Text: Juan Vergillos
Photos: Málaga en Flamenco / Carlos Díaz Martín

Guitarist, composer and musical director:Manolo Sanlúcar. Second guitar: David Carmona. Cante: Carmen Grilo. Percussion: Rafael Hermoso ‘Poti’.

Lush music and dry discourse

Sanlúcar’s guitar is barroque, brilliant. Listening to the composer, you’d think this goes contrary to his own will. In recent concerts, Sanlúcar, who is essentially a sad man, introverted, cerebral and sentimental, alternates verbal discourse with music (as stated before, brillant, sensual). The guitarist rails against superficial art, and defends the idea that art is not pleasure, but pain. But what if we die of pleasure listening to his music?This is why it seems the verbal message and the musical one seem to diverge. The music is free, spontaneous, cheerful and serene. The speech, incendiary, almost angry, intolerant, radical.

Manolo Sanlúcar

Manolo Sanlúcar

Sanlúcar’s guitar is one of color, and there’s even a monastic vein (“I’m a monk of flamenco” he declared in Málaga). He is austere as well as lusty. So then, let’s just enjoy the lustful music of “Tauromagia” and pay no attention to the words. “Maestranza”, or the bullfight epic. “Oración”, the fear of death we all harbor, or “Tercio de Varas”, lustful rhythm, when, suddenly, the maestro interrupts the musical discourse in the middle of the piece. He argues with the sound engineers and picks up the phrase just where he left it.

Manolo Sanlúcar

Manolo Sanlúcar

“Locura de Brisa y Trino”, his work from the year 2000, is an experiment with new flamenco harmony based on primitive Greek scales. “The future of the guitar” are the words we hear even when we try to block them. It’s a work that demands a lot from the audience. More conceptual. But equally sensual. The pieces do not adhere to flamenco forms, but rather, each one, depending on the feeling of the piece, has bits and pieces of siguiriyas or tarantos or cantiñas or soleá or whatever. It’s the bare-bones maestro in search of the essence. And yet “Carta a Doña Rosita” and “Soneto de la Carta” follow a traditional path, albeit in the barroque Sanlúcar tradition. “Gacela del Amor Desesperado”, “Campo” and “Normas” belong to this universe of new compositios that Sanlúcar began, and which, nevertheless, he has not explored since 2000 beyond these three works. Demanding compositions in concept, as well as generous, friendly, in the strictly musical sense, in their arrangement and discourse, penetrating, colorful, humid. The maestro, so close to silence, hears shadows and swamps.

And for the end of the concert, music about the painting of Baldomero Romero Ressendi, programed, descriptive music. The paintings, the pieces, are called “Piedad” and “Danza de los Pavos”. The latter is especially eloquent, sensual, serene. . . laidback memories of a life devoted to guitar and flamenco. Because Sanlúcar is a sad, introverted man. But his music is sociable, joyous, accessible. Like the chorus of “Danza de los Pavos”.

More information:

Special MÁLAGA EN FLAMENCO