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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Noches en los Jardines de España
Classical - Released by N Digital on 16 Dec 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Siete canciones populares españolas: El paño moruno
World - Released by 3279841 Records DK on 28 Aug 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Cuatro Piezas Españolas
Classical - Released by N Digital on 16 Dec 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
With a Little Help from My Friends
Classical - Released by Naxos Sweden - Mats Bergström Musik AB on 1 Jan 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
De Falla: La vida breve, The Three-Cornered Hat, El amor brujo, Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Radio Symphony Orchestra Ljubljana, Radio Sofia Symphony Orchestra, Eva Novsak Houska
Classical - Released by Blaricum CD Company (B.C.D.) B.V. on 8 Apr 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Canciones Españolas e Italianas
Ruben Amoretti, Marc Pantillon
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released by VDE-GALLO on 8 Oct 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Luxe Classics: Ravel, De Falla, Dvorak, Schubert, Verdi
Classical - Released by Piros Comercial Digital on 4 Feb 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
De Falla: La Vida Breve - El Sombrero de Tres Picos - El Amor Brujo - Noches En Los Jardines De Espana
Radio Sofia Symphony Orchestra, Ivan Marinov, Eva Novsak
Classical - Released by Int - Bertus on 29 Sep 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Nocturnal Shadows
Classical - Released by dB Productions on 22 Jan 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Manuel de Falla - El Sombrero de Tres Picos
Orquesta Philarmónica de Conciertos
Classical - Released by Piros Comercial Digital on 12 Mar 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
El Amor Brujo - Noches De Los Jardines De España
Orquesta Filarmónica De Conciertos De Budapest
Classical - Released by Music Hit Factory on 1 Nov 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concert Brilliants
The Capitol Symphony Orchestra, Carmen Dragon, Carmen Dragon & The Capitol Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released by Sunday Club Records on 26 Nov 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Best of Falla (Remastered)
Miscellaneous - Released by Classic Records Ltd. on 27 Apr 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
De Falla: Ritual Fire Dance
Wilhelm Rohr, The Nord Deutsches Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released by Sunday Club Records on 20 Jan 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo