Manuel de Falla
Part Impressionist and part neo-Classicist, Manuel de Falla is difficult to peg, but he is widely regarded as the most distinguished Spanish composer of the early 20th century. His output is small but choice and revolves largely around music for the stage. Falla's reputation is based primarily on two lavishly Iberian ballet scores: El amor brujo ("Love, the Magician"), from which is drawn the Ritual Fire Dance (a pops favorite, often heard in piano or guitar transcriptions), and the splashy El sombrero de tres picos ("The Three-Cornered Hat"). He also gained a permanent place in the concert repertory with his evocative piano concerto Nights in the Gardens of Spain.
Born in 1876, Falla first took piano lessons from his mother in Cádiz, and later moved to Madrid to continue the piano and to study composition with Felipe Pedrell, the musical scholar who had earlier pointed Isaac Albéniz toward Spanish folk music as a source for his compositions. Pedrell interested Falla in Renaissance Spanish church music, folk music, and native opera. The latter two influences are strongly felt in La Vida breve ("Life Is Short"), an opera (a sort of Spanish Cavalleria rusticana) for which Falla won a prize in 1905, although the work was not premiered until 1913. A second significant aesthetic influence resulted from his 1907 move to Paris, where he met and fell under the Impressionist spell of Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, and Maurice Ravel. It was in Paris that Falla published his first piano pieces and songs. In 1914 he was back in Madrid, working on the application of a quasi-Impressionistic idiom to intensely Spanish subjects; El amor brujo drew on Andalusian folk music. Falla wrote another ballet in 1917, El Corregidor y la molinera ("The Magistrate and the Miller Girl"). Diaghilev persuaded him to expand the score for a ballet by Léonide Massine to be called El sombrero de tres picos, and excerpts from the full score have become a staple of the concert repertory. In between the two ballets came Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a suite of three richly scored impressions for piano and orchestra, again evoking Andalusia.
In the 1920s, Falla altered his stylistic direction, coming under the influence of Stravinsky's neo-Classicism. Works from this period include the puppet opera El retablo de Maese Pedro ("The Altarpiece of Maese Pedro"), based on an episode from Don Quixtote, and a harpsichord concerto, with the folk inspiration now Castilian rather than Andalusian. After 1926 he essentially retired, living first in Mallorca and, from 1939, in Argentina. He was generally apolitical, but the rise of fascism in Spain contributed to his decision to remain in Latin America after traveling there for a conducting engagement. He spent his final years in the Argentine desert, at work on a giant cantata, Atlántida, which remained unfinished at his death in 1946.
© James Reel /TiVo
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Benjamin Britten: Nocturnal, Op. 70
Klassik - Erschienen bei David González am 09.04.2012
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De Falla: The Three Cornered Hat (Complete Ballet)
London Symphony Orchestra, Barbara Howitt
Ballett - Erschienen bei Everest Records am 24.09.1965
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The Naumburg Recordings, 1986 First Prize Cello Competition - Andrés Díaz
Kammermusik - Erschienen bei Musical Heritage Society am 16.09.2008
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Música de España. Spanish Classical Music Vol.2
Klassik - Erschienen bei Meta - Monreal am 01.11.2010
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El Sombrero de Tres Picos
Klassik - Erschienen bei N Digital am 16.12.2016
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Themusicotheque: Musica Per La Lettura
Klassik - Erschienen bei Piros Comercial Digital am 23.01.2014
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Orchestra in Two
Klassik - Erschienen bei Klassic Cat am 14.01.2013
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Recital de Canciones Españolas (Remastered)
Vokalmusik (weltlich und geistlich) - Erschienen bei Homokord am 07.12.2011
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With a Little Help from My Friends
Klassik - Erschienen bei Mats Bergstrom Musik am 01.01.1995
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Clásicos Inolvidables Vol. 26, Perfumes de la Noche
Klassik - Erschienen bei ADAGIO am 01.08.2015
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Manuel de Falla: El Sombrero de Tres Picos / El Amor Brujo
Instrumentalmusik - Erschienen bei AV360 Music am 26.04.2023
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Obras de Manuel de Falla
Klassik - Erschienen bei Piros - Artyvoz am 15.06.2015
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Nocturnal Shadows
Klassik - Erschienen bei Naxos Sweden - dB am 22.01.2014
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Full Frequency Range
Klassik - Erschienen bei Dutton Epoch am 19.08.2019
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Tesoros de la Música Clásica, Vol. II
Klassik - Erschienen bei ADAGIO am 15.04.2016
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Manuel de Falla
Klassik - Erschienen bei OK Records am 31.07.2015
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Manuel de Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat & Love the Magician
Klassik - Erschienen bei Tuxedo Music am 27.03.2013
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Danza Española No. 1: La Vida Breve
Klassik - Erschienen bei Sonata Islands am 02.07.2021
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De Falla: Der Liebeszauber (Digitally Remastered)
Oliver Colbentson, Erich Appel
Klassik - Erschienen bei EMG Classical am 09.07.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo