What is "Duende"?
Duen·de [dwen-de; Eng. doo-en-dey]
1. a goblin; demon; spirit.
2. charm; magnetism.
According to Frederico Garcia Lorca
The duende, then, is a power
and not a construct, is a struggle and not a concept. I have heard
an old guitarist, a true virtuoso, remark, "The duende is not
in the throat, the duende comes up from inside, up from the very
soles of the feet." That is to say, it is not a question of
aptitude, but of a true and viable style - of blood, in other words; of
what is oldest in culture: of creation made act.
This "mysterious power that all
may feel and no philosophy can explain," is, in sum, the earth-force,
the same duende that fired the heart of Nietzsche, who sought it in
its external forms on the Rialto Bridge, or in the music of Bizet, without
ever finding it, or understanding that the duende he pursued had
rebounded from the mystery-minded Greeks to the Dancers of Cádiz or the
gored, Dionysian cry of Silverio's siguiriya.
The full text of Lorca's dissertation on Duende can be found here
