Aflamencado practice in the contemporary piano perfoming
Authors: Melnik V.Yu. 
Published: August 2020

Introduction. Flamenco is a cultural phenomenon that dates back to the 5–6th centuries. This artistic practice organically unites plastic, gesture, singing, word, instrumental play. It is difficult to determine the hierarchical relationships between these components. Each of them has its own “vocabulary”, its own laws of constructing the artistic whole, that is, its canons. In a wide artistic field, canons consider a set of certain rules, based on which creative activity is carried out, and the originality of its result is ensured by the specificity of their improvisational transformation by a particular performer. Any phenomenon that is subject to the action of a set of these specific canons acquires formal, stylistic, genre qualities that indicate the cultural and artistic environment from which they originate. Flamenco is developing dynamically and actively absorbing the experience of other musical cultures. Any phenomena that fall into the gravitational field of the flamenco canons acquire the specific traits inherent in this culture. This assimilation of alien elements is defined by the concept of aflamencado (“one that acquires the characteristic features of flamenco”). Theoretical background. Contemporary views toward flamenco culture are very different: the discrepancies are noticeable among flamenco fans, performers and scientists. The paper of Marta Wieczorec “Flamenco: Contemporary Research Dilemmas” (2018) considers disputes about the scientific issue of flamenco. She pays attention to the debatable side in science comprehension of this ethnic phenomena and its place in Spanish culture. This article also looks at the antagonism between traditional and contemporary, or, “pure” and commercial branches of flamenco. William Washbaugh in his book “Flamenco music and national identity in Spain” (2012) considers as a ambitious project the tendency to rethink Spanish national identity under the influence of the spread of flamenco music culture, its various forms. Among many contemporary musicians, he also calls Miriam M&#233;ndez. The purpose of this paper is to identify the basic strategies of aflamencado in piano art of the XX century (the ways of interaction flamenco and piano performance art of this period). Such study requires the use of musicological and performing analytical methods of scientific research, among them the methods of genre and style analysis, historical and comparative approach that are applied on this paper. The genre theory by E. Nazaykinskiy (1982) is used in this study. This theory defines genres as historically established types and kinds of musical creation, which divides according to number of criteria: by purpose (public, common, artistic function); by conditions and facilities of performing; by content and ways of creation. Aflamencado characterization using the theory of T. Cherednichenko (2002) about typologique of musical practices allowed considering different methods of adapting the flamenco ethnic elements to the academic traditions and to determine the degree of transformation of the constituent elements of the synthesis. Research results. Piano art began to embrace flamenco culture in the late XIX century. The pioneer along this path was maestro F. Pedrell and his students. One of them, І. Albenis, composed the cycles for piano “Spanish Music” No. 1 (1886), No. 2 (1889) and “Iberia” (1906–1908), where the piano pieces are enriched with the characteristic flamenco sound. The piano texture includes some elements of guitar technique: the “razguiado”, which involves repeated chords, the “punteado” – accenting performance of each sound. Melody line of Albenis’s piano works correlates with flamenco due to its generous embellishments, melismatics and hangs in detentions, which are also a projection of flamenco vocal art. The metro-rhythmic sphere of the Spanish opus by I. Albenis is often based on the typical flamenco-“compass” associated with changeable the dual and triple pulsations. Tonal and harmonic reliance on Lydian and Phrygian modes and the use of the so-called “Andalusian cadence” (t-VII-VI-D) complements the palette of flamenco expressive means of expression. These aflamencado examples have some contradictions. The nature of the pianoforte is extremely elitist and aristocratic. The “wild” and arbitrary art of Spanish Roma from the poorest regions of Andalusia, when it falls into the sound pianistic “wrapper”, is transformed significantly and acquires an academic taste. Authentic art with its oral tradition of imitation is engraved in the musical text, such fixation sends flamenco to “foreign” territory, creating grounds to believe that the cycles “Spanish suite” and “Iberia” are examples of “composer expansion” on the flamenco territory. In this example, the principles of aflamencado have a specific vector directed into the sphere of “opus- music”, and a set of tools and techniques that allow to attract the characteristic features of folk practice, with its oral and collective nature (according to T. Cherednichenko’s typology of musical practices), to creation of original, individual, non-canonical composer work. In such interaction the resources of one cultural layer allow to reach of new artistic content in other. In this sense, aflamencado acts as a means of simulating a particular object of reality in the individual perception of the author. Aflamencado in the works of contemporary composer, arranger and pianist Miriam M&#233;ndez is oriented in the opposite direction. She called her first album “Bach por Flamenco” (2005). The intertextuality of this musical experiment provides radically new content to the work that has long been canonized. J. S. Bach’s Fugue is transformed into a target. The rigid, immutable confines of the genre are being tested by the ever-changing, flamenco element. The timbre, the properties of the tools used, the built-in “cante” – all serve to update the original. The pianist, who, along with other musicians, created this genre mix, was guided, mainly, by the idea of flamenco. Conclusions. Thus, in the contemporary piano art, the aflamencado phenomenon reveals a dual nature that depends on the basic level of interaction between cultures. In one case, composer creativity engages a flamenco resource to implement authorial creative strategies. Otherwise, the composer’s work is being “prepared” for the purpose of immersing it in the primordial folk element. As a result, two fundamentally different models of pianism are formed – the academic and its flamenco variety adapted to the musical-linguistic canons. This version of piano performance in listening circles was called “flamenco-pianism”. The hybrid nature of this phenomenon now needs in further investigation.