This is the third of three posts celebrating the Spanish director Carlos Saura’s spectacular “Flamenco Trilogy”, his set of three movies in which the stories are told primarily through flamenco music and dance. My Dr. Bob Prescribes post for March 7 of this year addressed the first of these movies, Bodas de Sangre (“Blood Wedding”), of 1981. On April 5 we tackled the second of the trilogy, Carmen, of 1983. For today, it’s the third and final film in the trilogy, El Amor Brujo (“Love, the Magician”, or “Spell-bound Love”, or “The Bewitched Love”). The post of April 5 – on Carmen – offered up brief biographies of the director Carlos Saura (born 1932); the choreographer and dancer Antonio Gades (1936-2004); and Gades’ principal female dancers: Cristina Hoyos (born 1946) and Laura del Sol (born 1961). With that biographical info out of the way, we will focus for a bit the brilliant Spanish composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), whose ballet El Amor Brujo is the basis of the film. My Music History Monday post for November 23, 2020, was a birthday tribute to the Spanish composer and conductor Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu (“y Matheu” because Spaniards customarily add their […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Archive for Carlos Saura
This is the second of three posts celebrating the Spanish director Carlos Saura’s spectacular “Flamenco Trilogy”, his set of three movies in which the stories are told primarily through flamenco music and dance. My Dr. Bob Prescribes post for March 8 of this year addressed the first of these movies, Bodas de Sangre (“Blood Wedding”) of 1981. On May 19 we will tackle the third of the trilogy, El Amor Brujo (“Love, the Magician”, or “Spell-bound Love”, or “The Bewitched Love”) of 1986. For today, it’s the second film of the trilogy, Carmen, of 1983. The Flamenco Trilogy was a collaboration between Carlos Saura and the superb and justly famous flamenco dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades. Here’s how this post will be structured. First, I’ll offer up quick biographical sketches of Carmen’s principals: Carlos Saura, Antonio Gades, Cristina Hoyos, Laura del Sol, and the lead guitarist Paco de Lucía. Second, I’ll outline the overall action of the movie, drawing our video examples from the dance episodes. A final point before moving on: I really, really, really want you to watch the entire film; it is freaking brilliant. So please understand that the video excerpts offered up in this post constitute but a small […]
Continue ReadingThe Enduring Magnificence of Flamenco On Sunday, February 27, my Patreon Zoom session (which goes by the rather precious title of “The Dr. is In!”) focused on Spanish music for the piano that has been transcribed for the guitar. Co-lead and largely created by my patron Joe Sullivan, the session featured music by some of the greatest of all Spanish composers: Joaquin Turina (1882-1949), Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909), Enrique Granados (1867-1916), and Manuel de Falla (1876-1946). What all of the music we examined had in common was that it was inspired by the flamenco tradition of Andalucía, in southern Spain. The last piece on the program was the “Ritual Fire Dance” from Manuel de Falla’s ballet El Amor Brujo (“Love, the Magician”, or “Spell-bound Love”, or “The Bewitched Love”, 1925), which has been transcribed for two guitars by the husband/wife guitar duo, the “Duo Kupinski.” Before playing a video of the Duo Kupinski’s two guitar version, I wanted us to hear de Falla’s original, orchestral version of the “Ritual Fire Dance.” Specifically, I wanted to play the flamenco ballet version from director Carlos Saura’s film El Amor Brujo (of 1986). That film (and the “Ritual Fire Dance” in the film) features the awesome flamenco […]
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