‘Take Me to Spain’: Australian Imaginings of Spain through Music and Dance

As well as being a distinguished musicologist, John Whiteoak had an earlier career as a performer in a range of service, cabaret, and dance bands. These musical experiences have strongly informed his pioneering research on Australian music and dance, jazz and improvisation in Australia, Italian--Australian musicians, and the music of Keith Humble. ‘Take Me to Spain’: Australian Imaginings of Spain through Music and Dance is another unique contribution to the discipline.

The fashion for all things Spanish in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a global phenomenon and Australia was fully engaged with these projections of Spanishness. In ‘Take Me to Spain,’ Whiteoak outlines the complexity of Australian interactions with Spanish music, from local performers enacting their own versions of ‘Spanishness,’ through to Australian responses to international touring flamenco groups. This is a ground-breaking book, which brings together an impressive range of sources to deliver a long-scale narrative about Australia’s engagement with Spanish music and dance from early colonization to the late twentieth century.

In recent years, research on Spanish music and its impact and reception outside of Spain has attracted the attention of scholars. Samuel Llano has written eloquently on French interactions with Spanish music from 1908 to 1929.¹ My PhD thesis focused on the English engagement with representations of Spanish music.² British author Kirsty Hooper delved into the extensive English engagement with Spanish culture in the Edwardian period,³ and in Carmen and the Staging of Spain: Recasting Bizet’s Opera in the Belle Époque, Michael Christoforidis and Elizabeth Kertesz brilliantly explored the wide-ranging influence of Bizet’s opera (Christoforidis and Kertesz 2019). The distinguished Hispanist and expert on Spanish music, Walter Aaron Clark, has contributed much to areas of Spanish music research through his research and publications (Clark 1999, 2006, 2018), while American scholar Gayle Rogers has explored the factors that led to a new appreciation of modern Spanish music in the post-World War I era, which also applied to other artforms (Rogers 2012).

In terms of the guitar, a recent DMA thesis by the late Australian guitarist and academic Duncan Gardiner, ‘Sounding a History of the Guitar in Queensland: The First 100 Years and More,’ provides many unique insights into a wide range of guitar cultures active in Australia throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Gardiner 2020). Gardiner has written enthusiastically about a number of themes that intersect with Whiteoak’s book, namely the impact of Spanish estudiantinas and the subsequent popularity of the B.M.G. (banjo, mandolin, and guitar) movement.

There is no real study on Australian-Spanish cultural interactions and this means Whiteoak had very few other writings to draw on in the Australian context. His approach is eclectic, in terms of the range of artforms and activities discussed, but also in the definition of ‘Spanishness.’ Performances of Spanish music and dance by local Australian musicians make up a large portion of the first part of the book, meaning that this book tells us just as much about Australian performance practices in the period under discussion as it does about music from Spain.

‘Take Me to Spain’ shows the rich diversity of what was presented under these categories and also details a diverse range of performers. Whiteoak’s study is a testament to the amazing potential of Trove, the National Library of Australia’s online search portal. Trove was in danger of being closed down until an injection of money from the federal government in early 2023. Whiteoak takes full advantage of this resource in his book.

Part 1 of the book focuses on dance while part 2 concentrates on music; however, the borders for cross-referencing remain open. Whiteoak reminds us several times of the need for these elements to be considered together to provide the full context. Early in the book, Whiteoak clearly defines the parameters for the study, taking into account multiple aspects of engagement with Spanish music and dance and highlighting primary tropes of the bullfight, Spanish dancing, Spanish women, and the guitar. His depictions of early Spanish dance in Australia, beginning with artists such as Rachel Lazar, known for her performance of the cachucha in 1838, show the close connection between music and dance in the nineteenth-century appreciation of Spanish culture. The spider dance of the legendary Lola Montez (real name Elizabeth Rosanna Gilbert) was notorious in the Victorian goldfields of 1855–1856, and Whiteoak delves into the strange allure of Montez, whose lack of typical training as a dancer and actress helped her to develop an exotic ‘Spanish’ persona. It is fascinating to read about the clichés and stereotypes highlighted in reviews and writings about performances in the nineteenth century. Sometimes the appreciation of music lagged behind the acceptance of Spanish dance. Whiteoak documents the popularity of Spanish dance in Australia from the 1830s and shows how, by contrast, the interest in broader ‘Latin’ styles of music dates from just before World War I.

Chapter 2 has the evocative title of ‘Cabaret, classical ballet, recital flamenco and the “dance of the matador.”’ Focusing on the early twentieth century, Whiteoak weaves the pasodoble, Spanish-themed classical dance, and flamenco recitals into the discussion. The Spanish--American touring dance troupe, the Cansinos, including the talented Margarita Carmen Cansino (Rita Hayworth), are singled out for special mention. In chapter 3, Whiteoak turns his attention to Spanish music in early Australian theatrical entertainment. He describes the rich variety of Spanish-themed entertainment before the premiere of Georges Bizet’s opera, Carmen, in Melbourne on 14 May 1879, less than a year after its first London performance. Looming large in this period as one work that prepared the way for Carmen is the opera Maritana (1845), composed by William Wallace, first performed in Australia in 1849, and subsequently staged over 400 times.

