the Egyptians, and the _Nautch_ of the Hindoos, is called the _Ole_ by Spaniards, the _Romalis_ by their gipsies; the soul and essence of it consists in the expression of certain sentiment, one not indeed of a very sentimental or correct character. The ladies, who seem to have no bones, resolve the problem of perpetual motion, their feet having comparatively a sinecure, as the whole person performs a pantomime, and trembles like an aspen leaf; the flexible form and Terpsich.o.r.e figure of a young Andalucian girl--be she gipsy or not--is said by the learned, to have been designed by nature as the fit frame for her voluptuous imagination.

[Sidenote: OPERA IN SPAIN.]

Be that as it may, the scholar and cla.s.sical commentator will every moment quote Martial, &c., when he beholds the unchanged balancing of hands, raised as if to catch showers of roses, the tapping of the feet, and the serpentine, quivering movements. A contagious excitement seizes the spectators, who, like Orientals, beat time with their hands in measured cadence, and at every pause applaud with cries and clappings.

The damsels, thus encouraged, continue in violent action until nature is all but exhausted; then aniseed brandy, wine, and _alpisteras_ are handed about, and the fete, carried on to early dawn, often concludes in broken heads, which here are called ”gipsy's fare.” These dances appear to a stranger from the chilly north, to be more marked by energy than by grace, nor have the legs less to do than the body, hips, and arms. The sight of this unchanged pastime of antiquity, which excites the Spaniards to frenzy, rather disgusts an English spectator, possibly from some national malorganization, for, as Moliere says, ”l'Angleterre a produit des grands hommes dans les sciences et les beaux arts, mais pas un grand danseur--allez lire l'histoire.” However indecent these dances may be, yet the performers are inviolably chaste, and as far at least as ungipsy guests are concerned, may be compared to iced punch at a rout; young girls go through them before the applauding eyes of their parents and brothers, who would resent to the death any attempt on their sisters' virtue.

During the lucid intervals between the ballet and the brandy, _La cana_, the true Arabic _gaunia_, song, is administered as a soother by some hirsute artiste, without frills, studs, diamonds, or kid gloves, whose staves, sad and melancholy, always begin and end with an _ay!_ a high-pitched sigh, or cry. These Moorish melodies, relics of auld lang syne, are best preserved in the hill-built villages near Ronda, where there are no roads for the members of Queen Christina's _Conservatorio Napolitano_; wherever l'academie tyrannizes, and the Italian opera prevails, adieu, alas! to the tropes and tunes of the people: and now-a-days the opera exotic is cultivated in Spain by the higher cla.s.ses, because, being fas.h.i.+onable at London and Paris, it is an exponent of the civilization of 1846. Although the audience in their honest hearts are as much bored there as elsewhere, yet the affair is p.r.o.nounced by them to be charming, because it is so expensive, so select, and so far above the comprehension of the vulgar. Avoid it, however, in Spain, ye our fair readers, for the second-rate singers are not fit to hold the score to those of thy own dear Haymarket.

[Sidenote: MUSIC IN VENTAS.]

The real opera of Spain is in the shop of the _Barbero_ or in the court-yard of the _Venta_; in truth, good music, whether harmonious or scientific, vocal or instrumental, is seldom heard in this land, notwithstanding the eternal strumming and singing that is going on there. The very ma.s.ses, as performed in the cathedrals, from the introduction of the pianoforte and the violin, have very little impressive or devotional character. The fiddle disenchants. Even Murillo, when he clapped catgut under a cherub chin in the clouds, thereby damaged the angelic sentiment. Let none despise the genuine songs and instruments of the Peninsula, as excellence in music is multiform, and much of it, both in name and substance, is conventional.

Witness a whining ballad sung by a chorus out of work, to encoring crowds in the streets of merry old England, or a bagpipe-tune played in Ross-s.h.i.+re, which enchants the Highlanders, who cry that strain again, but scares away the gleds. Let therefore the Spaniards enjoy also what they call music, although fastidious foreigners condemn it as Iberian and Oriental. They love to have it so, and will have their own way, in their own time and tune, Rossini and Paganini to the contrary notwithstanding. They--not the Italians--are listened to by a delighted semi-Moro audience, with a most profound Oriental and melancholy attention. Like their love, their music, which is its food, is a serious affair; yet the sad song, the guitar, and dance, at this moment, form the joy of careless poverty, the repose of sunburnt labour. The poor forget their toils, _sans six sous et sans souci_; nay, even their meals, like Pliny's friend Claro, who lost his supper, _Baetican olives and gazpacho_, to run after a Gaditanian dancing-girl.

[Sidenote: THE GUITAR.]

In venta and court-yard, in spite of a long day's work and scanty fare, at the sound of the guitar and click of the castanet, a new life is breathed into their veins. So far from feeling past fatigue, the very fatigue of the dance seems refres.h.i.+ng, and many a weary traveller will rue the midnight frolics of his noisy and saltatory fellow-lodgers.

