Spanish Dance No. 6: Jota (Rondalla Aragonesa)

Main page for Granados’ Danzas espagñolas

• Jota is a triple meter song and dance genre that originated in Aragón (northern Spain). It is a couples dance with castanets, sometimes incorporating leaps, often accompanied by guitar and small plectrum instruments called bandurrias.¹
• Other composers to use the jota for Spanish flavor: Liszt in Rhapsodie espangole, Glinka in Capriccio brilliante, Falla in The Three Cornered Hat.²

1. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4^th ed., s.v. “Bandurria” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).
2. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4^th ed., s.v. “Jota” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).