Saetas
This song is performed in all of Andalucia during the Easter processions. In reality it isn't an independent and solid style, but instead in employing words relating to the passion for Christ, is executed in the style of the group of 'tonás' - 'seguiriya', 'martinete', 'debla', 'carcelera' - and adorned with a large quantity of 'melisimas', although the main scheme of the melody remains intact. The word Saeta proceeds from the first chants of the Brothers of Mortal Sin ('Hermanos del Pecado Mortal') performed and those of Aurora around the XVIII century. However it became a popular song around 1840, the 'vieja cordabesa', 'cuartelera de Puente Genil' or the 'samaritana de Castro del Rio', standing out It could have been Enrique el Mellizo who first sang this in front of a religious icon for processions, in the neighbourhood of Santa María in Cádiz, but there is no written record of this. What is true that years later the 'saeta' rose to splendour in the voices of El Gloria, Manuel Centeno, Manuel Torre, La Niña de los Penes, Manuel Vallejo and above all La Niña de la Alfalfa.
