Quote:
Originally posted by thompson:
Ann,
Here's a response from someone who knows much more about this than I do:
"I think the Lorca description of Duende in his famous essay is half crap. When a light piece of Bach in the essay is described as having duende, that's BS. Duende is the dark spirit that is opposite across the room to ange'
(angel). "Whatever has black sounds has duende" is another line from the essay that seems almost true.
I think in all my years of flamenco I have experienced duende no more than three or so times. It was a transfiguring feeling about a flamenco "performance', not knowing whether to laugh or cry, but crying involuntarily . Nothing I have felt like it."
Jacinto
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Lorca's Collected Poems & his little book In Search of Duende are jumping off points & Lorca doesn't own the word or its definition. Probably my intuition that duende and fado are related is the closest I'll come to feeling what duende is about. Lorca says something in his book about the Andalusians "identifying" duende in a performer. That's not the same as defining the word, which as your friend Jacinto points out, can't be a definitive act. The identification is about an emotional response. When that's evoked, when that particular chord is struck, then the listener can say: "That is duende." So yes, I believe it's beyond a formal construction, and it cannot be translated neatly into words. It's all about comparison and searches for models. But because duende is equally about something evocative in the listener or the recipient and not strictly a quantity or quality appearing in the siguiriya or the poet, then it's possible that for some people, Bach produced such an emotional event. It's all relative.
This journey was / is a fascinating one for me. I agree that history holds some answers and although I didn't read the book Robin mentioned, I did use it as another diving board, this time looking at the history of the gypsy. Fascinating the way things stream out from one point into so many seemingly divergent trails, just to return to a common source. The gypsy originated from India and Persia, where they were hounded out in the early 1400s by Tamerlane, an Asiatic/Persian/Mongul military leader whose stretch of conquered territory exceeded that of Genghis Khan. What's so fascinating is the link between the gypsies, the Panjabi root of their language, Indian chants/mantras, the singing poetry of Rumi and the adoption of deep song by the gypsies
(or Roma) . I see this wonderful connection - a little superficial right now but bound together by language as song. And a reading of the continuously-persecuted
history of the Romani will instantly make known why they were drawn to the pervading sadness of deep song.
Ann