Publications and Research
Document Type
Book Chapter or Section
Publication Date
2016
Abstract
The "Rondeña" of guitarist Francisco Rodríguez Murciano (El Murciano, 1795-1848) of Granada--as documented in a notation made by his son--has been a subject of considerable interest among scholars interested in the evolution of flamenco guitar playing (toque). Such authors as Eusebio Rioja (2008, 2013), Javier Suárez Pajares (2003), Guillermo Castro Buendía (2014), and Norberto Torres Cortés (2010) have recognized the importance of this piece in the attempted reconstruction, however hypothetical, of the development of the art of flamenco guitar. These authors have raised various questions about the piece, involving the date and circumstances of its preparation and the extent to which it accurately represents El Murciano's actual playing. In 2014-15, one of the present authors (Martínez) discovered two previously unexamined variant transcriptions of the same piece. In this article, we present these manuscripts and suggest how they shed new light on the evolution of pre-flamenco guitar playing.
Comments
This work was originally published in "The Global Reach of the Fandango in Music, Song and Dance: Spaniards, Indians, Africans and Gypsies," edited by K. Meira Goldberg and Antoni Pizà.