Supper is no sooner over than ”apres la panse la danse,”--some muscular masculine performer, the very ant.i.thesis of Farinelli, screams forth his couplets, ”screechin' out his prosaic verse,” either at the top of his voice, or drawls out his ballad, melancholy as the drone of a Lincolns.h.i.+re bagpipe, and both alike to the imminent danger of his own trachea, and of all un-Spanish acoustic organs. For verily, to repeat Gray's unhandsome critique of the grand Opera Francais, it consists of ”des miaulemens et des hurlemens effroyables, meles avec un tintamare du diable.” As, however, in Paris, so in Spain, the audience are in raptures; all men's ears grow to the tunes as if they had eaten ballads; all join in chorus at the end of each verse; this ”private band,” as among the _sangre su_, supplies the want of conversation, and converts a stupid silence into scientific attention,--ainsi les extremes se touchent. There is always in every company of Spaniards, whether soldiers, civilians, muleteers, or ministers, some one who can play the guitar more or less, like Louis XIV., who, according to Voltaire, was taught nothing but that and dancing. G.o.doy, the Prince of the Peace, one of the most worthless of the mult.i.tude of worthless ministers by whom Spain has been misgoverned, first captivated the royal Messalina by his talent of strumming on the guitar; so Gonzales Bravo, editor of the Madrid _Satirist_, rose to be premier, and conciliated the virtuous Christina, who, soothed by the sweet sounds of this pepper-and-salted Amphion, forgot his libels on herself and Senor Munoz. It may be predicted of the Spains, that when this strumming is mute, the game will be up, as the Hebrew expression for the ne plus ultra desolation of an Oriental city is ”the ceasing of the mirth of the guitar and tambourine.”

In Spain whenever and wherever the siren sounds are heard, a party is forthwith got up of all ages and s.e.xes, who are attracted by the tinkling like swarming bees. The guitar is part and parcel of the Spaniard and his ballads; he slings it across his shoulder with a ribbon, as was depicted on the tombs of Egypt four thousand years ago.

The performers seldom are very scientific musicians; they content themselves with striking the chords, sweeping the whole hand over the strings, or flouris.h.i.+ng, and tapping the board with the thumb, at which they are very expert. Occasionally in the towns there is some one who has attained more power over this ungrateful instrument; but the attempt is a failure. The guitar responds coldly to Italian words and elaborate melody, which never come home to Spanish ears or hearts; for, like the lyre of Anacreon, however often he might change the strings, love, sweet love, is its only theme. The mult.i.tude suit the tune to the song, both of which are frequently extemporaneous. They lisp in numbers, not to say verse; but their splendid idiom lends itself to a prodigality of words, whether prose or poetry; nor are either very difficult, where common sense is no necessary ingredient in the composition; accordingly the language comes in aid to the fertile mother-wit of the natives; rhymes are dispensed with at pleasure, or mixed according to caprice with a.s.sonants which consist of the mere recurrence of the same vowels, without reference to that of consonants, and even these, which poorly fill a foreign ear, are not always observed; a change in intonation, or a few thumps more or less on the board, do the work, supersede all difficulties, and const.i.tute a rude prosody, and lead to music just as gestures do to dancing and to ballads,--”_que se canta ballando_;” and which, when heard, reciprocally inspire a Saint Vitus's desire to snap fingers and kick heels, as all will admit in whose ears the _habas verdes_ of Leon, or the _cachuca_ of Cadiz, yet ring.

[Sidenote: THE LADIES SINGING.]

The words destined to set all this capering in motion are not written for cold British critics. Like sermons, they are delivered orally, and are never subjected to the disenchanting ordeal of type: and even such as may be professedly serious and not saltatory are listened to by those who come attuned to the hearing vein--who antic.i.p.ate and re-echo the subject--who are operated on by the contagious bias. Thus a fascinated audience of otherwise sensible Britons tolerates the positive presence of nonsense at an opera--

”Where rhyme with reason does dispense, And sound has right to govern sense.”

In order to feel the full power of the guitar and Spanish song, the performer should be a sprightly Andaluza, taught or untaught; she wields the instrument as her fan or _mantilla_; it seems to become portion of herself, and alive; indeed the whole thing requires an _abandon_, a fire, a _gracia_, which could not be risked by ladies of more northern climates and more tightly-laced zones. No wonder one of the old fathers of the church said that he would sooner face a singing basilisk than one of these performers: she is good for nothing when pinned down to a piano, on which few Spanish women play even tolerably, and so with her singing, when she attempts 'Adelaide,' or anything in the sublime, beautiful, and serious, her failure is dead certain, while, taken in her own line, she is triumphant; the words of her song are often struck off, like Theodore Hook's, at the moment, and allude to incidents and persons present; sometimes they are full of epigram and _double entendre_; they often sing what may not be spoken, and steal hearts through ears, like the Sirens, or as Cervantes has it, _cuando cantan encantan_. At other times their song is little better than meaningless jingle, with which the listeners are just as well satisfied. For, as Figaro says--”ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'etre dit, on le chante.” A good voice, which Italians call _novanta-nove_, ninety-nine parts out of the hundred, is very rare; nothing strikes a traveller more unfavourably than the harsh voice of the women in general; never mind, these ballad songs from the most remote antiquity have formed the delight of the people, have tempered the despotism of their church and state, have sustained a nation's resistance against foreign aggression.

[Sidenote: MOORISH GUITARS.]