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Published: October 1st 2009
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Easier day today. Got up when we just happened to wake up, ate breakfast, and then headed downtown.
Sevilla is said to contain the heart and soul of Spanish culture. It is a very clean city with wide boulevards and neat winding alleys among the major monuments. Horse-drawn carriages are the major racket. Sevilla has been inhabited for over 2000 years, and was an important city in Roman times. Today it is the largest cit and capital of southern Lusitania. With its southern location on the coast, at an average elevation of 23 ft, it is the warmest city in Europe. Some day I am going to have to figure out how much of Spain stays relatively warm, since Madrid is on the same latitude as New York City and is nowhere near the warming influence of the shallow Mediterranean.
We started at the Cathedral. It is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, and the third largest cathedral of any type. When completed in the 1500's, it became the largest cathedral in the world, supplanting Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which had held the title for over a thousand years. Sic transit gloria. It was built to celebrate the
wealth of Seville. The interior has that bare stone appearance common to so many cathedrals in Europe, with massive columns and stained glass windows casting multi-colored inchoate images onto the walls inside. The
retablo is the largest in Christendom, 65 x 43 feet, and completely covered in gold leaf. The cathedral also contains the tomb of Christopher Columbus, which arrived here in the early twentieth century when Cuba declared its independence from Spain. The remains had traveled extensively prior to that, almost as much as Mr. Columbus in his lifetime, with at least two trans-Atlantic voyages. There are competing remains in Santo Domingo said to be those of Columbus, but somewhat inconclusive DNA sampling results from 2003 suggest that the remains in Seville may be the true ones.
As part of our visit, we climbed to the top of the Giralda, a former minaret converted to a bell tower. Instead of steps, the climb is made up a series of 35 winding ramps. The view from the top allows a view of the city and of that famous circus act The Flying Buttresses.
Following our visit to the cathedral, we stepped across the street to the Alcazar. Despite
the name and the obvious Moorish influence in current decorative items, this was a palace established about 1000 years ago by a Christian monarch, Peter I. The palace contains excellent examples of the Toledo-style Hispano-Moorish architecture/design. The visitor immediately enters the Courtyard of the Maidens, said to be named for the 100 virgins the Moorish sultans required as tribute from the Christian communities annually. Whether this was true or not is not well known, but clearly this requirement would be more difficult to meet today. Like the Alhambra, there is extensive use of flowing water.
We stopped for lunch and the necessary liquid refreshment, and had our first paella.We then wandered over to the old Royal Cigar Factory, the setting of the start of "Carmen".
But the best was yet to come. We finished the evening having dinner with a flamenco show that was absolutely breath-taking. There were three women and one male dancer. The women were beautiful, but for pure athleticism the man could not be beat. His legs and feet were literally a blur as he danced. The most striking thing to me was the music itself. It is spirited, but does not sound happy. More
sad and impassioned. The striking sound comes from two essential ingredients: use of Phrygian mode (a third mode along with major and minor), and use of complex rhythms, wherein the clapped beat is often in a 12-beat rhythm and is frequently quite different from the singing that takes place at the same time. It is completely unique, and must be heard to be understood. I will later put up some videos. For now, still pictures must suffice. About the most fun I have had in years.
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Gus
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Columbus and music
Columbus' rests are probably both in Seville and Santo Domingo. Maybe all we have here is one of his legs. Here can you read the whole storie: http://www.creators.com/opinion/miguel-perez/latino-american-history-chapter-11-two-good-places-to-rest.html. On the other hand, it's really nice to see someone able to appreciate the schemes laying underneath the apparent free-style of flamenco music. It's not a surprise that classical spanish composers such as Falla, Albéniz and Granados found in french impressionists the right tools they so long seeked and needed to evocate this sound in their nationalist compositions. If, as it seems, you are fond of classical music, you may want to listen to 'Iberia' some day, Albeniz's piano masterwork. If so, try to find some version by Alicia de Larrocha-great performance- who sadly died some days ago. Have fun.