Miguel Borrull
Who is Miguel Borrull?
Miguel Borrull Castelló was born in 1866 in Castellón de la Plana. He built much of his career in the café cantantes and colmaos of Madrid, at a time when flamenco was beginning to become a profession in such venues, and in time became one of the leading guitarists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly noted for his mastery of the toques de Levante.
Career
He was Antonio Chacón’s principal accompanist between 1890 and 1910, two decades during which he was considered the Jerez singer’s preferred tocaor, and he also worked alongside Manuel Torre and the Cojo de Málaga, among other great names of the era. Recordings on wax cylinder alongside Chacón survive from those years, along with later discs made with several of the great cante masters of his generation.
In 1916 he founded and directed the Café Cantante Villa Rosa in Barcelona, a venue that reached great splendor under his management and became a landmark for flamenco in Catalonia during those years.
Style and discography
Beyond the flamenco repertoire, in private he also played classical guitar pieces, chiefly by Francisco Tárrega, which speaks to a broad musical training unusual among flamenco guitarists of his time. The scholar Domingo Prat described his playing in these terms: his fingers wove on the guitar “falsetas, preludes, bordoneos and rasgueos that produced admiration.”
Legacy
He was the father of the guitarists and artists Miguel, Julia, Isabel and Cecilia Borrull Jiménez, and grandfather of La Gitana Blanca and Trini Borrull, giving rise to a true family dynasty within flamenco. He died in Barcelona in 1947, leaving a notable influence on later guitarists specializing in the toques de Levante.