In the late nineteenth century, Bizet’s famous Habanera from Carmen, based on a work by Sebastián Iradier, was singled out by Australian and international critics as a prime example of Spanish colour and inspired scores of imitations. That a song by a French composer (Bizet), based on a song by a Basque composer (Iradier), influenced by the Cuban habanera, became a global sensation and defining example of Spanish music, indicates the international and multi-genre complexities at play. Whiteoak navigates this territory carefully and convincingly. As occurred in many other parts of the world, the premiere of Bizet’s Carmen in Australia took local interest in Spanish music to another level. Whiteoak foregrounds the opera’s influence and discusses the export of Carmen from London and the evolution of productions.

Music for silent film in the early twentieth century proved to be a turning point in the Australian engagement with Spanish music and Whiteoak offers a multi-dimensional discussion of this music. Bullfighting, gypsies, and the character of Carmen are enduring themes in these films. Musicians had significant flexibility in how they interpreted the musical cues and Whiteoak discusses the conflation of Hispanic and Spanish identities and musical features that carried these associations.

Spanish-themed concert music in the age of radio is the focus of chapter 4, and here the influence of works by Spanish composers Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, and Manuel de Falla is considered. Whiteoak discusses popular and enduring examples of Spanish-style music presented in Australia and a surprising number of works by non-Spanish composers, along with touring musicians who presented Spanish repertoire. Well-chosen quotations from reviews add colour and nuance, for example, critics of Percy Grainger’s 1926 Perth and Sydney performances of Albéniz described the music as showing ‘a tendency to suggest the sound of the guitar’ or betraying an influence of ‘the gypsy music played on guitar’ (p. 123).

The ‘Tango Craze’ in Australia, beginning from 1911, is covered in detail in chapter 5 and described as an enduring influence of Hispanic dance and music in Australia. At times the Argentine tango, Cuban habanera, Brazilian maxixe, and Mexican-themed songs could all variously be considered Spanish or Hispanic. Whiteoak provides numerous examples of these amalgams, including one of the earliest ‘Spanish’ tangos marketed in Australia, Miss Mexico Original Tango. Movies, dances, imported songs, and local takes on these styles all contributed to the craze for Spanish-themed entertainment. Jazz Age songs and Spanish waltzes are analyzed for stereotypes that shed light on Australian attitudes towards Spain. Jack O’Hagan is revealed as a prolific local composer who had a hand in composing Spanish-inspired works such as Spanish Moon (1927) and Julio (1926).

The Spanish Civil War is not singled out for any great influence on Australian interactions with Spain. While Australian interaction with the Civil War was modest compared with English or American engagement, Spain began to enter the Australian artistic imagination in new ways during this period and in the aftermath of the war.

As a guitarist, I very much appreciated the space Whiteoak devotes to touring Spanish estudiantinas, which first arrived in Australia in 1888, ten years after creating a sensation in Paris and London. The focus in chapter 6 on evocations of the guitar and both accompaniment and solo guitar styles adds substantially to our knowledge of the early history of the guitar in Australia. These sections bring in a whole cast of international and local performers. Whiteoak writes about evocations of the guitar in instrumental music, the importance of the instrument in accompanying songs, and the development of solo styles. We learn that guitarists such as Manuel Lopez, Harry Bloom, Eugene Pingitore, Len Williams, and Antonio Losada left an indelible mark on the local music scene. Whiteoak’s book connects these figures to the musical trends and context of their times and provides a wonderful foundation for further research into the guitar in Australia.

This focus on the Spanish guitar leads naturally to a discussion of touring flamenco groups from 1958 to 1976 when Australian audiences heard some of the best Spanish artists of the post-World War II era. Mexican-born flamenco dancer Luisillo (Luis Pérez Dávila) and Italian-American dancer José Greco toured their successful flamenco shows internationally and both made a strong impression in Australia. These tours are discussed alongside examples of Spanish dance and music from popular films of the 1950s and 1960s, providing valuable context for changing notions of authentic Spanish music and dance.

‘Take Me to Spain’ is essential reading for those with an interest in the diversity and rich history of Spanish music and dance in Australia. The book provides a solid platform for future research into both Australian music and international projections of Spanish culture. Whiteoak draws his sources and knowledge together to create an engaging and convincing narrative that discusses music-making in Australia in a sophisticated and multi-dimensional manner. This book tells us much about local musicians and audiences who were inspired by international trends to create popular and often innovative music and dance for receptive Australian audiences.

Ken Murray
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
[email protected]
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6495-6923

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Ken Murray

Ken Murray is a Melbourne-based guitarist, composer, and musicologist. He has championed and recorded Spanish music from the early twentieth century, worked extensively with contemporary composers and is active as a performer of Brazilian music. His current research interests include Percy Grainger and the guitar, the music of Catalan guitarist/composer Miguel Llobet and contemporary Australian guitar music. He is Associate Professor of Music and Head of Guitar at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.

Notes

1 In Whose Spain?: Negotiating ‘Spanish Music’ in Paris, 1908-1929, Llano focuses on the complexities surrounding Spanish music in Paris in the early twentieth century, illuminating some of the political and cultural forces at play in European, and particularly French, interactions with Spanish music in the period (Llano 2013).

2 My PhD thesis focused on changes in the appreciation of Spanish music in London, beginning with the exotic Romantic constructions of Spain in the nineteenth century and leading to a recognition and appreciation of Spanish musical modernism in a newly cosmopolitan context after World War I (Murray 2013).

3 Hooper delves into the English fascination with Spain from a range of perspectives, bringing political, business, cultural, and social factors into the discussion (Hooper 2020).