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Serenading Spanish Students on the Streets of Paris: The International Projection of Estudiantinas in the 1870s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2017

Michael Christoforidis
Michael Christoforidis*
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne Email: mchri@unimelb.edu.au
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Abstract

Spanish estudiantina plucked string ensembles achieved immense popularity in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and were an important catalyst in the creation of the sonority of a variety of European and American popular musics. Such ensembles had precedents in Spanish student groups dating back to the Renaissance and the rondallas (or groupings of plucked instruments) that were associated with popular outdoor serenades. However, the modern estudiantina movement can be traced back to 1878, and was consciously framed as a modern historical construct. A large grouping of youths and former students, donning Renaissance student dress, decided to form a society to visit Paris during Carnival, on the eve of the 1878 Exposition Universelle. They took Paris by storm, performing in a variety of street settings, reinforcing the exotic stereotypes of serenading musicians associated with Spain, and bringing to life historical notions of the minstrel. In the decade that followed, the European performance contexts of the estudiantinas included theatres, outdoor venues and expositions, garden parties and salons – and they became fixtures of the music hall and the café chantant. This paper explores early English and French constructions of the estudiantina phenomenon, and how the groups were framed in the light of exotic street musics and prevailing tropes of Spain. It also examines how the outdoor performance settings of the estudiantinas were translated onto the theatrical stage.

Type
Research Article
Information
Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , April 2018 , pp. 23 - 36
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Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

The research for this article was supported by the Australian Research Council and The University of Melbourne. There is relatively little scholarly writing on the estudiantina phenomenon in the late nineteenth century, and much of what is available relates to localized traditions. The recent advent of the Tunae Mundi initiative (and its associated conferences, online publications and website: http://tunaemundi.com) has done much to foment interest in the world of the estudiantinas and tunas, especially through the research of Rafael Asencio González and Félix O. Martín Sárraga published on this site. Some of this research has been brought together in Félix O. Martín Sárraga, Mitos y evidencia histórica sobre las Tunas y Estudiantinas (Lima: Cauces, 2016). Recent scholarship relating more specifically to the nineteenth-century European manifestations of the estudiantinas include Kenneth James Murray, ‘Spanish Music and its Representations in London (1878–1930): From the Exotic to the Modern’ (PhD diss., University of Melbourne, 2013), and Michael Christoforidis and Kenneth Murray, ‘The Hispanic Grainger: Encounters with the Modern Spanish School’, in Grainger the Modernist, ed. Suzanne Robinson and Kay Dreyfus (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015): 123–38.

References

1 ‘Estudiantina’, in Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana, ed. Emilio Casares Rodicio, vol. 4 (Madrid: Sociedad General de Autores de España, 1999–2002): 837.

2 Rafael Asencio González, ‘La Tuna “Moderna” o la institucionalización de la Estudiantina’, www.tunaemundi.com/images/stories/conferencias/la-tuna-moderna-o-la-institucionalizacion-de-la-estudiantina.pdf, 2 (accessed 24 April 2015).

3 Emilio de la Cruz Aguilar, ‘La tuna en Madrid’, www.euita.upm.es/EUITAeronautica/Estudiantes/Informacion_general/Asociaciones_de_Estudiantes/Tuna/0b0d081682628210VgnVCM10000009c7648aRCRD (accessed 24 April 2015).

4 The confiscation of church properties, particularly in 1836–37, had created a large pool of unemployed musicians, many of whom tried to eke out a living performing popular music. See Rodicio, Emilio Casares, ‘La música del siglo XIX español. Conceptos fundamentales’, in La música del española en el siglo XIX, ed. Emilio Casares Rodicio and Celsa Alonso (Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo, 1995): 36Google Scholar.

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6 This was a common occurrence in Granada. Albaicín, Curro, Zambras de Granada y flamencos del Sacromonte ([Cordoba]: Almuzara, 2011): 160Google Scholar.

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9 D’Avillier and Doré (ill.), Spain, 439. These similarities are also observed in Imbert, P.L., L’Espagne: splendeurs et misères. Voyage artistique et pittoresque (Paris: E. Plon, 1875): 8–10Google Scholar.

10 D’Avillier and Doré (ill.), Spain, 439.

11 ‘Affairs in France. (From our own correspondent.) Paris, March 4’, London Standard, 6 March 1878, 3.

