Uploaded April 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago

---

Director: Juan de Udaeta.
Interpréte: Orquesta Ciudad de Granada
Edita: Junta de Andalucía. Consejería de Cultura
Dirección científica: Centro de Documentación Musical de Andalucía
Produce: Empresa Pública de Gestión de Programas Culturales

THE 'ALHAMBRISMO' MUSICAL IN SPAIN OF THE XIX CENTURY

More than a fully developed stylistic conception, nineteenth-century musical alhambrismo was a fad, a kind of sonority, which must be linked to the picturesque trend and to the recovery of the environments of Spanish music of the first half of the century. The picturesqueness had opened the door to two tracks in European orchestral music: that of idealism in the north, with Mendelssohn's The Grotto of the Fingal, and the orientalist with The Desert of David, and later the works of Massenet or Saint-Saëns. Spain is considered an Arab place because of its past, and, given the lack of knowledge of Arabic music, topical Andalusian resources are used, such as the Andalusian scales or the intervals of the second augmented, thus identifying the Arab with the Andalusian and this with the Spanish.

The nineteenth-century Spanish musical 'alhambrismo' has not been studied until now, with musicology occupied only by the period located in the early years of the 20th century. It is therefore difficult to propose a classification, because rather than a specific genre, we must speak of the representation of a picturesque tendency in musical works, sometimes composed for certain cultural events that, rather than looking for a musical language of their own, approach a European aesthetic through conventional equivalences, until becoming places prone to a surface Arabism.

The musical production `Alhambra 'begins in Spain around 1848, in the stage of changes after the European revolutions. The first period extends between 1848 and 1866, and we must link it to the dissemination of romantic literature in Spain during the Elizabethan period, especially, the Tales of the Alhambra of Washington Irving. Its predecessor is the magazine Alhambra, a journal of Sciences, Literature and Fine Arts, published in Granada between 1839 and 1843. In 1852, José Zorrilla's Orientales were published, and one year later, Spanish Arabic music, and the connection of music with astronomy, medicine and architecture, by Soriano Fuertes.

The Alhambrista ambience is reflected in some zarzuelas, such as Boabdil, last king of Granada, by Saldoni (1845); The Conquest of Granada de Arrieta (1850); the Bolero of Los Diamantes de la Corona, by Barbieri (1854), or La conquista de Madrid de Gaztambide (1863), set in Muslim Madrid in the 11th century.

The consolidation of the 'Alhambra' trend took place during the years of restoration, especially between 1875 and 1891, a period in which there is an enormous profusion of musical works at the service of the salons, mainly songs with accompaniment and piano works. The reference to Arabic is nominal, rather than specific musical content. There is not, on the other hand, a creation of concrete orchestral works, except the Mozarabic Symphony of Giró, and the works of the beginning and end of the 80s. In the songs, the Alhambra component resides in the plot, associating the Andalusian theme with la mora, which creates an Arab-Andalusian atmosphere, fruit of which are the songs of Isidoro Hernández at the end of the 70s.

The most representative work for orchestra of the period is En la Alhambra, Serenata, by Bretón, composed in Rome during his retirement period, as a reminder of the composer's stay in Granada. It was premiered in orchestral version by the Concert Society of Madrid in 1888, under the direction of the author, and frequently performed, both in Madrid and in Granada and other places, being described by the musical critics as "piece of irreproachable melodic cut, wisely instrumented and full of inspiration and local flavor ".

Video created with Audacity, Sonic Visualizer, vokoscreen and Open Shop on an Debian 8 Jessie Linux System.