SPANISH MUSIC. Spanish music has al ways been imitative. At first the influence of the great school of the Netherlands predominated. This period was followed by a prevalence of Roman influence, especially that of Palestrina. The sixteenth century may be regarded as the time when music in Spain was at its height, for then it boasted Morales, whose compositions are still sung at Rome, and the great Vittoria, the master who most closely resembles Palestrina. With the appearance of Italian opera, Spanish composers not only imitated the Italians, but actually wrote Italian operas. With Wagner's innovations Spain was again ready to adopt the new tendencies. At this juncture the name of Pedrell deserves special mention. Stimulated by the attempts of Russian, Scandinavian, and Bo hemian composers to establish a national school of music, Pedrell chose for his operas national subjects. His most ambitious undertaking is a trilogy, Los somewhat after Wagner's Nibclungen. The rise of the Spanish drama in the seventeenth century exerted a bene ficial influence upon lighter music. The earlier musical dramas of the Florentine school had no overtnre. Instead, a madrigal was sung before the curtain rose. The Spaniards adopted this custom for their purely dramatic representations. so that before very long even the most serious tragedies were preceded by such 'curtain-raisers.' These were called cuatros de empezar, and were always performed by the women of the company to a harp accompaniment. At first the cuatros were choruses for four voices: hut with the rise of the monodic style polyphonic writing was abandoned and an action was introduced. When the 'curtain-raisers' had been developed so far, they were called tomadillas. This custom of be ginning all dramatic representations with a tona dilla was adopted by the Italians, who called the tonadilla intermezzo, and soon developed this latter into the opera buffo. (See INTERMEZZO.) Then the Spaniards again imitated the Italians; and the result was the development of the tona dilla into the zarzuela. This was a kind of comic opera, operetta, or vaudeville, generally in two acts and with spoken dialogue. The name is
derived from the castle of Zarzucla, where, in the seventeenth century, the first representations of this kind took place. This form has always been very popular in Spain, and about 1850 Hernando gave it a new impetus. Among the numerous composers who devoted their talents to this form, four deserve mention: Oudrid, Gaztambide, Barbieri, and Arrieta.
But for originality and characteristic traits we must turn to Spanish folk-music. Here we notice that the real folk-songs are almost exclu sively used as accompaniments to dances. The limitations of the national instrument, the guitar, influenced the melodies and rhythms to a great extent, rendering the latter more attractive than the former. Of the old folk-songs com posed in the time of the Troubadours a great number have been preserved in literary collec tions called cancioncros, but the music has been lost. The music of the folk-songs of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however, has been tran scribed from the actual performances of blind singers, who even now, as formerly, wander from town to town. The melodies of Andalusia, which are in all respects superior to those of the north ern provinces, show undoubted traces of Moorish influences, as shown by the elaborate embellish ments of the notes of the melody, peculiar inter vals foreign to European scales, and a strange combination of distinct rhythms in the several parts. This foreign element has always attracted composers, who by this means have succeeded in creating a local atmosphere in their works. In this connection it is only necessary to mention the names of Bizet (Carmen), (Le Cid, La Navarraisc), Weber (Oberon), and Mosz kowski (Boabdil). The best known Spanish dnnce-forms are the bolero, cachucha, fandango, jota, malagueiia, rondefia, and seguidilla, which are accompanied by the guitar and castanets. Con sult: Soriano-Fuertes;, Musica cspanola baste el alio 1850 (Madrid, 1857) ; Juan F. Riafto, Critical and Biographical Notes on Early Spanish Music (London. 1887) ; A. Soubies, Ilistoire de la mu Pique. Espagne (Paris, 1900).