12 ‘Nuestros Grabados: la estudiantina española en París; La quincena parisien’, Ilustración española y americana 22, no. 10 (1878): 171, 74; ‘Paris: La estudiantina española dando serenata en la plaza de la Ópera’, Ilustración española y americana 22, no. 11 (1878): 187; ‘D. Ildefonso de Zabaleta y D. Joaquin de Castaneda, presidente y vicepresidente de la estudiantina española en Paris’, Ilustración española y americana 22, no. 12 (1878): 213, 15.

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14 ‘D. Ildefonso de Zabaleta y D. Joaquin de Castaneda, presidente y vicepresidente de la estudiantina española en Paris’.

15 ‘France. (From our own correspondent.) Paris, March 16’, Argus, 26 April 1878, 7.

16 The anachronisms of the uniforms were noted by some of the Spanish and foreign press.

17 Some estudiantinas or tunas wear variants of this dress to the present day.

18 ‘Society and Fashion. A Lady’s Letter from London. March 15’, Australasian, 4 May 1878, 8.

19 ‘France. (From our own correspondent.) Paris, March 16’, Argus, 7.

20 ‘On a vu ailleurs comment les étudiants espagnols avaient employé leur journée d’hier; on sait comment ils emploieront celle d’aujourd’hui et aussi celle de demain. Le spectacle qu’ils donnent en ressuscitant sur nos boulevards les costumes et les us d’un autre pays et d’un autre siècle, cet anachronism ambulant plait à la population parisienne par sa nouveauté et son étrangeté, et la population parisienne ne se lasse pas d’y applauder’. Jehan Valter, ‘Les Etudiants espagnols chez eux … au Gaulois’, Le Gaulois, 6 March 1878, 1. All translations are by the author, unless otherwise attributed.

21 ‘Society and Fashion’, 8.

22 Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris 45 (1878): 78.

23 ‘Society and Fashion’, 8. The ensemble comprised 16 guitars, 10 violins, 6 bandurrias, 8 flutes and 10 panderetas according to ‘Nuestros Grabados’.

24 Especially under the patronage of the Empress Eugénie (Eugenia Montijo of Spain) and the significant Hispanic community of Paris.

25 Rafael Asencio González, ‘Olé! Una Jota “parisienne”?’, www.delabelleepoqueauxanneesfolles.com/OleJotaSpanish.htm (accessed 24 April 2015).

26 Ruperto Belderraín, Recuerdos de París: Habanera para piano: ejecutada con extraordinario éxito por la Estudiantina española en París, compuesta por el director de la misma, Ruperto Belderrain (1878).

27 ‘Affairs in France. (From our own correspondent.) Paris, March 4’; text from Le Figaro, translated in La Correspondencia de España, 10 March 1878, cited in Féliz O. Martín Sárraga, ‘Crónica del viaje de la Estudiantina Española al Carnaval de París de 1878 según la prensa de la época’, http://tunaemundi.com/index.php/component/content/article/7-tunaemundi-cat/166-cronica-del-viaje-de-la-estudiantina-espanola-al-carnaval-de-paris-de-1878-segun-la-prensa-de-la-epoca (accessed 24 April 2015).

28 ‘La novedad de la aventura, las circunstancias del momento, la índole de las fiestas del Carnaval, el carácter romancesco que la empresa revela, la gentileza de la raza, mejor considerada aquí por sus cualidades físicas que por las intelectuales y morales, y más que todo por la belleza de sus trajes y de nuestros aires nacionales, explican satisfactoriamente las ovaciones y los aplausos que por donde quiera han recogido nuestros jóvenes compatriotas’. Text from El Imparcial, 18 March 1878, cited in Martín Sárraga, ‘Crónica del viaje’.

29 La Correspondencia de España, 10 March 1878; ‘Les étudiants espagnols – troisième journée’, Le Gaulois, 7 March 1878.

30 La Correspondencia de España, 10 March 1878, cited in Martín Sárraga, ‘Crónica del viaje’.

31 This led to the Estudiantina having to apply for permission from the authorities to continue to wear their costumes beyond the festivities.

32 These donations included 3,000 Francs from Marshall Mac-Mahon, and 1,000 each from Queen Isabel II and the Duke of Madrid (who also presented 1,000 cigars).

33 Oller would go on to found famous Parisian entertainment venues in the late 1880s, including the Moulin Rouge and the Olympia.

34 La Correspondencia de España, 12 March 1878, cited in Martín Sárraga, ‘Crónica del viaje’.

35 ‘Las mujeres francesas, sobre todo, no se han cansado, ni se cansan aún, de admirar lo que para ellas es tan romántico como nuevo … Se ha visto en cada uno de estos escolares un nuevo Conde de Almaviva cantando al pié de la reja de Rosina la bella serenata del Barbero; y la fantasía femenina, estimulada por la frivolidad de estos periódicos que han convertido en bachilleres de Salamanca a nuestros actuales estudiantes, y en serenatas nuestros aires de zarzuela’. El Imparcial, 18 March 1878 cited in Martín Sárraga, ‘Crónica del viaje’.

36 Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris 45 (1878): 85.

37 This occurred between the performance of the second act of Flotow’s Marta and the second and third acts of Verdi’s Ernani. Noël, Édouard and Stoullig, Edmond, ‘Théâtre-Italien’, Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique [1878] 4 (1879): 201–202Google Scholar.

38 ‘Continental News. (From our correspondent ‘Stella’.). Paris, March 22’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May 1878, 5.

39 Professional estudiantinas were also present in Spain, although the Estudiantina Española also helped consolidate the tradition of the university estudiantina, and their festive visits of such groups to cities within the Iberian Peninsula. It also gave the impetus for the formation of amateur groups by Spaniards in the Americas.

40 On occasion they included a single violin and cello/double bass to reinforce the melody and bass lines, and at times incorporated some element of singing by the performers (solos and in chorus).

41 Whiteoak, John, Playing ad lib: Improvisatory Music in Australia 1836–1970 (Sydney: Currency Press, 1999): 83–98Google Scholar.

42 In some sources the founder of the Estudiantina Figaro is referred to as Domingo Granados.

43 Félix O. Martín Sárrago, ‘La Fígaro, estudiantina más viajera del siglo XIX’, http://tunaemundi.com/ (accessed 24 April 2015).

44 Noonan, Jeffrey J., The Guitar in America: Victorian Era to Jazz Age (Jackson MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2008): 78–79Google Scholar.

45 Reproduced in Ricart, Ramón Andreu, Estudiantinas chilenas: Orígen, desarrollo y vigencia (Santiago de Chile: Fondart, 1995): 33Google Scholar.

46 Fellner, Franz, ‘“Verfall” und Wiederendeckung der Mandoline in Wien’. Wiener Geschichtsblätter 51.2 (1996): 81Google Scholar.

47 Another work of the same year inspired in the sonority of the jotas of the estudiantinas was Emmanuel Chabrier’s orchestral showpiece España.

48 ‘The Spanish Minstrels at the Alhambra’, Era, 27 July 1879.

49 ‘The Spanish Minstrels at the Alhambra’.

50 As Ken Murray has pointed out, the timing of their arrival was fortunate, as the London premiere of Bizet’s Carmen in 1878 had been the catalyst for a growing interest in Spanish music, which may have in turn fuelled requests for more Spanish-sounding music. Murray, ‘Spanish Music and its Representations in London’, 115–36.

51 This facet of the estudiantinas’ activities was more prominent during the Estudiantina Figaro’s 1887 tour of England, and gained further impetus in the wake of the Earl’s Court exhibition of 1889, which focused on Spain.

52 Often using the nomenclature of tuna or tuna universitaria instead of estudiantina.

53 Sparks, Paul, The Classical Mandolin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 22–31Google Scholar. They also gave impetus to the BMG (Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar) movement in the US and Britain.

54 Fauser, Annegret, Musical Encounters at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair, Eastman Studies in Music (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2005): 271Google Scholar.

55 My own research and conference papers have explored this influence (with invaluable guidance from Professor Stathis Gauntlett). This connection is also referred to in a recent chapter by Franco Fabbri, ‘A Mediterranean Triangle: Naples, Smyrna, Athens’ in Neapolitan Postcards: The Canzone Napoletana as Transnational Subject, ed. Goffredo Plastino and Joseph Sciorra (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016): 29–44.

56 Chust, Alicia, Tangos, orfeones y rondallas: Una historia con imágines (Barcelona: Ediciones Carena, 2008)Google Scholar.